Dissertation Proposals & Student Support
Students planning to use one or more NRAO telescopes for their PhD dissertation must submit a "Plan of Dissertation Research" of no more than 1000 words with their first proposal. This plan can be referred to in later proposals. At a minimum it should contain a thesis time line and an estimate of the level of NRAO telescope resources needed. The plan provides some assurance against a dissertation being impaired by an adverse review of one proposal when the full scope of the project is not seen. The plan can be submitted via NRAO Interactive Services. Proposers are reminded to prepare the plan comfortably in advance of the proposal deadline. New thesis plans must be in pdf format to enable science reviewers to easily access the plans. Students who have not yet graduated but have active plans on file should consider updating those plans to a pdf format if they are not already in that form.
NRAO maintains a program to support research by students, both graduate and undergraduate, at U.S. universities and colleges. Regular and Large proposals submitted for the VLA, VLBA, and GBT, and any combination of these telescopes, are eligible. New applications to the program may be submitted along with new observing proposals at any proposal deadline. Details of this program can be found at https://science.nrao.edu/opportunities/student-programs/studentprograms
