No prior experience with astrophysics or computing is required for this workshop.
In this workshop, participants use provided laptops and lecture manuals to gain hands-on experience in three areas of astrophysics. Each section begins with an overview-style lecture to familiarize participants with the material. These lectures contain live demonstrations and written notes with diagrams to suit most learning styles.
At the conclusion of each section's lecture, instructors will guide participants through the hands-on portion. Each participant will have access to a laptop for the duration of the workshop. All necessary materials and software have been preloaded onto the computers. Jupyter notebooks containing Python code are the primary interface. A Jupyter notebook is a web-based tool that allows users to live edit and run blocks of code in an interactive way, making them an easy tool for introducing coding concepts.
The goal of each section is to provide participants with an overview of three areas of astrophysical research, as well as hands-on experience exploring the types of analysis scientists in each area would perform as a regular part of their research. We aim to introduce astrophysics research particularly to early career students to demonstrate that astrophysical research is both exciting and accessible.