By Jasper Chong
Introduction
From November 2025 to February 2026 I had the pleasure of undertaking a competitive undergraduate research studentship with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). This took part in the Space and Astronomy division of CSIRO, working out of the beautiful ARRC Building in Kensington, Perth. For the duration of the program I was working full-time on a research project under the supervision of Dr Nithyanandan Thyagarajan, Dr Samuel Lai, and Dr Ivy Wong focusing on black hole imaging. In addition to the research, I was exposed to a range of seminars, tours of the Pawsey supercomputing centre, and a week-long trip of the telescopes in New South Wales.
Going into this program I had a suspicion that I would love research work, and a life-long interest in space. I absolutely loved my experience, and it was the most transformative 3 months I have had in terms of leadership development and personal growth. I was excited to go into work every day to apply the things that I had learnt in my free time and at university to real problems, and the feeling of pushing the frontier of research by even the smallest amount was super exciting.
After the program I have continued to work with the supervisors and have continued to keep up with the lifelong friends I made at the experience. Completing the program really confirmed that I loved the job of research, and I have since gone on to focus my career on researching AI Safety.
I continue to utilise the skills in communication it has taught me, as well as the confidence it has provided me to take up global opportunities.
What was the Project?
My research time was spent primarily on different data preprocessing methods for imaging black holes, using data from the incredible Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a telescope spanning six continents. I had a truly incredible time working on such an interesting project. While this seems very specific, the methods applied during this project apply not only to astronomy, but also to fields such as medical imaging, and even interpreting LLMs.
The Team
The experience caused me to fully fall in love with research as a career, with me now shifting my plans to work in research full-time. One large part in this is how much personal growth as a leader and as a learner was encouraged in the job, where much of my time came down to reading papers, or figuring out how to effectively communicate findings with others.
This contrasted strongly with my previous work experience in software engineering, where understanding what was happening was not nearly as encouraged, in favour of delivering features as fast as possible (certainly not true for all software engineering companies though!). When I started working as a software engineer I loved just solving puzzles in the medium of coding, but as I worked more and more, I found that the job was heading more in the direction of LLM management than direct problem solving. It was amazing to find that problem solving that I was sorely missing, while being able to work on problems with more positive impact.
The culture was infections: working in an office surrounded by curious and driven people was amazing, and the mentorship that I received from working with global experts in their fields is something so valuable. It is hard to describe how humbling it is to be in an office where everyone around has dedicated their life to learning and pushing the frontier of knowledge.
I had an excellent team of supervisors who are very patient and supportive, even after the program had concluded. They taught me how meaningful it is when someone spend the time to ensure that a topic is fully understood, something I will carry forward into my own mentorship. My supervisors had a range of leadership styles and taught me how all of them can be effective, really helping me to find my own style.
Even though I knew that research is a global endeavour, I was still surprised by the sheer extend of it. All the researchers I met came from different global backgrounds and travel regularly for conferences and collaborations. Seeing how globally connected researchers contributed greatly to my understand of being a global leader, and highlighted the importance of being exposed to a range of cultures.
Travel
This experience was my first time living alone (and my first time in Perth), making it a catalyst of growth for me in my independence, and was a great stepping stone to feeling comfortable with solo international living. I feel confident taking up international scholarships and conferences after this experience, which has opened up many new doors.
In Perth I was accompanied by 7 other young interns, all undertaking projects in Space and Astronomy. Despite living across the country from everyone I knew, I never felt lonely from all of us having this joint experience. The intern group was so welcoming, and I have made life-long friends from this experience. I learnt a lot about how to be a leader in a social setting, in terms of checking in with people’s wellbeing, and seeing how good some interns were at arranging social gatherings.
Presenting
Public speaking and writing are critical skills for leadership, and the opportunities involving this afforded to me through this experience has aided greatly in my growth as a leader. I had the opportunity to present my findings at the student colloquium in front of the Australia wide space and astronomy team, and to work on writing my first publication.
This was my first time giving a long-form formal presentation to people much more experienced than I, and it came with a lot of pressure. I am someone who historically has been very afraid of public speaking, and so I was quite worried in the lead up to this event. It didn’t help either that I was the very last of the 18 interns, having to sit through 5 hours of high-quality talks prior to mine. In the end though I was very happy with presentation I was able to give, and it has made me much more confident presenting in future.
The Liveris Academy funding
The Liveris Academy funding allowed me to have no stress about money during the trip, allowing me to focus on developing my research and leadership skills.
The funding allowed me to live in a small private room with my own kitchen in the CBD. This made my life so much easier in terms of only needing a single bus to get into work, and being able to walk only a short distance for groceries. This would not have been possible without the additional funding, and it made the trip much more enjoyable and convenient
Beyond this, the funding from Liveris has allowed me to prioritise my studies which allowed me to receive this opportunity in the first place. The funding allowed me to explore myself as a person and figure out the positive impact I want to have in the world. Being able to volunteer, travel, and study without financial worry is such a gift that I do not take for granted.
This gift has truly motivated me to focus on my positive impact in the world, and I hope to be able to pay it back tenfold in future.
The Sydney Trip
One of the biggest highlights of the experience was the Sydney trip, where all the interns across Australia came together in Sydney to spend a week touring the telescope sites in New South Wales.
It was great to meet all the other interns, and to get a behind the curtain look at how these telescopes operate. We were able to climb up inside many of these telescopes and look into the exceedingly complicated internals that make them operate.
Being able to look at the insane complexity behind something as simple as looking at the stars really opened my eyes to how the world of research operates.
Closing Remarks
In closing, the experience I had at CSIRO is something I found very special, and I have no doubt I will think fondly on it for the rest of my life. I believe that I will look at this experience as the major turning point in my career, fully converting me to want to work directly on impactful research rather than in purely software engineering or finance.
I grew immensely as a leader throughout the program, and made life-long friends and colleagues who I continue to work and talk with to this day.
This experience was made so much better by the lack of stress afforded to me by the Liveris Academy, and I feel humbled and grateful to receive the scholarship.
This gift and others I have been lucky enough to receive has motivated me to reflect deeply on the type of impact I want to have on the world, driving me to pivot my career to focus on researching understanding AI models for the goal of safety.
