Class Name: “Topics in Astrophysics: Extragalatic Data Science”
Taught By: Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Karen Masters
Says Masters:
This is a class in which students learn some of the current understanding of how galaxies in our Universe form and evolve over time, and also in which they will learn some of the data science techniques commonly used by extragalactic researchers in their work. Extragalactic astrophysics is really in a “big data” era, with large surveys of the skies done by international collaborations. It’s become fairly common that the training people who do further study (Ph.D.s) in astrophysics set them up especially well for a variety of jobs in data science industries.
This is an upper level class closely tied to my research interests, and I wanted to create it to give students a flavour of what working in extragalactic astrophysics is like, and also the skill set that people who pursue further study in this area can hope to learn.
This is the first year the department is offering half-credit, half-semester, upper-level topics classes, which are an attempt to introduce a wider range of topical options into our upper-level physics and astronomy classes for students. [It] also allows all faculty the opportunity to more regularly teach their research speciality, allowing us to bring current physics and astrophysics research into the classroom.The idea is to offer one of these each quarter, rather than a single full-semester class.
Learn about other courses offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
