Morgan O'Neill, '09
IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) Star Sensor Calibration and Astrometric Transformation
Morgan with her foreign mentor, Dr. Maciej Bzowski (center), and Dr. Marek Hlond (right); both are members of the Polish team with whom Morgan closely worked.
Morgan O'Neill, a physics major and honors student going into her junior year at UNH, spent the summer conducting research at the Space Research Center in Warsaw, Poland. Her work on the Interstellar Boundary Explorer Star Sensor, which will launch in June 2008, began the summer after her freshman year and will culminate with her senior thesis.
"This has been such an amazing summer and it has happened way too fast," she said in early August. "It's been a perfect amount of time and I'm thrilled that I was able to do so much work and see so much of Poland. I have so many stories!"
Morgan enjoyed working with her mentors and said she learned a lot from them, "not just about physics and programming, but about the culture and history of Poland."
Upon returning to UNH she was glad to be back, but hopes to return to Poland some day and become fluent in Polish. "I gained poor conversational skills while I was there, and it was thrilling to exchange information in another language," she said of the experience.
Morgan is the Tyco Scholar for her year and is working with UNH Physics Professor Eberhard Moebius.