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Astrostatistics

Astrostatistics

Astrostatistics is the study of how to use astronomical observations, with their associated uncertainties, to constrain models of astrophysics and cosmology. Measurements are made with imperfect instruments and the way in which many objects are observed can be biased by something in their local environment, like dust, that reduces or enhances the emitted signal. Accurately inferring the model from the data requires a careful accounting for all those effects.

Visit Penn State's Center for Astrostatistics website to find out more about. [Image Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech]

Visit the topic website

Name Role Affiliations Email Phone Office Centers Research topics
Caryl Gronwall Caryl Gronwall Faculty Astronomy cag18@psu.edu +1 814 865 2918 417B Davey Laboratory CMA, CTOC Astrostatistics, Cosmic Surveys
Eduardo Munguia Gonzalez Eduardo Munguia Gonzalez Graduate Student Astronomy, ICDS eem5633@psu.edu 814 863 5565 445A Davey Laboratory IGC Astrostatistics, Multimessenger Astrophysics
Hyungsuk Tak Hyungsuk Tak Faculty hvt5139@psu.edu +1 814 865 1348 326 Osmond Laboratory CTOC Astroinformatics, Astrostatistics
Bojun Zhang Bojun Zhang Graduate Student Astronomy bjz5234@psu.edu 8142803409 535A Davey Laboratory IGC Astrostatistics, Black Holes, Quasars
Name Role Affiliations Email Phone Office Centers Research topics
Alireza Rashti Alireza Rashti Postdoc Physics akr6170@psu.edu +1 814 863 9605 314 Whitmore Laboratory IGC Astrostatistics, Black Holes, Mathematical Structures, Multimessenger Astrophysics, Neutrinos, Physical Mathematics, Dynamic Universe

News about Astrostatistics

Discovery of Massive Early Galaxies Defies Prior Understanding of the Universe
February 23, 2023 priority
Discovery of Massive Early Galaxies Defies Prior Understanding of the Universe
Six massive galaxies discovered in the early universe are upending what scientists previously understood about the origins of galaxies in the universe. “These objects are …
Junyu Zhang selected as Eberly College of Science’s Fall 2022 Student Marshal
December 14, 2022 priority outreach
Junyu Zhang selected as Eberly College of Science’s Fall 2022 Student Marshal
Junyu Zhang of Chongqing, China, will be honored as the student marshal for the Eberly College of Science during Penn State’s fall commencement ceremonies on …
Rare Cosmic Explosion Blasts Hole in Established Science
December 8, 2022 priority outreach
Rare Cosmic Explosion Blasts Hole in Established Science
On Dec. 11, 2021, the NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which has its Mission Operations Center at Penn State, detected a blast of high-energy light …
Tracing the Origins of Rare Cosmic Explosions
November 30, 2022 priority outreach
Tracing the Origins of Rare Cosmic Explosions
The galactic homes of 84 short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs)—produced by the collision of two neutron stars—have now been pinpointed in what is the most extensive …
Bright light from early universe 'opens new chapter in astronomy'
November 30, 2022 priority outreach
Bright light from early universe 'opens new chapter in astronomy'
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An unexpectedly rich array of early galaxies that was largely hidden until now has been observed by researchers using data from …
Bright Light from Early Universe 'Opens New Chapter in Astronomy'
November 21, 2022 priority outreach
Bright Light from Early Universe 'Opens New Chapter in Astronomy'
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An unexpectedly rich array of early galaxies that was largely hidden until now has been observed by researchers using data from …
Swift telescope captures brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded
November 4, 2022 priority outreach
Swift telescope captures brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded
On October 9, 2022, an unusually bright and long-lasting gamma-ray burst—the most powerful type of explosion in the universe—was detected by the Neil Gehrels Swift …
NASA selects STAR-X for $3M mission concept study
August 30, 2022
NASA selects STAR-X for $3M mission concept study
STAR-X, the Survey and Time-domain Astrophysical Research Explorer, a proposed NASA Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) mission that includes Penn State astronomer Niel Brandt, has been selected …
Hubble Finds Isolated Black Hole Roaming Our Milky Way Galaxy
June 21, 2022
Hubble Finds Isolated Black Hole Roaming Our Milky Way Galaxy
Though an estimated 100 million black holes are predicted to roam among the stars in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have never conclusively identified an …
About our wordmark
Monica Rincon Ramirez

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez while she was a graduate student at the Institute. Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work included general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds; her thesis focused on effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope of research at the IGC. The base represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity — approaches studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle shows galaxies embedded in a smooth surface characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the larger physical scales studied at the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology. The top curves to an extreme representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet, with a binary black hole pair nearby — the high-energy phenomena studied at the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.