Teaching

Order of Magnitude Astrophysics

This class is meant to develop your astro-intuition with by estimating the answer to a problem to within a factor of 10 — we learn to think about the most important effects and good approximation techniques. Plus, we get to come up with fun problems like exploding the moon or throwing cockroaches into a black hole.

Structure and Dynamics of Galaxies

With so much new data from Gaia, the Dark Energy Survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, etc., we’re totally reshaping our understanding of the Milky Way and other galaxies in the Universe. I love teaching this class because it changes every time!

Radiative Processes in Multimessenger Astrophysics

As astronomers, we only know about the universe from the data we receive, so it behooves us to understand the physics behind the messengers — photons, particles, and gravitational waves. My class concentrates on photons and gravitational waves with a smattering of neutrinos and cosmic rays.