Barth Family Endowed Graduate Fellowship Fund

Supporting graduate students in space science and engineering

The Barth Family Endowed Graduate Fellowship Fund supports graduate students participating in space science and engineering research conducted at LASP.

Mrs. Louise Mary Barth and her four children, Robert C. Barth, M.S., Dr. John A. Barth, Dr. Matthew J. Barth, and Dr. Mary C. Barth, established the fund to honor the legacy of her husband and their father, Dr. Charles A. Barth. He worked as the director of LASP from 1965 to 1992 and as a professor in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences from 1965 to 2002. He then served as a professor emeritus through 2014.

Between 1962 and 2002, Dr. Barth served as principal investigator for 11 missions and experiments. Among these were Mariner 5, Mariner 6 and 7, Mariner 9, OGO-2, 4, 5, and 6, Atmosphere Explorer-C and D, the Solar Mesosphere Explorer, and the Student Nitric Oxide Experiment. Under his guidance, LASP science instruments journeyed to every planet in the solar system.

In addition to his long and productive career, Dr. Barth left a lasting legacy through his teaching and mentoring. He generously shared his knowledge and passion with students and was committed to hands-on education and training. Dr. Barth prioritized directly involving as many students as possible in his research.

How to apply

Two or more Barth Family Graduate fellowships of at least $1,000 are awarded each year to graduate students studying space science or space engineering at LASP. CU Boulder faculty are encouraged to send a one-page description of the prospective recipient’s academic background and which projects the candidate will work on at LASP to barthgraduatefellowship@lasp.colorado.edu. While applications are welcome at any time, selections are made in the fall. An announcement soliciting applications is emailed in late summer.

2024 Award Recipients

Yang Mei (right) works with Dr. Xinlin Li (left) on the dynamics of Earth’s inner radiation belt electrons using measurements from the CIRBE CubeSat mission. He currently uses the geomagnetic field as a natural prism to study pitch angle distributions of electrons measured in low-Earth orbits and he develops kinetic models to explain the driven mechanisms for the observed intriguing features. The results will contribute to the understanding of interactions between radiation belts and the atmosphere.

Marcel F. Corchado-Albelo (left) works with Dr. Maria D. Kazachenko (right) studying magnetic reconnection in solar flares through remote sensing observations. His work combines UV , X-ray, Optical emission, and magnetic field observations to infer the plasma conditions mediating solar flare reconnection, and its connection to the episodic flare emission. The result of this work aims to answer if for some flares reconnection and particle acceleration is mediated by mesoscale magnetic structures known as plasmoids, improving our ability to model flare reconnection energy transfer.

2023 Award Recipients

Andrew Buggee (left) works with Dr. Peter Pilewskie (right) and is developing a new remote sensing method to derive key properties of clouds from the upcoming CLARREO Pathfinder mission to be deployed on the International Space Station in 2025. He has tested his new methods on a current instrument called EMIT and has shown that the CLARREO Pathfinder measurements will probe deeper into clouds than any prior observation.

Alex Haughton (right) is a graduate student working with Dr. Brian Fleming (left) to understand properties of galaxies that enable ionizing radiation to escape into the inter-galactic medium. He does this by using rocket measurements of nearby galaxies and compares their properties to those of distant galaxies measured by the Hubble Space Telescope. He has recently returned from the successful launch of the INFUSE sounding rocket and is preparing his own science program to measure the extreme star formation region known as Mrk 71.

2022 Award Recipients

Eryn Cangi’s graduate research focuses on the Martian atmosphere. Working with Dr. Michael Chaffin (right), she is developing a comprehensive surface-to-space model of Mars’ atmosphere that includes the chemistry of hydrogen and its isotope deuterium, providing a detailed understanding of multiple modes of atmospheric escape. The results will help researchers better understand the loss of water from the Red Planet.

Kyle Connour works with Dr. Nicholas Schneider (right). He is using ultraviolet data analysis, general circulation models, and other tools to better understand how various aerosols in the Martian atmosphere interact and how they’ve contributed to Mars’ atmospheric loss.