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Undergraduate Research Profile: Luke Roberts

Exploding Stars Help Catapult Young Scientist’s Career


Luke Roberts

Luke Roberts teamed up with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Astrophysicist Michael Smith using computing resources to calculate the properties of x-ray bursts from exploding stars.

Many of us—at least on one occasion—have paused on a brisk, cool evening to gaze at the twinkling stars overhead. While most simply admire the captivating flicker of each individual speck, few realize that those tiny luminaries in the sky are in fact violently active balls of fire, the closest of which are located more than 10-12 light years from Earth.

That level of super-activity is just one example of the astrophysical phenomena that intrigues Luke Roberts, a former participant of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program. The research-based program—administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education—enabled Roberts’ to team-up with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Nuclear Astrophysicist Michael S. Smith. Together, the two used supercomputing resources to calculate the properties of x-ray bursts from exploding stars.

As a physics student from Colorado College, Roberts’ participation in the SULI program allowed him to perform original research at a national laboratory—an opportunity that would have otherwise been unlikely at his liberal arts, undergraduate institution. Roberts notes that the ability to pursue research for an entire semester while uninterrupted by class or other university activities was very beneficial.

“I don’t believe I would have been able to do what I’m currently doing without the benefits of this experience,” Roberts said. “I would probably have never had any exposure to nuclear astrophysics at my undergraduate institution.”

After completing the SULI program and graduating from Colorado College in 2006, Roberts was hired by Smith, his former mentor, to return to Oak Ridge as a subcontractor on three separate occasions. During these three periods, the most recent of which lasted 10 months, Roberts worked on the very same research he started while under the SULI program, as well as other nuclear astrophysics projects.

Roberts’ hard work and commitment did not go unnoticed. He was eventually awarded a full scholarship to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he continues to pursue a Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics. Continuing his nuclear astrophysics research in California, Roberts is now working under the advisement of Dr. Stanford Woosley, a theoretical astrophysicist and a world-renowned authority on supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.

“Working with Stan has been great,” Roberts said. “I have been able to hit the ground running at Santa Cruz because of the preparation I got at ORNL.”

Roberts’ initial participation in Smith’s astrophysics research was sponsored by ORNL and the SULI program under the auspices of the Oak Ridge Science Semester (ORSS) program, administered by Denison University. The ORSS program sends a group of students to ORNL each fall from two consortia of colleges in the Midwest, the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. Students conduct research for a semester, take a class taught by local scientists, attend seminars and receive academic credit for the entire experience.