When Audrey Bernier arrived at McGill University’s Canadian Radio Astronomy Summer Institute and Extended School (CRASIES) in late May, she already had two years of radio astronomy research experience. What she was looking for was a broader understanding of the field beyond her own work.
“Through all of my experiences, I’ve learned little bits and pieces,” said Bernier, who recently completed a degree in physics and computer science at McGill and will begin a direct-entry PhD at the University of Toronto this fall. “This was just like putting all of it together.”
Held May 25-28 at McGill, the inaugural Canadian Radio Astronomy Summer Institute and Extended School (CRASIES) brought together 40 students for four days of lectures, hands-on activities and professional development focused on one of astronomy’s fastest-growing fields.
Participants learned the fundamentals of radio astronomy, explored its scientific applications and gained practical experience with instruments and data used in modern astronomical discovery.
Connecting the dots
For Bernier, one of the biggest benefits was seeing how her own research fit into the broader landscape of radio astronomy.
She particularly appreciated sessions on radio-wave polarization, a topic directly connected to her current work, as well as hands-on coding exercises and telescope-building activities.
“Before you’ve done something like that, it’s easy to think of a telescope as a black box,” Bernier said. “Building one makes the process feel much more approachable.”
The broad scope of the school was intentional, said Alice Curtin, a Square Kilometre Array (SKA) scientist at McGill’s Trottier Space Institute and one of the main organizers of CRASIES.
“Many summer schools are very specific and technical,” Curtin said. “Our school was trying to target everyone – observers, theorists and instrumentalists – and give everyone a flavour of everything.”
The program was designed primarily for master’s and PhD students, although a small number of senior undergraduates also attended. About half of the lectures were delivered by postdoctoral scholars, giving early-career researchers valuable teaching experience.
Learning by doing
While lectures covered the theoretical foundations of radio astronomy, one activity emerged as the highlight of the week.
Students spent an afternoon building functioning radio telescopes using cooking woks, copper wire and simple electronics.
“Believe it or not, it’s possible to see radio emission from our Milky Way Galaxy from Montreal using one of these,” said Adrian Liu, William Dawson Scholar, associate professor in the Department of Physics and principal investigator of the NSERC CREATE-funded RADEATE program that supports CRASIES.
For Affan Khadir, a first-year physics PhD student at McGill, the exercise offered an introduction to a side of astronomy he had little experience with.
“My highlight of the week is definitely building the wok radio telescope,” Khadir said. “I have very limited experience with radio instrumentation and this was an incredible learning opportunity.”
Khadir said one of the week’s most valuable sessions was a faculty and industry panel on career paths.
Before attending, he assumed faculty members spent much of their time on administrative duties rather than scientific research.
“The science is the main motivating factor for me,” he said. “I learned that faculty are actually deeply involved in science through supervising students and advancing their research programs.”
Seeing how faculty engage with a wide range of projects strengthened his interest in an academic career.
“That has really motivated me to pursue academia,” he said.
Preparing for the next generation of telescopes
Beyond the lectures and activities, CRASIES was created to address a larger challenge facing Canadian astronomy.
Canada joined the international SKA project in 2023 and is investing heavily in radio astronomy research, postdoctoral positions and scientific leadership opportunities. At the same time, Canadian-led facilities such as the Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD) are moving toward operations.
According to Liu, the challenge is ensuring enough students are prepared to take advantage of those opportunities.
“Canada is investing heavily in the science itself, in permanent staff scientist positions and postdoctoral scholars,” Liu said. “But there is no corresponding investment in student training, so there’s an obvious pipeline issue if we don’t step this up.”
“When SKA is up and running and doing a lot of science, we’re not going to be in a position to magically produce students who can do radio astronomy. The time is now to ramp up that training in Canada.”
The school was organized by Curtin, Liu and Alexandre David-Uraz, program manager of the Trottier Space Institute.
For Curtin, one of the most rewarding aspects of the week was seeing students engage with the material and leave with a stronger sense of where they fit within the field.
“I’m excited about the long-term impact this can have,” she said. “Seeing students leave feeling more motivated about radio astronomy was exactly what we hoped for.”