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Astronomy Outreach

UCLA Planetarium

I greatly enjoy interacting with the local community as one of the coordinators for the UCLA Planetarium. The three graduate-student coordinators (including myself) are solely responsible for management of the planetarium, with volunteer support from the rest of the grads and financial support from the Physics & Astronomy Department and private donors.

Since 2011, I have served the role of coordinator by scheduling shows for the public and for private educational groups, selecting and creating content for our shows, maintaining the planetarium equipment, and maintaining the planetarium's website and Facebook page.

Of course, I also give my fair share of planetarium shows! Speaking on topics from the solar system to black holes and from exoplanets to galaxies, I really love showing people the wondrous side of astronomy. Even after presenting more shows than I can count, it's still great to hear visitors ranging in age from preschoolers to senior citizens say "Ooooh" when I turn the lights down and the stars come out.

Astronomy Live!

My other primary outreach work is through the astronomy graduate student organization "Astronomy Live!". Over the past three years, I have volunteered with this group to spread understanding and excitement about astronomy to members of the Los Angeles community, primarily schoolchildren. For our numerous activities I've made comets, run solar telescope viewings, taught about galaxies, launched rockets, demonstrated adaptive optics, and built a man-sized 3-D model of the constellation of Orion.