Daniel Cano Morales, a physics student at the University of La Laguna (ULL) who is completing his final degree project (TFG) at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has participated in the 2025 Summer Student Program organized by the LSST Discovery Alliance (LSST-DA) in Tucson (Arizona, USA). The meeting, held in parallel with the Rubin Community Workshop, brought together seventeen university students from LSST-DA member institutions around the world in July.
The program offered participants a unique opportunity to present their research, interact with internationally renowned astronomers and data science specialists, and explore career paths in modern astronomy.
This year, for the first time, students participated in the meeting through the Expansion Partnership Program, an initiative funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation to expand participation in science at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to institutions that have traditionally had fewer opportunities to join this community.
The 2025 edition stood out for its marked geographical and institutional diversity, with representation from universities in the United States, the Astronomical Observatory Institute of Poland, the University of Toronto (Canada), the Interinstitutional Laboratory of e-Astronomy (Brazil), the IAC and the ULL (Spain), among others. This plurality enriched the scientific and cultural exchange between students.
Training activities
During an intense week, students participated in various activities designed to enrich their scientific and professional training. In the poster sessions, they had the opportunity to share their Rubin/LSST-related projects with the international community, exchanging methods, results, and ideas with established researchers from various countries.
Lightning talks were also organized, which were brief presentations in which each participant introduced their research in just a few seconds, with the aim of sparking the audience's interest and encouraging new exchanges of knowledge. These activities were complemented by career guidance sessions, which offered students a broad overview of the many career paths available in astronomy, data science, and other related disciplines.
The experience also included visits to cutting-edge astronomical technology facilities. Among them were the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona, where the world's largest telescope mirrors are built, and the NOIRLab Machine Shop, a center specializing in the manufacture of high-precision astronomical instrumentation. These visits allowed participants to connect their research with the tools that will enable scientific advances at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the coming years.
Representing the ULL and the IAC
“Presenting my work to international experts who took the time to listen to me and congratulate me on its quality has been a transformative experience. It has also allowed me to forge not only professional ties but also lasting friendships. This experience has given me enormous motivation to continue growing as a researcher,” says Daniel Cano Morales after participating in the program.
Cano Morales is working on his final degree project focused on Superluminal Supernovae, researching how to identify the best candidates for follow-up programs. He has also completed an internship at the IAC, working alongside researchers Ismael Pérez Fournon and Alicia López Oramas in the area of Multi-messenger Astronomy, where he has developed tools to automate the detection of optical counterparts of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), thus helping to speed up the analysis of these high-energy astronomical phenomena.
With initiatives such as this, the LSST Discovery Alliance promotes the training of new generations of scientists and strengthens international collaboration around the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, one of the most ambitious astronomical projects of the coming decade.
Contact:
Daniel Cano Morales, alu0101232584 [at] ull.edu.es (alu0101232584[at]ull[dot]edu[dot]es)
