The National Science Foundation (NSF) International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program provides support for U.S. students to conduct high-quality research abroad in collaboration with foreign scientists. Such experiences expose U.S. students to the international research community at a critical early stage in their careers. Many of the world's most pressing science and engineering challenges and opportunities are trans-national in nature, and moreover, leading scientific and engineering facilities, resources, and expertise are found around the globe. In order to remain at the forefront of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the U.S. needs to nurture a globally-engaged STEM workforce capable of performing in an international research environment.

Kutztown University was awarded a three-year NSF IRES grant in 2016 (NSF grant #1559487), in collaboration with Westminster College and some other members of the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) exoplanet discovery project, to fund undergraduate student participation in exoplanet discovery research. During the "IRES Collaborative Research: Student Assisted Global Exoplanet Search" (IRES-SAGES) project, the participating KU students were trained at KU's on-campus observatory during the academic year and then spent the summers working at foreign sites including University of Salerno's observatory in Italy (summer of 2017) and the University of Southern Queensland's observatory in Australia (summers of 2018 and 2019).

Tiffany Visgaitis (B.S. Physics/Astronomy, 2018) enrolled in the Physics & Astronomy program at KU after having earned a degree in Communication Design at Temple University in 2014. She attended the 2016 Sagan Exoplanet Summer Workshop at Caltech where she gave a presentation titled "Photometric Observations of Transiting Exoplanet Candidates: Helping KELT Find Planets in Their Data at Kutztown University." Tiffany spent the Summer of 2017 at the University of Salerno as an IRES-SAGES participant. She co-discovered two new exoplanets (KELT-16b and KELT-18b) and she was awarded the KU Chambliss Student Academic Achievement Award (Gold Medal) in 2018. Tiffany is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Case Western Reserve University.

Bethany Tirrell (B.S. Physics/Astronomy, 2018) is from Pawtucket, RI, and participated in IRES-SAGES in 2016-2017. She worked at University of Salerno during the Summer of 2017, and she co-discovered the exoplanet KELT-18b.

Jacob McCann (B.S. Mathematics & B.S. Physics, 2019), from Berks County, PA, completed a double-major at KU in Mathematics and Physics. His participation in IRES-SAGES took him to Australia in the summer of 2018, where he studied at the University of Southern Queensland. Jake is currently a graduate student at PennState, pursuing a Ph.D. in Mathematics.

Daniel Johns (B.S. Physics/Astronomy, 2020), from Schuylkill County, PA, has been very active in astrophysics research while also serving in the National Guard. Dan participated in IRES-SAGES in 2017-2018. He worked at University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Australia during the summer of 2018 where he led a study that revised the radii and habitability of several hundred known exoplanets, and he continues to collaborate with the astrophysics group at USQ. He is heavily involved with KELT follow-up observing at KU, and he served as the lead author on the recent discovery of the exoplanet KELT-23Ab. Dan participated in the PHOEBE Workshop at Villanova University in 2019 and he is currently working on several additional projects at KU involving mass transfer between stars in binary star systems.

Michaela Collins (B.S. Physics/Astronomy, 2020) and Emilie Laychock (B.S. Physics/Astronomy, 2021) are the current IRES-SAGES participants. They recently returned from their summer 2019 research experience at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.