John Bochanski: "Data-Driven Discovery: Astronomy in the Era of Large Surveys"

Large, digital surveys of the night sky have revolutionized how astronomy is done. Astronomers are no longer tethered to their telescopes, but instead have access to terabytes of data on hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies through the internet. John Bochanski, an assistant professor of Physics at Rider University, has used survey data over the last decade to study our home Galaxy, the Milky Way, and millions of its stellar constituents. His efforts have characterized millions of low-mass dwarfs, which are the most common type of star and the most likely to host small planets like our Earth. His studies have also focused on distant red giant stars, culminating in his discovery of the two most distant stars known in our Galaxy, nearly 1 million light years away. John will explore the motivation behind large surveys, detail some of his results, and discuss the data-rich future of large astronomical surveys, most notably Gaia and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.