The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Patricia Udomprasert

Center for Astrophysics

Project Director

Patricia Udomprasert

pudomprasert@cfa.harvard.edu

About

Pat Udomprasert is a Research Associate at the CfA, Project Director for the WorldWide Telescope Ambassadors Program, and a member of the Science Education Department. She holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Caltech and formerly taught high school astronomy, physics, and math at Concord Academy. She leads development and implementation of WWT-based curricula in formal and informal education environments. Her interests include science education research on technology in classrooms, especially the use of rich visualizations to support spatial thinking and modeling of complex phenomena, and effective pathways for teaching data science to non-experts.

A.B. Princeton University; Ph.D. Caltech

Projects

Cosmic Data Stories

he NASA-funded Cosmic Data Stories (CosmicDS) project will enable scientists to promote public understanding of data science concepts through engaging, interactive stories about their research. CosmicDS will facilitate connections between astronomers who want to tell the story of a discovery and inspire learners by letting them interrogate the data behind the story on their own, using easy-to-use but powerful data science and visualization techniques.

WorldWide Telescope (WWT)

Radio and Geoastronomy

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a free, open-source tool for exploring our knowledge of the universe. It provides planetarium-like views of the sky, as well as dynamic images of planets and other astronomical objects. The project enables users to incorporate images and video into scripts for custom “tours”, for use in classrooms, planetariums, museums, and other multimedia displays. WWT is a project of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), with scientific consultants from universities around the world, including the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The WWT Ambassadors are scientists and science educators at CfA who use the WWT in public science outreach and education. WWT is both available as a web browser application and a desktop program for Windows computers.