The XGAL internships

“We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.” – Carl Sagan

Due to the lack of funding and support, XGAL internships have been discontinued and XGAL is moving away from Lancaster. This page is kept as a record of the projects that students conducted between 2016-2020.

In 2020, the XGAL internship team is made of 3 members working on an exciting different project – even though it had to be done remotely due to the COVID-2020 pandemic. Meet the 20120 XGAL research team!

In 2019, the XGAL internship team is made of six members working on 5 different projects. Meet the 2019 XGAL research team!

In 2018, the internship research team was made of eight undergraduate students coming from Lancaster, Nottingham and Oxford. Meet the 2018 XGAL research team!

In 2017, the internship research team was made up of six undergraduate students. Meet the 2017 interns!

The XGAL Internship is a 6 week long internship, run by Dr David Sobral from the Observational Astrophysics group, within the Physics Department at Lancaster University.

The general aim of the internship is to provide undergraduate students first hand experience with state-of-the-art ongoing research work carried out at Lancaster University. Apart from working on research projects, interns also present their work weekly at science meetings, take part in scientific paper discussions, attend seminars, and deliver a final presentation on their research at the end of the internship.

The 2019 XGAL team, from left to right: David Sobral, Heather Wade, Amaia Imaz Blanco, Emma Dodd, Cassandra Barlow-Hall, Josh Butterworth, Harry Baker, João Calhau, Sérgio Santos.

Even the nearest star to us would take several lifetimes to reach. It is through studying radiation from distant stars (and gas+dust) and galaxies that we learn about how far they are, what elements they may contain and what physical processes were going on there when photons left towards us. However, our eyes only see a tiny fraction of what the universe contains; stars, gas and dust radiate light at all wavelengths, ranging from high energy gamma rays to longer radio waves. Through telescopes like ALMA, the VLT, INT and Hubble, we see the Universe as it was never seen before, and discover some of the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang.

Know more about the research we do:

Watch the Harvard-Smithsonian CfA High energy seminar with our latest results:

Or the 10 min Harvard ITC Luncheon talk on re-ionisation:

The XGAL Internship is a 6 week long internship, run by Dr David Sobral from the Observational Astrophysics group, within the Physics Department at Lancaster University. The general aim of the internship is to provide undergraduate students first hand experience with state-of-the-art ongoing research work carried out at Lancaster University. Apart from working on research projects, interns also present their work weekly at science meetings, take part in scientific paper discussions, attend seminars, and deliver a final presentation on their research at the end of the internship.