This week, the Boulder Solar Alliance Research Experience for Undergraduates (BSA REU) concluded their 2026 summer program. The BSA REU, funded by the National Science Foundation, offers students from a wide variety of backgrounds and home institutions the opportunity to collaborate with professional mentors on hands-on solar and space physics research.
The BSA REU is managed by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and involves several solar-science institutes in the region, including the National Solar Observatory (NSO), NCAR High Altitude Observatory (HAO), NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).
During the final week of the program, students participated in the 2026 Boulder Solar Alliance REU Symposium, where they presented their summer research in a 20-minute presentation and a poster session.
“I am so proud of these students for all the incredible work they did over the course of the last nine weeks,” said Willow Reed, principal investigator of the program. “It is bittersweet that the summer is coming to an end, but I am excited to see what they do with everything they learned here.”
This summer’s projects spanned topics from identifying active regions on the Sun before they emerge to how solar wind can affect the Martian atmosphere and furthering our understanding of ultraviolet instrumentation to investigating the best locations for a newly proposed solar telescope. Take a more detailed look at each student’s research below:
Riley Amos: Working with Craig DeForest at SwRI, Riley analyzed images of the solar wind using PUNCH and STEREO data. This allowed Riley to track features within the solar wind, better understanding how it can change as it propagates out from the Sun. Understanding the turbulence in the solar wind allows scientists to better understand space weather and the transition region of the Sun.
Kyra Bade: This summer, Kyra worked on imaging solar flare reconnection regions with their mentor Chris Lowder at SwRI. To do this, they looked at two-ribbon flares in SDO/AIA and IRIS data to indirectly image reconnection, which is made difficult by the rarity of these flares. To counter this, Kyra created a catalog of usable flares for their analysis, which is now open source for any scientist to use. Reconnection is a key part of solar flares, so better understanding the process improves our knowledge of solar flares, as well as space weather and its effects.
Debra Bradfield: Debra worked at NCAR HAO with Jonas Yu Hung this summer, studying how geomagnetic disturbances differ between the two hemispheres of Earth. Specifically, she compared two geomatnetic storms to see what could cause asymmetries in geomagnetic disturbances. These storms can affect technologies on Earth, such as GPS and power grids, so it is important to understand their impacts.
Ben Condit: Ben worked with Joe Ajello at LASP on analyzing the threshold emission cross sections of the LBH (Lyman-Birge-Hopfield) band using ultraviolet instrumentation. LBH is a key emission for characterizing atmospheric nitrogen measurements from missions such as GOLD at Earth, Cassini at Titan, and others. Elucidating this cross section will allow scientists to better understand planetary atmospheres and improve ultraviolet instrumentation for future missions.
Mar Costacamps-Rivera: Mar spent the summer studying solar activity in the chromosphere at NSO with mentor Gianna Cuazzi. Her research explored using data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) data, a ground-based infrared telescope, to look at the specific spectral bands to learn more about thermal structures of chromospheric features.
Julian Feiveson: Julian used GOLD data to research plasma irregularities in Earth’s ionosphere. To do this, Julian worked with his LASP mentor Deepak Karan to map equatorial plasma bubbles, which are large-scale ionospheric plasma density depletions that can degrade communication and navigation signals in that region. Characterizing the morphology and occurrence of these bubbles is important for understanding and forecasting of low-latitude ionospheric irregularities.
Normandy Filcek: Normandy worked at NCAR’s HAO with mentor Delaney Farrell mapping thermospheric winds from space. These winds are caused by absorbed ultraviolet radiation in the thermosphere and can change during space weather events. This work is important for better understanding this layer of the atmosphere and safeguarding satellites and spacecraft, including the International Space Station.
Jason Gerke: This summer, Jason worked with Odele Coddington at LASP on analyzing the TSIS-1 SIM observational record to better understand anomalies in the data. This work helps improve fidelity of solar irradiance records for climate modeling.
Joe Harkess: This summer, Joe worked at NSO with mentor Lekshmi Biji to investigate solar active regions, which are sites of intense magnetic activity on the Sun’s surface that can trigger space weather events, which can impact the Earth. To improve the prediction of such events, it is important to understand the emergence and early evolution of active regions. Joe studied seismic signatures of solar active regions, in conjunction with the COFFIES Drive Center, to understand if they can help with these predictions.
Kaden Hunter: Kaden’s research was at LASP with mentor Justin Deighan using EMM data to studying space weather at Mars. Specifically, they investigated if the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer could help observe space weather at the planet, now that there is no longer new data coming from the MAVEN mission. Understanding space weather at Mars is incredibly important as it can impact robotic and future crewed missions at the Red Planet.
Jessica Johnson: Jess studied the instabilities of the ionosphere-magnetosheath boundary at Mars to see if they significantly contribute to Martian atmospheric escape. Her work took place at LASP with mentor Sergey Shuvalov, and they found that 26 MAVEN orbital trajectories exhibit potential vortices, with a majority occurring near the Martian terminator during intervals of high crustal magnetic field magnitudes.
Sam Kidd: Sam spent the summer working with solar telescope observations from the 2024 total solar eclipse to create a pipeline to align images taken across the entire path of totality. This work was conducted with his mentor Amir Caspi at SwRI and will show how the solar corona changed during the eclipse.
Madeline Lundberg: Madeline worked at NSO with João da Silva Santos searching for early warning signs of solar flares using high-resolution spectroscopy. While solar flares are known for their rapid energy release, especially at X-ray wavelengths, recent research suggests that small changes in the Sun’s atmosphere several minutes to hours beforehand can provide early warning signs. Madeline’s work focused on seeing if these changes in the chromosphere could be observed with ground-based instruments, such as the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST). This research is important for understanding the behavior and mechanisms of solar flares, along with potentially predicting them.
Caitlin Magdanz: This summer, Caitlin conducted research at NOAA SWPC with mentor Elizabeth Butler studying coronal mass ejections (CMEs) at the first Lagrange Point (L1). CMEs are the main cause of solar storms that impact Earth, and while remote observations of CMEs are critical for early detection, they provide no insight into the magnetic field structure of the CME itself. Caitlin’s research project compares observations at the L1 point to see how reliable they can be for space weather forecasting.
Eghosa Otokiti: Eghosa worked at NOAA SWPC with Bri Muhlestein, validating a new tool used to measure sunspots. Their goal is to determine whether the tool is ready for operational use and if its measurements can contribute to the global record of solar activity.
Joshua Sendgikoski:. Working with Katelynn Greer at LASP this summer, Josh simulated observations of Joule heating at Earth to determine the best potential orbits for a future LASP-led satellite mission. This mission would fly in very low Earth-orbit (VLEO), which is not often used for satellites, so it’s important to use simulations before launch.
Hannah Smith: Hannah worked at NCAR’s HAO with Paul Bryans, measuring sky brightness around the Sun to help determine potential locations for a future ground-based solar telescope. Their work helped build a tracking set-up that allowed them to take these brightness measurements.
Matthew Song: With his mentor Yaxue Dong at LASP, Matthew focused on investigating the variability of the Martian upper ionosphere. Using data from the MAVEN mission, he looked at extreme ultraviolet profiles to characterize the variability in the composition and structure of the Martian upper atmosphere and its correlation to upstream solar conditions. Better understanding Mars’ atmosphere, and how it was lost to space, allows scientists to gain insight into the evolution of the planet.
Molly Staudt: Molly listened to the sounds of space this summer, by creating a sonification playlist of Earth’s magnetosphere. Working at LASP with mentor Victoria Wilder, Molly helped develop a database of the sound of plasma waves, which allows scientists to better understand these waves. Sonification also serves as a powerful outreach tool, allowing space science data to be more accessible.
Peter Wu: At NSO with mentor Amr Hamada, Peter worked this summer on identifying solar filaments in hydrogen-alpha (Ha). Solar filaments are fundamental manifestations of solar magnetic activity that can serve as indicators of space weather phenomena such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Viewed in Ha, these filaments appear as dark clouds of dense, relatively cool plasma suspended along magnetic field lines above the solar surface in the chromosphere. Peter applied automated image-processing techniques to identify, segment and characterize solar filaments in Ha. These filaments are important to understand because they are precursors to solar and space weather events.
To learn more and view the full list of abstracts, visit: https://lasp.colorado.edu/reu/resources/summer-2026/
