Astrophysics graduate programs
The members of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Division all carry out active research programs garnering widespread international recognition in observation, theory, and instrumentation. Doctoral students participate in a variety of research projects, which frequently incorporate observations with the world's largest ground-based telescopes such as the 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawaii, with orbiting observatories such as the Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and GALEX, and with numerous ground-based facilities (e.g. VLA, CTIO, KPNO, Subaru, GEMINI).
Graduate students have received funding through nationally competitive fellowships such as the NASA Graduate Student Researcher Program and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and UC-based awards such as the Eugene V. Cota-Robles, the Chancellor's, and the Dissertation-Year Fellowships. Our Ph.D recipients have obtained prestigious post-doctoral fellowships such as the National Research Council, Hubble, NSF, Caltech Millikan, and Princeton Russell. UCLA also operates one of the premier solar observatories at Mt. Wilson and is heavily involved in the space-based solar mission Soho. In addition many students are also involved with the construction of state-of-the-art instrumentation.
The Division of Astronomy and Astrophysics is part of the Physics and Astronomy Department, but admits graduate students in a separate pool and administers its own Ph.D. program. Prospective graduate students should apply early to the Graduate Division of Admissions at UCLA. The deadline for applications for domestic and foreign students is December 15 for the Fall quarter of the next year.
