AstroAI Workshop 2025
Ashley Villar
TBA
Presenter: Ashley Villar (Harvard University)
Title: TBA
Date/Time: Wednesday, July 11th, 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Abstract: TBA
Biography: Ashley Villar uses data-driven methods and machine learning to study the eruptions, mergers and explosions of stars. She is especially interested in utilizing multiband light curves to understand the underlying physics of optical transients. Ashley is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Previously, she was the inaugural Mercedes Richards Career Development Professor at Penn State.
Between 07/20 and 07/21, Ashley was a Simons Junior Fellow at Columbia University and the Flatiron Institute. She received her PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics from Harvard in 2020, where she was a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow working with Edo Berger. Ashley graduated from MIT in 2014 where she majored in physics and minored in mathematics. Ashley wrote my senior thesis with John Johnson and Josh Winn on asteroseismology. Ashley was inspired to study astronomy after reading Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson.