Outreach
Below are a few examples of the education and outreach initiatives that I have been a part of. For a full list of my outreach, public speaking, and teaching experience, please see my CV.
Astronomy Conversations / Space Visualization Laboratory
The Space Visualization Laboratory at the Adler Planetarium is an immersive space where museum guests can experience cutting-edge astronomical visualizations and hear about ground-breaking research. In addition to the space being open in an unfacilitated fashion during most museum hours, the Space Visualization Laboratory also hosts Chicagoland astronomer for Astronomy Conversations. Astronomy Conversations allows for astronomers to discuss their research with the general public in a casual atmosphere, giving the general public a conduit to the process of scientific research. Although Astronomy Conversations was put on hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, I am currently working to reestablish and reinvent this long-running and influential public speaking series.
Gravity Spy
Gravity Spy is a citizen science project hosted by Zooniverse that characterizes troublesome noise in the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors. During my PhD, I helped to build this project, and have been the point-person on the team for interacting with our volunteer base. Since its inception in October 2016, the project has accumulated over 7.5 million classifications from over 33,000 registerd volunteers. Besides the contributions that this project has had in LIGO detector characterization efforts (see my Research page), Gravity Spy has allowed tens of thousands of volunteers from all over the world to be immersed in cutting-edge scientific research.
Astrobites
Astrobites is a daily astrophysical literature journal written and run by graduate students in astronomy. Since its inception in 2010, Astrobites has published thousands of article summaries and the site receives about half a million visits a year. I spent two years as a regular author on Astrobites (you can read my posts here) and after served on the leadership team for Astrobites. One of the things I was most proud of helping to develop were the Beyond astro-ph series of posts, which are written instead of the standard astro-ph summary once every couple weeks and cover topics ranging from career advice to classic astrophysical papers to the state of diversity and inclusivity in astronomy. Astrobites is now partnered with the American Astronomical Society.