Astrofest at NCSA

Each year, the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS) hosts a one-day conference called Astrofest at NCSA. This event draws researchers from around the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus to discuss what’s happening beyond Earth. All day, researchers who spend much of their time looking up for inspiration and knowledge about the universe discuss and share their discoveries. Interested parties of all stripes were welcome to this annual event that encourages cross-disciplinary thinking and collaboration.

“AstroFest is a fantastic opportunity to see what astrophysical research is being conducted on campus,” said Joaquin Vieira, astronomy professor and director of CAPS. “It’s a great end to the academic year, a super useful venue to put names to faces and find other scientists with similar research interests. For me, personally, I really enjoy the lightning talks and reconnecting with alumni who have gone off to have amazing careers. Professor Stuart Shapiro’s invited plenary talk this year was also a highlight.”

This year, the program featured talks and poster sessions by physics and astronomy professors, students and alumni. The plenary also included talks with the associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and an artificial intelligence (AI) engineer from Google. It was a successful event with more than 130 attendees showing up to take in the plenary, parallels, poster sessions and lightning talks on offer.

The day had two robust poster sessions, one first thing in the morning and another later in the afternoon. This allowed attendees to check out a number of informative sessions in the NCSA atrium, but more importantly, the sessions gave student researchers a chance to share their work with their peers. Veronica Hoffman, a sophomore student researcher, presented her work on multi-wavelength dust particles. Even though she still has two more years of undergraduate work left, she was already taking advantage of opportunities like AstroFest to prepare for a career.

“I’m an undergraduate researcher,” she said. “So that means I don’t get a ton of opportunities to put my work out there because I’m too young to get published. People aren’t looking for me to publish any big papers. So it’s really cool to come here and share my work with other students and professors who might be interested in working with me in the future.”

“I still remember my first conference as an undergraduate student,” said David Vizgan, a pre-doctoral fellow in astronomy, “and all of the emotions that came with preparing for it. For many people across academia, it can be stressful to put your work up for criticism from peers and mentors. With that in mind, AstroFest is such an excellent opportunity for undergrads in Illinois’s astronomy community to get that practice for future conferences and symposiums, both on and off campus.”

Not everything at AstroFest was purely business. The Physics Department resident artist, Ruoheng Yang, also shared artwork inspired by the stars. The Space Dragons displayed during the poster sessions were a popular stop as visitors took in all the science, proving that art can inspire as much as facts and figures can.

After the breakfast meet-and-greet and poster sessions, plenary talks showcased a broad overview of research activities related to astronomy. These talks were as inspirational as they were informative, with speakers discussing topics including the use of AI in astronomy and a retrospective look at astrophysics.

Professor Stuart Shapiro kicked off the plenary sessions with a review of his life’s work. He shared a number of childhood memories of growing up with a fascination with the stars. Shapiro continued through his years, capping the discussion with some impressive visualizations of his work with gas accretion around black holes. 

Shapiro has been researching celestial objects and teaching others about his passion for many years. When asked what excites him about what was once theoretical but is now, through the power of technology, observable in the cosmos, he had many answers.

“My prime interest in my career was evaluating potential sources of gravitational radiation,” said Shapiro. “So it was a great triumph that gravity waves were ultimately detected by the LIGO – Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. That fulfilled a lifetime of theoretical calculations and predictions. That was very exciting.

“Another exciting moment was the Event Horizon Telescope detection of the shadow effect of a black hole on ambient light from an accretion disk. I’d spent my early career, from my thesis onwards, studying gas accretion and black holes. It wasn’t until the Horizon Telescope observations that we could, in some sense, detect directly the effect of a black hole close up.”

Prof. Shapiro’s examples prove that it’s an exciting time to be in the field of astronomy, as technology makes it possible to see decades-old theories play out. “If you live long enough,” said Prof. Shapiro, “and you work long enough, early expectations and predictions can get fulfilled.”

The plenary ended with a talk by the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Professor Shaowen Wang brought things back to Earth. His talk discussed his research in geospatial science, and he made some interesting connections between understanding the Earth and the part that geographic information science plays in a better understanding of space.

The afternoon sessions were designed to complement the morning presentations. The afternoon began with lightning talks and every attendee was invited to participate. The goal of these talks was to help fellow students and researchers get to know the faces of those in their field in the hopes they might connect and collaborate. A secondary goal was to help many of the student attendees become comfortable talking about themselves in front of an audience, as an important aspect of research is being able to present it to others. The informal talks worked as icebreakers for an afternoon focused on career and education advice.

After the lightning talks, parallel sessions aimed at undergrads and graduate students provided plenty of practical research and career advice. Sessions included discussions on how to get into graduate school and what to do with that degree once it was earned. These lively sessions were highly anticipated by participants and attendees alike.

“I’m excited to attend the ‘How to get into grad school’ talks,” said Hoffman at the beginning of the day. “That’s what I’m looking for. I want to know [that kind of information].”

Vizgan, who led the session “How to Get into Graduate School,” was pleased with how engaged the attendees were. He also led the panel at last year’s AstroFest. “We had a stronger showing this year than last year, and I hope that even more undergraduates will attend this panel in the coming years of AstroFest,” he said. “Every school handles their grad admissions process differently, and so the goal of the panel is to talk to some people who have gone through that process and understand what sort of things stay the same and vary across the application process. I really enjoyed moderating the panel for a second year in a row — it feels rewarding to talk to students about some of the same things that were on my mind a few years ago.”

Many graduate students in our department are always looking for different ways to mentor and invest in the next generation of scientists, and I really feel like AstroFest is a short but truly significant part of that movement.

–David Vizgan, graduate student, UIUC

You can sign up for the CAPS mailing list to learn more about CAPS and the events it sponsors.

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ABOUT ASPO/CAPS

NCSA’s Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS) brings cohesion and advancement to astrophysical survey science efforts across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. CAPS offers annual postdoctoral and graduate fellowship programs, publishes vast amounts of astronomical data from a broad portfolio of astrophysical surveys and collaborates across disciplines to enable trailblazing research.