Summer Science Program

Summer Science Program, Inc.

Founded	1959
Founder	Thacher School and Caltech
Type	501(c)(3) Educational Charity
Tax ID no.	94-3341965
Focus	Astronomy education
Location	University of Colorado, Boulder, New Mexico State University, Purdue University, Indiana University Bloomington, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Members	c. 2,000
Employees	1 year-round, about 15 for six weeks
Volunteers	c. 50
Website	http://www.summerscience.org/

The Summer Science Program (SSP) is an academic summer program where high school students experience college-level education and do research in celestial mechanics by studying the orbits of asteroids, biochemistry by studying the kinetic properties of enzymes, or genomics by studying antibiotic resistance. The program was established in 1959 at The Thacher School in Ojai, California. It now takes place on three astrophysics campuses, New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and University of Colorado, Boulder in Boulder, Colorado, and two biochemistry campuses, Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and Indiana University Bloomington in Bloomington, Indiana.

In the Astrophysics program, each team takes a series of images of a near-earth asteroid, then writes software to calculate its orbit and predict its future path. In the Biochemistry program, each team isolates and models an enzyme from a fungal crop pathogen, then designs a molecule to inhibit that enzyme. In the Genomics program, each team grows a culture of Vibrio natriegens under moderate antibiotic selection pressure.