Lindsay House PhD Defense
Apr
11
2025
Apr
11
2025
Description
Harnessing Artificial Intelligence, Education and Public Engagement to Improve Our Understanding of the Universe
Only recently did we discover that our universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and the nature of this motion still remains uncertain. As astronomers, we have named the cause of this accelerated expansion dark energy. In this dissertation talk, I investigate dark energy through galaxies as cosmic probes that have left imprints of the early universe. I work to reveal this puzzle and better our understanding of the universe by utilizing artificial intelligence, participatory science (also known as citizen science), and new astronomy curricula. This work began with creating and launching the NASA Zooniverse project, Dark Energy Explorers. In my work, the science and education goals work synergistically, and the quality of one depends on the other. One significant challenge with a mystery as vast as dark energy is understanding the sheer amount of data. I started with a pilot study on a small sample of Lyman-alpha emitting galaxy candidates and combined this with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to identify artifacts. I discovered this as an efficient and effective way to clean datasets, and we could rely on the Dark Energy Explorers up to 94% compared to a HETDEX scientist. This success led to the expansion of 1.2 million Lyman-alpha-emitting galaxy detections and application to the full source catalog. Matching this growth, I grew the Dark Energy Explorers community to over 20,000 participants from 159 countries and translated into 9 different languages. To aid in building a community of scientific thinkers, I led an education research study on incorporating climate change in introductory astronomy, resulting in students being more confident in engaging in scientific conversations. Arguably, training and communicating our research is just as necessary as the research itself. In this talk, I take this approach through public engagement and astronomy education improvements to ensure we train and develop critical thinkers in astronomy and society. With continued work with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment, Vera Rubin Observatory, and new AI centers, I aim to educate, uplift, and understand how our role as humans fit into this complex, mysterious universe.
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