An introductory course, tailored for high-school students, introducing students to elementary concepts in astronomical observation, theory, and instrumentation.
The materials are modular code notebooks and student manuals on instrumentation, observational, and theoretical astronomy, each written so it can be taught on its own. They run for free in Google Colab with just a Google account, or locally on inexpensive (~$200) laptops, and an instructor manual lets other educators run the course themselves.
Exchanged physical letters with an 8th grade pen pal in the Chicago area, providing insight into my career trajectory and making a STEM career more relatable and approachable through interpersonal connection.
APS Physicists To-Go
Through the APS program that pairs classrooms with scientists for live virtual visits, presented to Dr. Pooja Gupta's high-school astronomy class in California in December 2023. The talk covered exoplanets, space probes, my research on colliding neutron stars, and paths to a physics degree, with Q&A after each topic. Dr. Gupta's comments on the program website note how much her students valued hearing that I wasn't a natural at physics at their age but improved over time.
RIT hosted the 2022 GENIUS Olympiad, an international competition for high-school projects on environmental issues that drew more than 1,600 entries from students in the US and more than 56 countries. Served as an awards judge, evaluating high-school science research projects.
At the 2019 Northside School Family STEM Night, co-led the RIT Astrophysics station, “Spectacular Spectroscopy,” where children and their families used hands-on activities to see how astronomers use different kinds of light to work out what the universe is made of.
Volunteered at RIT Observatory events in 2018. At an October public open house, we showed Rochester-area visitors the young crescent Moon, Saturn, and the Ring Nebula through breaks in the clouds; in November, helped 17 scouts from Boy Scout Troop 750 work toward their Astronomy Merit Badges with activities on telescopes, Moon phases, eclipses, and star wheels.
For the August 21, 2017 eclipse, which reached about 60 percent coverage in Boston, helped Northeastern's physics department organize a public viewing on Centennial Common, with eclipse viewing cards handed out so people could watch safely. The university's news story quotes me, as Marko Lazarević, on bringing together students interested in astronomy.
