April Gadsby, an 8th grader at Goleta Valley Junior High in Santa Barbara, has won 1st prize (Gold) in the Santa Barbara County Science Fair, and 4th in the California State Science Fair, with an eclipsing binary lightcurve research project with LCOGT. April is the first student in the US to have used the Faulkes Telescope South which lives in Australia and is controlled over the internet.
"I have been interested in astronomy since I was 10 years old," Gadsby says. "This was the first time in my life that I met real astronomers, not amateurs, and actually got to work with them. It was exciting to use the research-grade telescope and exhilarating to create light curves that actually looked like binary system light curves."
April worked with LCOGT astronomers Marton Hidas and Rachel Street, and was assisted by Danny Duggan in the UK.
"We are impressed with her enthusiasm and pleased that she was able to use our facilities to do a wonderful research project," said Jessica Barton, one of the education outreach team for LCOGT in Santa Barbara.
It is great to see that students are getting recognition for the work they are doing with the LCOGT facilities, and we wish April success with her future astronomical research!
