While in California I had a chance to visit a new educational “startup” within Silicon Valley, Singularity University (http://singularityu.org/). The University arises from the inspiration of two of the founders, Ray Kurzweil (who wrote a book on the “Singularity“), and Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur, founder of the “X prize” and an MD and PhD who has written several books on exponential technologies (most recently the book Abundance: The Future is Better than you Think  – https://www.amazon.com/Peter-H.-Diamandis/e/B006392BR2 ). Since our book club in SoCal had read the Singularity book a long time ago, and my wife Bidushi was a big fan of Diamandis and his work, I wandered down to their campus while staying in Mountain View for other meetings. The campus is situated in the midst of somewhat dilapidated NASA buildings, which gives it an odd mix of being both futuristic and retro. However the optimism and energy of Singularity university is anything but retro – but instead is full tilt for the future. This refreshing futurism is built into the programs at Singularity which are designed for entrepreneurs who would like to impact the lives of a billion people. The entire concept of Singularity, and the name, arises from the assumption that exponential technologies – like computers – will improve steadily at an accelerating rate, creating entirely new industries and capacities for civilization improve every aspect of our lives. New nanomaterials, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, gene therapies, faster computers, and other technologies will all converge at a pace that most people have trouble visualizing (so the theory goes), and so it requires an entirely different type of thinking known as “exponential thinking” or an “abundance mindset.”

   To dramatise the idea of exponential thinking, the old quote by Wayne Gretsky- “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been” – can be modified by imagining a puck that is not gliding smoothly along the ice in a linear way, but that has been equipped with a small rocket motor that causes it to race ahead at an ever-increasing velocity. This is the kind of change the thinkers at Singularity are trying to visualize and plan for, and the campus is something of a think tank for future-oriented inventors and entrepreneurs. 

The campus inhabits a central part of the mall which includes stately Navy buildings facing a central grassy area with cannons and other military monuments. Within the mall is the Carnegie Mellon University center, and a few unused buildings. The entire complex at Ames has something of the feeling of a ghost town, but upon entering the Singularity building that impression is immediately replaced with energy – young people talking on earbuds to unseen collaborators, small groups of students huddled together, and colorful banners and signs everywhere from some of the frequent corporate events and short classes in the campus.

I managed to arrange a meeting with Nicholas Haan, director of the Global Solutions Program. The Global Solutions program (http://singularityu.org/gsp16/) is a 10-week immersion into a curriculum that includes Global Grand Challenges, Site Visits, and workshops, followed by team projects, and a chance to launch those projects with new companies. The students are selected from around the world, and for 2016 these lucky individuals were in residence together from June 18-August 20 to discuss their solutions to the world problems to expand their solution from “positively impacting millions of lives locally and globally” to billions of people. A set of Global Grand Challenges have been identified in areas that include water, space, security, prosperity, global health, energy, environment, food, learning, disaster resilience and governance. The 80 students come from competitions known as “Global Impact Competitions” that are staged in over a dozen countries around the world, and once the arrive their stay is fully covered by a variety of corporate sponsors, with Google providing the largest fraction of support.

My conversation with Nicholas was fascinating, and I really enjoyed meeting him and some of the students at the program. One of the students was from Singapore, and I am interested in helping him launch a new Global Impact Competition here in Singapore. The ideas of the GSP resonated strongly with me, and our recent Yale-NUS Foundations of Science course featured two “Grand Challenge” exercises whereby our science students proposed solutions to problems related to the Anthropocene epoch (global warming and climate change) and in teams of four presented either “disruptive technologies” to help mitigate these problems, or detailed research projects to study and help understand some of the changes wrought by human civilization. I was really excited by the prospect of a 10-week, or even longer curriculum focused on such important projects, and am looking forward to further meetings with Singularity University in my upcoming sabbatical. Next summer I am looking forward to visiting the Global Solutions Program students and learning more – and hopefully bringing some of this futuristic thinking to our undergraduate curriculum at Yale-NUS College!

During July 28 and 29, our GROWTH collaboration hosted the first of its education workshop. This meeting featured attendance by over 30 professors, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students, representing 18 different institutions and five countries. During the meeting we presented innovative courses in astronomy at our campuses, which includes the US institutions of Pomona College, Williams College, Caltech,  U. Maryland, U. Wisconsin Milwaukee, San Diego State University, Cal State San Bernardino, and from our international partners, Stockholm University (Sweden), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), IUCAA (India), Yale-NUS College (Singapore), and the University of Western Ontario (Canada).

Our Education Workshop also developed two of our main curriculum tracks. This includes a global observational astronomy course which I am leading and working to link together our students and institutions in a global educational collaborative community. In this new course, teams of students will be linked together to collaborate on their observations of supernovae, asteroids, and other time-variable objects, and the instructors can co-develop educational resources such as tutorials on observational astronomy, guides to accessing datasets and performing advanced “big data” analyses, and guest lectures on advanced topics in astrophysics. I am also eager to develop remotely operated telescopes, such as the new LCRO, as a jointly operated facility that undergraduates around the world can use in their research, even performing many of the same activities as in research telescopes. The hope is that this facility will feature a proposal mechanism, fielded by advanced students, a set of tutorials on usage and data analysis, and even an on-line journal for students to publish some of their findings and ideas.

The non-majors course curriculum will also be expanded, and this effort will be centered at the University of Maryland where Stuart Vogel and Melissa Hayes Gehrke are leading classes observing asteroids, and developing curriculum that makes use of the ZTF variable star database, and other exciting new discoveries. This non-majors class has a great potential to widen participation in science among diverse groups of students, including many under-represented minority students and first-generation students. The University of Maryland joins three of the Cal State campuses (SDSU, Cal State San Bernardino, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) and U. Wisconsin Milwaukee, as well as our larger group of scientific collaborators.  Our education team includes members at several large universities that have substantial populations of students that could be recruited to be part of the next generation of astrophysicists.

The meeting included a full  day of talks sharing curriculum, and innovative observing exercises among our team. We also enjoyed a great workshop on active learning techniques by Melissa Hayes Gehrke on the second day, and a very productive discussion about next steps linking our campuses together in the coming academic year.

Talks at our Caltech GROWTH Education Workshop – July 28-29, 2016. This program is also online at http://growth.caltech.edu/conferences/workshop-program2016.pdf.

Below are some of the attendees of our GROWTH science meeting and workshop who will be collaborating with us in our educational initiatives. This group includes over 30 GROWTH scientists, representing 18 different institutions and coming from five countries.

On July 25 and 26, our team of scientists in the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) collaboration met at Caltech for two days of intense discussions about the science and collaborations possible from this interesting international astrophysics group. The effort is funded by a $4.5-million grant from the NSF PIRE Program to Mansi Kasliwal, and additional funding has been obtained by many of the international partners which come from Japan, Taiwan, India, Israel, Germany, Sweden and the UK. The GROWTH web site (http://growth.caltech.edu/) describes the collaboration and many of the science goals, as well as the partnership. My role is to lead the educational efforts of GROWTH, which consists of linked undergraduate courses that make use of GROWTH discoveries in the classroom, and shared resources developed by our global team of educators.

The science meeting featured talks by the entire set of GROWTH institutions, along with many of our young postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduates who are funded by the GROWTH effort. The science questions are nicely summarized on the GROWTH web site at http://growth.caltech.edu/science-questions.html – and they include studies of endpoints of stars – Supernovae, explosive GRB’s, merging of neutron stars, and element synthesis. These events are also thought to produce gravitational waves, and their is an exciting synergy between GROWTH and the newly operable LIGO system, which is discovering several sources a year that include merging black holes and neutron stars. It is hoped that our GROWTH global telescope network can enhance our capacity to discover and monitor these LIGO discovered events, and our team includes experts in not only optical astronomy but radio, X-ray and gamma ray astrophysics. A listing of the talks is below – and some highlights for me are summarized as well in the following section.

One highlight for me was the great discussion about LIGO gravitational wave sources and their “electromagnetic counterparts” by Brad Cenko of GSFC. The interesting arcs on the sky have been computed by Brad and Mansi and allow optical telescopes to scan for light from these fascinating gravitational wave sources. Martin Elvis or Harvard University gave a very interesting talk about asteroids and how they have the potential to “save astronomy” through their potential for commercial mining and space exploration missions that can land and explore asteroids. GROWTH has a unique capability for helping determine orbits to newly discovered Near Earth Asteroids which can support future NASA missions.  This is one project that our Yale-NUS and Pomona students may be involved in during the coming years. An interesting network of telescopes in Japan was discussed by Nobu Kawai from Tokyo Institute of Technology, including optical telescopes in Japan, South Africa, and Chile, and a high-energy telescope on the International Space Station. The newly developed Himalayan telescopes in India were described by G.C. Anupama from IUCAA, and a new 0.7-meter telescope has been constructed at their high altitude site at 15,000 feet for work with our GROWTH collaboration. The potential to link closely with India is very exciting, and I have begun this process with a good collaboration with Varun Bhalero who is working with me and my student Gabi Mehta (Pomona) to study x-ray binary systems using AstroSAT, the Swift Satellite and the Yale SMARTS telescopes in Chile.

The GROWTH work also includes researchers working with new telescopes at La Palma such as the Liverpool telescopes, and the Nordic Optical telecsope (discussed by Semeli Papadogiannakis from the Oskar Klein Institute in Sweden), as well as non-optical devices such as the IceCube antarctic array of particle detectors, and the Milagro Radio telescope (discussed by David Kaplan from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee). The meeting was very exciting and I look forward to future collaborations with this very friendly and dynamic group of astrophysicists!

Below is a montage of some of the telescopes that are part of this impressive global array of telescopes, from the GROWTH web site!

Schedule of GROWTH science meeting – July 25-26, 2016

As part of my summer research program, I have begun a collaboration with Varun Bhalero of IUCAA, the premier astrophysics organization in India, to combine the telescopes available to me from Yale-NUS with new observations from India’s first space telescope known as AstroSAT. AstroSat features a powerful suite of instruments and can image the sky in x-rays and ultraviolet light. My work, conducted using telescopes in Chile, combines the observations of high-energy photons emerging from galaxies, neutron stars, and black holes, with ground-based observations in the optical and infrared. Our GROWTH international summer research fellow, Gabi Mehta (Pomona, ’18) is helping develop these new observing programs with me, along with Silvia Lara (Yale-NUS, ’18). For our first projects we hope to monitor some compact x-ray emitting sources such as Cygnus X-1 with both ground and space-based observations. Hopefully this research will enable more detailed models of the environments surrounding black holes, neutron stars, and erupting “active” galaxies, and also provide new information useful for studying the physics of merging black holes and neutron stars.  Below are some links to information on AstroSAT and some pictures of our remotely operated 1.3-meter telescope in Chile and the smaller 0.3-meter LCRO telescope. For this project (and some educational work) I am also acquiring blocks of telescope time using the PROMPT telescopes in Chile, and additional telescopes in Australia. This network is named Skynet – and is run by Dan Reichert at University of North Carolina. I am looking forward to harnessing some of these small telescopes for research and bringing our students into new astronomy work that forwards the research of AstroSAT!

This summer has been the summer of remote telescopes!  This summer we have begun some tests using the fantastic Las Campanas Remote Observatory (LCRO), developed by Mike Long, Dave Jurasevich, and his friends at Carnegie Observatories at the best observing site at Earth, Las Campanas, Chile. It is hard to imagine the clarity and depth of the Chilean skies – which at Las Campanas offer the best views of space from the ground. The conditions are usually dry and clear and the “seeing” – defined as the sharpness with which you can focus star images – is unmatched by any other site. The LCRO is a 0.3-meter telescope on this site, and can be controlled and operated anywhere on earth using the software known as ACP. This telescope is equipped with a fantastic suite of filters and a great CCD camera. Its tracking abilities enable it to capture images of very faint objects – galaxies, nebulae and distant star clusters – through long exposures with its electronic camera. This summer I began using the telescope, in consultation with Mike, and in collaboration with my students Gabi Mehta (Pomona) and Silvia Lara (Yale-NUS College). The students were able to get some beautiful images of the galaxy M83 and the Lagoon Nebula (below), and also to test some new research programs which include monitoring of variable stars within large star clusters, deep imaging of SDSS galaxies with radio observations, and exoplanet transits. The first datasets are being analyzed and we look forward to regularly using this fantastic telescope with our undergraduates in the course projects and research!

Links of interest for LCRO information:

• http://lascampanasremote.org/ – main LCRO page for outside viewers
• http://lcobot.duckdns.org – more detailed page with technical information for potential observers
• http://starimager.com/Secondary%20Pages/Observing%20Sites%20Pages/Las%20Campanas.html – Dave Jurasevech’s page on LCRO with nice photos of the site and installation.

Below are some images of remotely operable telescopes – as part of emergent GROWTH educational initiative at Caltech. Note the beautiful images of M83 and the Lagoon nebula – taken by our student Gabi Mehta, GROWTH undergraduate fellow, and Pomona College junior physics major.

One of the highlights of the summer was our magical visit to Palomar Observatory – the world’s largest telescope from 1951 until 1988, and George Ellery Hale’s last masterpiece in steel and glass. The 200″ telescope is a monument to the inspiration and power of science, and is something of a cathedral of astronomy. We had the rare privilege of a night at the 200″ hosted by Dr. Thomas Kupfer, a member of our Caltech ZTF and GROWTH research team. The students were at the base of the giant telescope – looming five stories above us – as we opened the slit for the night’s observing. Students were able to help Thomas observe his white dwarf stars, which are in interesting eruptive binary systems, and to discuss with each other how their summer research projects were progressing. The students even sang a wonderful a capella concert in the dark at the base of the telescope, and wandered around the catwalk in the pristine and velvet black sky of a moonless night at Palomar. The skies, telescope, science and people were fantastic – making this one of the best visits I have ever had to Palomar! Thanks to Thomas and the students for making this such a great trip!    

During Day 3 our undergraduates were at Pomona College, where we offered them a workshop in high energy astrophysics data analysis by Loredana Vertere. Loredana led the students in an analysis of data from the Swift X-ray satellite, and we also enjoyed a planetarium show by Loredana, and our student Charlie Watson. Mike Long from the Carnegie Foundation came by and gave a wonderful presentation on his new Las Campanas Remote Observatory, which I will be using for my research and teaching with students at Pomona and Yale-NUS College. It was wonderful to be back at Pomona at our beautiful new Millikan Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics building, and to see all my old friends at Pomona. This also is the beginning of a new chapter for me as I transition from the Frank P. Brackett Professor of Astronomy at Pomona to Professor of Science at Yale-NUS College. The transition is exciting as I have been able to retain my affiliation with Pomona as Research Professor, and will be able to continue working with Pomona in the coming years through my NSF funded grants for ZTF and the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH).

Below are some photos from this day of our Institute!

We visited the Big Bear Solar Observatory as part of our Caltech ZTF Summer Undergraduate institute. During the trip we were joined by Jay Pasachoff, from Williams College. Jay is one of the world’s foremost solar astronomers, and a veteran of over 50 total solar eclipses all over the earth (perhaps close to setting a world record!).  Jay led us through the tour and also gave us a wonderful lecture on the BBSO and solar astronomy, including detailed information on Venus and Mercury transits, and a compendium of recent eclipse observations. It was a wonderful experience!

My former student, Aditya Sood (Pom ’97), gave a wonderful talk to our undergraduate researchers at Caltech on the second day of our Caltech Summer Undergraduate Astronomy Institute. Aditya took my Astronomy 1 course at Pomona many years ago, and it was part of his development as a broadly educated liberal arts student – which eventually placed him in a role as a Producer of The Martian. Aditya’s journey is a wonderful testament to the power of liberal arts education – where courses in science for non-majors have a profound impact and enable cross-connections that can have large societal impact. In Aditya’s case, he was able to produce a movie that provided a compelling image of science as solving problems in a collaborative way – and that brought the full diversity of a team to bear on saving a stranded astronaut. The beauty of the movie includes not only its dazzling panoramas of Mars, its gleaming space hardware, but the way in which it portrays a future in which humans are working together to build a positive future that is based on exploration and on science. I am immensely grateful to Aditya for producing this movie and inspiring millions – and for his great talk to our undergraduates at Caltech!  Aditya in an earlier talk at Pomona College described his Pomona College astronomy class with me long ago:

“The greatest thing about Pomona was taking classes in any field. I’d always wanted to be an astronaut for the first 12 years of my life and so I took Bryan Penprase’s astronomy class my first year, which was great,” says Sood.

The image below is from the press release at Pomona during his 2015 talk – and shows both Aditya and Matt Damon, the star of the movie. Below are some images from Aditya’s talk at Caltech. Thanks again to Aditya – and keep doing great work to inspire others about science!

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Below are some photos of Aditya addressing our group of Caltech and Pomona students at our ZTF Summer Undergraduate Astronomy Institute – June 20-24, 2016.

For the second year in a row, we have offered the ZTF Summer Undergraduate Astronomy Institute. The program is funded by our NSF grant for ZTF, and brings together 16 students from Caltech SURF projects and from Pomona SURP projects. You can see more information at our web site at http://ztf.commons.yale-nus.edu.sg/.

This year we were joined by two students from Williams College, one from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and one from Howard University. The group had a dazzling amount of intellectual and cultural diversity, with students hailing from Albania, Turkey, India, China, Italy, and the US, and from institutions that included Lafayette College, Princeton, Pomona, Yale-NUS College, Williams, and Caltech. The students really bonded and got to know each other. The program excels because of this chance for students to reflect on their careers and their trajectory as scientists. We give them many opportunities to know Caltech scientists at all levels – graduate students, postdocs, and professors, and to know each other. The chance to exchange life stories is almost as valuable as their chance to learn more about astronomy!

This year we had two days at Caltech that featured a wonderful mix of talks, lab tours, and events. This year we were joined by two Pomona College alumni – Aditya Sood, producer of The Martian (Pom ’97), and Cameron Hummels, Caltech postdoctoral scholar (Pom ’01). Both gave excellent talks. For Aditya we had a pre dinner talk on his experience producing The Martian , and his influences in science (which included my Pomona astronomy course!). After his talk we had a screening of the Martian in the Caltech auditorium. Cameron is currently sponsoring a Pomona undergraduate in research – Charlie Watson. Both Cameron and Charlie came to astronomy through computer science and it is wonderful to see Cameron’s progress as he has developed a fantastic research program combining the latest supercomputer simulations with direct comparisons with data. Cameron also is able to predict quasar absorption lines from his simulations so I look forward to working with him more as a research collaborator!

Below is the schedule for the first two days at Caltech

Day 1 – Monday, June 20, 2016 – Caltech Orientation and Talks 

Day 1 features a round-up of talks from the research mentors and leads in the ZTF project. The goal is to give you a sense of the astrophysical and technical context of your projects. Scientific talks will highlight some of the recent research results from the Caltech investigators, and how the your summer project will contribute to the research. From this day you will learn about not only their own projects, but will gain awareness of the larger community of investigators at Caltech and the scientific and technical projects of your fellow students.

Schedule for Day 1

6:00PM Caltech Astronomy Dinner and Talk – Aditya Sood, Producer of “The Martian” (Caltech Astronomy Patio)

7:30-9:30PM – Viewing of The Martian at Caltech Astronomy Hameetman auditorium.

Day 2 – Tuesday, June 21, 2016 – Caltech Lab Tours and Technology 

Day 2 features a set of lab tours and discussions of the technical background within the ZTF projects. It also features additional talks by Caltech and JPL researchers, who are doing cutting-edge instrument development and satellite development in astrophysics.