The Carnegie Observatories offers graduate student fellowships with the University of California Riverside (UCR) and the University of Southern California (USC). This provide students with the unique opportunity of being trained by professional astronomers and astrophysicists at the Observatories, as well as being a part of an enriching scientific community at our office in Pasadena.

Our program with UCR provides one-year research fellowships (extendable to two years) for graduate students in astrophysics at UCR. To be eligible, students must have passed their qualifying exam and, in collaboration with their advisor, develop a research program with Carnegie staff scientists. Students will work under joint supervision of a Carnegie staff scientist and a faculty member at UCR on a joint project. There is no restriction to the type of the project and it could be any of the observational, theoretical, simulation or instrumentation disciplines. This program strengthens the collaboration between Carnegie and UCR and allows access to the facilities available to these institutions. One Carnegie/UCR fellowship will be awarded per year, with a maximum of two concurrent fellowships at any given time.

For our program with USC, students from the USC Physics Department may start by applying to work with Carnegie staff scientists for a summer research project. This can then potentially be extended into a thesis project depending on mutual interest and funding availability. Many Carnegie staff scientists have adjunct appointments at USC, which allows them to serve directly as the thesis advisor for students throughout their doctoral training.