2025 Polar Aeronomy and Radio Science (PARS) Summer School Announced for August 5-14, 2025

The 2025 Polar Aeronomy and Radio Science (PARS) summer school will be held in person at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) between August 5-14, 2025. The summer school provides faculty, graduate, and advanced undergraduate students with exposure to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Subauroral Geophysical Observatory (SAGO) for Space Physics and Radio Science and the HAARP research site in Gakona, Alaska.

The summer school’s goal is to provide student and advisor mentor pairs an opportunity to study the upper atmosphere and ionosphere at polar latitudes, with practical experience built into the learning process. The first week will be spent in the Fairbanks area with lectures and tours of space physics research sites, then relocating to HAARP to run active experiments and brief initial results. Students will be trained in the theory and concepts of ionospheric heating, with an introduction to Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI) experiment design, diagnostics, and analysis. All students will have the opportunity to dialogue one-on-one with experienced scientists from multiple U.S. academic institutions. This year’s school will focus on Active Exploration of Near-Earth Space.

The application form may be accessed at: https://forms.gle/iBdLo9BdJuCNyxLJ6 (Google sign-in required). The following information is required for your application:

Name (first and last)
Mailing Address
Email
Phone number
University, college, or academic institution name
Institution affiliation (faculty, student, other)
Names of collaborators on your project, and/or names of student/advisor pair
Brief description of the proposed experiment or scientific question you plan to explore
(optional) Supporting documents such as a CV, resume, or letters of support

The deadline for application submission is March 31, 2025. Notice of acceptance will be sent to participants by April 15, 2025. Students from non-U.S. institutions are welcome to apply, but will not be eligible for travel support if accepted.

For more information about the school, contact Evans Callis, Lead, HAARP Research Support Services at ehcallis@alaska.edu or 907-474-2641. Note that sign-in with a Google account is required in order to upload supporting documents. If you do not have a Google account and wish to apply to PARS, please contact us.

As the centerpiece SAGO instrument, and the world’s most powerful and flexible ionospheric HF Transmitter, HAARP is able to push the envelope of radio frequency plasma Interactions. The IRI can actively probe the sub-auroral D- and E-region ionosphere, while multiple support instruments characterize the resulting processes occurring in both the neutral and ionized atmosphere. Using a phased array of antennas, beams can be formed at multiple frequencies and slewed rapidly across the sky. The facility has sufficient power to explore nonlinear effects in the plasma - something no other active facility can address.

The HAARP facility was constructed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) starting in 1990, with the objective to answer questions of relevance to the DoD. When those investigations were completed, stewardship of the facility was transferred to UAF in 2015, with the intention of allowing the wider research community to benefit from its exceptional capabilities. As has been the case with other Class-1 geospace facilities (such as the Incoherent Scatter Radar’s), the powerful capabilities of the HAARP ionospheric heater are expected to power ground-breaking new discoveries for potentially decades to come. PARS will enhance the United States’ research infrastructure by supporting the first wave of these investigations within the open NSF research community, creating a critical mass of investigators and ideas that will seed future applications and new research focus areas.

PARS is funded by the NSF through its Geospace Facilities Program within the Geosciences Directorate and is organized by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. For more information about both SAGO and HAARP, refer to the HAARP public web page at https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/.
PARS 2025 promotional flyer PARS 2025 promotional flyer