STAR Graduate Student Thesis Policy

STAR Graduate Student Thesis Policy

 

The policy below was adopted by the STAR Council on January 11, 2001. This policy is an amendment to the basic STAR Publication Policies, and replaces paragraph 7 in the current version of same.

1. This STAR Thesis Policy is based on the principle that the final arbiter of what constitutes a thesis is the thesis advisor, and any collaborator is free to analyze any part of the data, as per paragraph 1 of the STAR Publication Policies. The main purpose of this Thesis Policy is to state expectations about communication within the collaboration.
2. Physics Working Group (PWG) convenors maintain lists of analysis topics in their areas of interest which are judged to be in need of additional effort.
3. Students and their advisors are free to pursue a project from any PWG convenor's list, or to propose a new project. It is expected that the specific details of a student's project will emerge only after the student has been interacting with the relevant PWG for some time, and after in-depth consultation with the PWG convenor(s) and the STAR Analysis Coordinator.
4. The chair of the STAR thesis committee works with the Analysis Coordinator to maintain a descriptive list of all ongoing analysis projects, including names of all students and non-students working on those projects. The STAR council member from each institution is expected to review these listings periodically, and submit the necessary information to keep them up-to-date.
5. It is anticipated that there will always be many unpursued analysis projects in STAR, and many new analysis opportunities will open up every year as new detector subsystems come online, luminosity improves, etc. The likelihood of independent analyses with a large degree of overlap is small. However, STAR policy does not explicitly discourage duplicate analyses.
6. In the event that there is a large degree of overlap between two independent analyses, it is primarily the task of the relevant PWG convenor(s) to facilitate the resolution of any issues that may stand in the way of further analysis and/or publication and to oversee fair allotment of shared resources. An ad hoc godparent committee may also be appointed by the spokesperson as required to bring about convergence of analyses and paper production.
7. In overlap cases involving a student thesis project, it is expected that the student's advisor will be a full participant in all deliberations which affect the thesis project and the related publication.
8. Each student who uses STAR data for his/her PhD thesis is expected to have contributed to a STAR community service project in some significant way. Usually this will be an amount of work roughly equivalent to one third to one half the total research effort for a typical PhD.
9. Advisors are primarily responsible for ensuring that their PhD advisees satisfy community service expectations. Council members are expected to respond to requests for information about the current service work of thesis students from their institutions.
10. The STAR thesis committee should review the operation of this policy as soon as sufficient time has elapsed to judge its effectiveness.

STAR thesis committee page

Awards available for STAR juniors

Below is a list of awards which STAR juniors are generally eligible for.  Please email us with corrections or additions.

• NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MPS-Ascend) [PostDocs]  The purpose of the program is to support postdoctoral Fellows who will broaden the participation of members of groups that are historically excluded and currently underrepresented in MPS fields in the U.S., defined in this solicitation as Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, Indigenous and Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Native Pacific Islanders, as future leaders in MPS fields. The program is intended to recognize beginning investigators of significant potential and provide them with experience in research that will broaden perspectives, facilitate interdisciplinary interactions, and help broaden participation within MPS fields. The program funds postdoctoral Fellows in research environments that will have maximal impact on their future scientific development and facilitates their transition into a faculty appointment. The 2024 deadline is October 16 (annually the 3rd Wednesday in October). More information here.
• APS Division of Nuclear Physics Dissertation Award [Post-PhD]  Nominations are open to any person who has received a Ph. D. degree in experimental or theoretical nuclear physics from a North American university within the two-year period preceding the current nomination deadline. The 2024 deadline is June 3. More information here. $2,500 award and travel reimbursement, and a registration waiver to receive the award and give an invited talk at the Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics.
• RHIC/AGS Thesis Award [Post-PhD]  Theses submitted and defended during the 12 months prior to the application deadline are eligible for the award. Currently theses must be either written in English or translated. The 2024 deadline is March 31. More information here. $4,000 award.
• RHIC/AGS User's Meeting Poster Award [Students + PostDocs]  Requires presentation of a poster at the RHIC/AGS User's Meeting, which will be held in June 11 - 14 with poster registration closing on TBD. Information is posted around the announcement of the User's Meeting; information from 2023 here. $100 award and 10-minute flash talk at the meeting.

• RHIC/AGS Users' Executive Committee Merit Award [Early career]  Recognizes exceptional Students and Scientists who are within 10 years of receiving their PhD, and who have conducted outstanding research in either theory or experiment related to the RHIC, AGS, EIC, NSRL, Tandem, BLIP, and ATF. The Committee will also recognize outstanding publications by students whose work was done prior to receiving their PhDs. The 2024 deadline is May 3. More information here.

• BWIS Gertrude S Goldhaber Prize [Students]  To recognize substantial promise and accomplishment by a woman doctoral candidate in physics. The 2023 deadline was April 1. More information here. $4,000 prize.
• BWIS Renate W Chasman Award [Students]  For women graduate students at an accredited educational institution doing research at BNL in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics). The candidates must not receive their degrees prior to May of the scholarship year. The 2023 deadline was March 31. More information here. $3,250 award.
• L'Oreal USA For Women in Science fellowship program [PostDocs]  A national awards program that annually recognizes and rewards five exceptional female scientists looking to advance their research and serve as role models for the next generation of girls in STEM. Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident who has completed a PhD and started a postdoctoral research position by the application deadline to apply. The 2024 deadline is 5 PM on February 16. More information here. $60,000 award toward postdoctoral research.
• L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science fellowship program [Post-PhD]  A collection of national award programs that annually recognizes and rewards women researchers at the beginning of their scientific careers. Recipients receive a monetary award. Each nation has a slightly different program & deadlines, so please check it out! More information here.
• DOE Office of Science Supplemental Support [Students]  The SCGSR program provides supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to pursue part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE laboratory in areas that address scientific challenges central to the Office of Science mission. [ie: Money to live & study at BNL]. The research opportunity is expected to advance the graduate students’ overall doctoral thesis while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at the DOE laboratories. Must be a US citizen or lawful permanent resident. The 2023 deadline for solicitation 1 was May 3 and solicitation 2 was November 8. The tentative deadline for solicitation 1 of 2024 is February. More information here. The award provides support for inbound and outbound travel to the laboratory, and a monthly stipend of up to $3,600 for general living expenses while at the host DOE laboratory during the award period.
• AIP and Member Society Government Science Fellowships [Post-PhD]  Four different fellowship programs targeted towards physics PhDs that would like to make an impact on US government policy. The various programs include: AIP State Department Science Fellowship, AIP Congressional Science Fellowship Program, and AIP Member Society Fellowships. Applications typically due late in the calendar year. More information here.

Educational materials

Detector Meetings

• Event Plane Detector (Mike Lisa, February 2020)
• Time Projection Chamber (Gene Van Buren, June 2020)
• Barrel Electromagnetic Calorimeter and Barrel Shower Maximum Detector (Stephen Trentalange, September 2020)
• STAR's Time of Flight Detector (Frank Geurts, March 2021)

Junior Meetings

• Relativistic hydrodynamics for heavy ion collisions (Iurii Karpenko, June 2020)
• Handling Systematic Errors (Roger Barlow, March 2021)
• STAR Embedding (Xianglei Zhu, March 2021)
• Correlations at the femtoscopic scale (Hanna Zbroszczyk, September 2021)
• Uproot and Awkward Array tutorial (Jim Pivarski, September 2021)
• STAR Scheduler tutorial (Levente Hajdu, Jerome Lauret, January 2022)
• Simulations at STAR (Jason Webb, February 2023)
• Publishing your STAR result (Mike Lisa, February 2023)
•  
• Nucleon structure (Xiaoxuan Chu, February 2023)

Useful resources

• Introduction to STAR software and makers https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/system/files/STAR_soft_BNL_LK_2015_6_1.pdf (Leszek Kosarzewski)
• Introduction to PicoDst https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/system/files/Nigmatkulov_intro2pico_Krakow2019.pdf (Grigory Nigmatkulov)
• Introduction to MuDst: https://www.star.bnl.gov/public/comp/meet/RM200311/MuDstTutorial.pdf (Sergey Panitkin) http://nuclear.ucdavis.edu/~brovko/GettingStarted.pdf (Samantha Brovko) http://rnc.lbl.gov/~jhthomas/public/MuDstTutorial2011.pdf (Jim Thomas)
• Basic to STAR analysis https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/system/files/Upsal_JuniorsDay.pdf (Isaac Upsal) https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/system/files/RMa_ColMetg_Junior.pdf (Rongrong Ma)
• STAR scheduler https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/system/files/The_STAR_Scheduler_V8.pdf (Levente Hajdu) SUMS(aks STAR scheduler) and Condor Drupal page https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/comp/sofi/batch#Condor
• CVS in STAR https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/comp/sofi/tutorials/cvs We transferred to Git recently, report an issue here: https://github.com/star-bnl/star-sw/issues/new
• FileCatalog https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/comp/sofi/filecatalog/user-manual
• Starsim: https://www.star.bnl.gov/public/comp/simu/newsite/ (looks old but has some useful info) https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/comp/simu/star-simulation-framework (looks unfinished but still useful)
• BFC chain: https://github.com/star-bnl/star-sw/blob/main/StRoot/StBFChain/StBFChain.cxx
• nsww.org - Nuclear Science and Technology: STAR experiment

Introduction manual to STAR juniors 

STAR/system/files/userfiles/6359/STAR_Juniors_Intro-3.pdf

Graduate Student Theses

Follow a link to see a list of STAR theses

Past Juniors' Days

This is a place holder for past Junior Day talks. [ Jr. Day typically occurs on the first day of a STAR Collaboration Meeting. If you see that some talks are missing, notify your Jr. Representatives.]

February 14th, 2022

September 13th, 2021

March 1st, 2021

CTU Prague Collaboration Meeting (Online only), https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/meetings/star-collaboration-meeting-march-2021/juniors-day

September 14th, 2020

IISER Tirupati Collaboration Meeting (Online only), https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/meetings/star-collaboration-meeting-september-2020/juniors-day

March 11th, 2020 (Cancelled)

UC Berkeley Collaboration Meeting, https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/conference/timetable/talk/48675/1

August 19th, 2019

Cracow Collaboration Meeting, https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/conference/timetable/talk/47126/1

[ Some junior days happened here ... ]

STAR T-Shirt Design Competition

• Designs can be as simple as a STAR event display and logo although such shirts are floating around already, or they can be more related to some aspect of what it’s like to be in the collaboration or a physics concept. It doesn’t have to be comprehensible to those outside of STAR, but it should at least be widely understandable within the entire STAR collaboration.

• Although the contest is aimed toward STAR Juniors, any interested person or group of people in STAR can participate (collaboration is encouraged, but credit should be clearly given to all designers in the submission email).

• Designs can be submitted by emailing Xiaoyu, Yu, and myself with png, jpg, or pdf images for the front and back designs. The images do not need to appear on a shirt mockup at the time of submission. Please also include a short description of the images in words to give any necessary context to those voting on the submission later. Any questions can also be emailed to us before the deadline.

• Designs must be free of copyrighted material or other intellectual property (IP) that is not free for public use. They must also not contain any offensive content, like violent or pornographic material, or derogatory or non-inclusive language. The Juniors Reps retain the right to refuse an entry into the contest with a written explanation to the entrant. After review by the Juniors Reps, approved designs will be added to the drupal page.

• We will not make any claim to ownership of an entrant's IP other than its use on STAR shirts or other STAR memorabilia printed now and at any point in the future.

• The deadline for submission is 10/15/23 at 23:59 ET, just before Juniors Day. (Note: ET, not local time in Cairo).

• The collaboration will then have the opportunity to vote on the submissions, and the winner will be announced soon after that.

• The prize for winning will be the satisfaction of having your design worn by your esteemed colleagues.

Submission descriptions:

1. In the front, I simply insert STAR logo so that people can wear it in multiple occasions. When you put on your jacket, it looks like a normal T shirt.
   In the back, at the top I use striking red color to indicate the STAR collaboration, 24 stands for 24 years of STAR.

   The body picture is based on the well know quark gluon plasma in heavy-ion collisions, which is the physics we are studying at STAR. Among those free quarks and gluons, several memorable pictures are “frozen out”. It means what has been created by STAR collaboration is not only the QGP, but also numerous outstanding scientists and engineers. The STAR detector is about to shut down after 2025, but it doesn’t mean STAR will disappear, because STAR is us ;)
    

2. N/A
    
3. The inspiration was a mixture of the general "low-poly" style of drawings and the gothic-style stained-glass windows. I think the front [of the shirt] will be a better choice [for the design].
    
4. N/A
    
5. N/A
    
6. N/A
    
7. Each row in the figure represents a week of emails to one of the PWG mailing lists, with peak heights corresponding to number of emails at that point in the week (the attached image was produced in late summer, with the most recent week being at the bottom, going earlier toward the top). If selected, the code will be rerun on the STAR-Talks mailing list to make it general to the entire collaboration. The neat thing is that you can clearly see weeks where contributions were due for e.g. Quark Matter, etc. (these weeks could alternatively be denoted explicitly on the shirt). The style of the shirt is along the same lines as the famous Joy Division shirt, taken from a plot of radio pulsar signals, which is a fun physics connection (especially for the “STAR” Collaboration ;)). Please see this article for a nice writeup: https://theconversation.com/joy-division-40-years-on-from-unknown-pleasures-astronomers-have-revisited-the-pulsar-from-the-iconic-album-cover-119861.

   On the back, a STAR logo could be added as well.
    

Polls (closing 3/7/2024):
Which size would you like? https://strawpoll.com/NoZr3EqBey3

Which of the above excellent submissions do you like best? https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/polls/std/2024/Feb/tshirtdesign_voting