Education & Arts Research

To improve understanding of the universe, we need to improve our teaching! Cool Star Lab team explores new approaches for high school, undergraduate, graduate, and public education through new research initiatives, effective video-based instruction, community-based science, and art & science collaborations.

Current Projects

CERIC

CERIC (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning, Implications, and Context) is a methodology to read primary research articles, developed by Dr. Genevive Bjorn. Our team has implemented CERIC in research groups, courses, and student mentoring, and our first book is scheduled for publication in 2026!

Brown Dwarf Mini-Course

This video series explores the "fundamentals" of brown dwarf science, and is aimed at senior undergraduate or graduate students starting up in brown dwarf science. It is supplemented by a set of python notebook exercises developed by former graduate student Dr. Chih-Chun Hsu. The course will be available in 2026.

Classical Mechanics Videos

This video course includes 72 videos and 14 problem solving worksheets exploring the key topics of classical mechanics: translational motion, forces & Newton's laws, energy & work, momentum, and rotational motion. Using learning glass and green screen videos, this course was used for a flip-model PHYS 1A course and modified for remote instruction during the COVID pandemic.

Recent Research and News

Bringing the Universe to Schools

(September 2025) Cool Star Lab members are volunteering in the Cosmic Tours program, an outreach project that brings a portable planetarium to local K-12 schools and community sites. The inflatable planetarium provides an interactive astronomical experience of the night sky, including a tour of constellations in different cultures and a tour of the Solar System. Since its founding, Cosmic Tours has held 150 events across the San Diego region (read more about Cosmic Tours, including how to support and coordinate an event at your institution)

The Kumeyaay Night Sky

(August 2025) STARTastro scholar Ethan Baker and PI Adam Burgasser facilitated a star party in the Anza Borrego desert with students and community members of Kumeyaay Community College. The event was part of a teaching Kumeyaay cosmology course led by tribal elder Michael Connolly Miskwish, author of Maay Uuyow: Kumeyaay Cosmology. The dark moonless skies afforded beautiful views of the Milky Way (Hatotkeur); the constellations Scorpius (Shuluk), Cassiopaeia (Llykuushirra), and the Big Dipper (Shallymat); Mars and Saturn; and various star clusters and the Andromeda Galaxy.

Cool Star Lab Participates in Barrio Logan Science Art Festival

(April 2025) Current and former members of the Cool Star Lab participated in the 2025 Barrio Logan Science and Art Festival. Organized by the Barrio Logan Association, UCSD CREATE, and community partners, this festival highlights science, art and culture across San Diego communities. We participated as part of a table hosted by the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, which featured astronomy demonstrations (including an opportunity to "stare at the Sun", and students created a solar system that spanned the festival. Adam Burgasser was even featured in local news coverage of the event.

Eye on the Sky at Lick Observatory

(February 2025) Cool Star Lab members were featured in a recent photo essay on Lick Observatory, during a visit on site in October 2024. Stunning photographs of the facility were taken by photographer Erik Jepsen, and feature some inside views of the observatory's inner workings (see the photo essay on UC San Diego Today)

Astronomy represents at the San Diego Festival of Science & Engineering

(February 2025) Members of the UCSD A&A community, including Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser, participated in the San Diego Festival of Science & Engineering, held annually at Petco Park. Adam set up a mini to-scale Solar System in the park, requiring telescopes to view Jupiter and Saturn. Jarred Roberts set up demonstrations on exoplanet transits and gravitational orbits & waves. Over 20,000 attendees visited 150 exhibitors at the park.

A Pint of Science

(February 2025) UCSD A&A graduate student Vincent Savignac and Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser and brought science to the people at an Astronomy on Tap event at the Duck Foot Brewing Miramar. Vincent led a discussion on the habitability of planets in the Stars Wars universe, while Adam talked about his team's recent discovery of a hypervelocity star. Astronomy on Tap is an international program that brings astronomical science to communities across the globe.

STEM Outreach in Hawaii

(November 2024) Emma Softich had the privilege of participating in the Girls Exploring Math and Science (GEMS), an outreach program associated with Keck Observatories. The November event included 16 workshops for over 150 5th-grade girls from the western part of the Big Island of Hawai'i. Emma helped present an exhibit on Infrared Astronomy which featured an interactive infrared camera, and shared the usefulness of infrared light when it comes to looking through dust - or trash bags! Emma really enjoyed the opportunity to interact with the students and help inspire the next generation of women in STEM.

Science for Southeast San Diego

(August 2024) Members of the Cool Star Lab participated in the UCSD Astronomy & Astrophysics booth at the 4th Southeast Art & Science Expo at Malcolm X library in San Diego. This community event engages people of all ages in science, art, technology and exploration. Our booth featured demonstrations on optics, representations of the electromagnetic spectrum, tactile "images" of cosmic sources, and an opportunity to see the sunspots on our currently highly active Sun.

Burgasser Speaks on Comic Con Panel

(July 2024) Comic Con 2024 has come to San Diego! Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser participated in a panel discussion on the TV series For All Mankind: Historic Fiction, Real Science with several experts in space science, engineering, biology, and sociology. The panel was hosted by the Fleet Center's Andrea Decker. Read how several UCSD folks contributed to Comic Con, and watch the For All Mankind panel discussion on YouTube.

Adam Burgasser awarded graduate teaching award

(May 2024) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser was awarded a UCSD Graduate and Professional Student Association Outstanding Faculty Teaching award! This annual award honors a faculty member at UCSD who is an exceptional educator at the graduate and/or professional level. Adam was nominated by Physics graduate student Thomas Wong. Congratulations Adam!

Building a Galaxy at Space Day

(May 2024) UCSD Astronomy shared the wonders of the Universe with the public as part of the Space Day event at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. In addition to physics and astronomy demonstrations, participants got the chance to collectively build a Garden Galaxy, creating various cosmic sources with crafts and imagination.

Cruising to the solar eclipses

(Apr 2024) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser led a cruise expedition on board the Holland America Koningsdam to view the total solar eclipse off the coast of Mexico. We were met with clear skies and over 4 minutes of totality! Adam also held several outreach talks on brown dwarfs, searches for life, and exciting results from JWST. See some of the media coverage at USA Today, Fox 5 San Diego, and ABC 10 San Diego.

CERIC Workshops for Cal-Bridge

(Jan 2024) Cool Star Lab members participated in the Southern California Workshop for Cal-Bridge Scholars, hosted at UCSD. In addition to running lab tours for visiting Scholars, Genevive Bjorn & Adam Burgasser led a 3-hour workshop on the CERIC method for reading the primary literature.

Sound Planetarium at AAS 243

(Jan 2024) Adam Burgasser and Tara Knight led a booth at the AAS 243 Winter meeting in New Orleans, LA, on the Sound Planetarium project. The booth featured the most rcent version of our VR exploration of the universe and of a strange exoworld. Tara also presented a talk entitled "Sound Planetarium: 100 Brightest Stars"

Viewing the October 2023 partial eclipse of the Sun

(Oct 2023) UCSD Astronomy & Astrophysics students, faculty, and researchers came out to celebrate and educate the partial eclipse of the Sun on October 14th at the Fleet Museum at Balboa Park. We brought various telescopes for viewing and projecting the eclipse for several hundred community members, some of whom got to hold the crescent Sun in their hands! [see the news coverage...]

Cool Star Lab eclipse outreach on a cruise ship

(Oct 2023): Cool Star Lab members Bretton Simpson, Joman Wong, and Adam Burgasser led an outreach event on the Holland America cruise ship Volendam, introducing 6th grade students from the Perkins school in Barrio Logan to the upcoming October 14th annular solar eclipse. The students go to "stare at the Sun" through eclipse glasses and their own homemade solar pinhole projection box [see the news coverage on CBS8]

Students present at UCSD Summer Research Conference

(Aug 2023): Cool Star Lab summer research students participated in the UCSD Summer Undergradute Research Conference, taking over an unprecedented two full sessions and more! Research talks can be viewed on YouTube: Galaxies & Stars session, Astronomy & Astrophysics session, and Teaching & Learning session. Congratulations to all of the researchers for all their accomplishments this summer!

Burgasser to Lead Eclipse Tour

(July 2023): Adam Burgasser will be leading an eclipse viewing from a cruise ship next year! The April 2024 "Eclipse America" will pass across Mexico and the US, and Adam will be helping sea voyagers on Holland America get the best view (read more.. and also check out the AAS Eclipse page).

Cool Star Lab Partners with Native Like Water

(July 2023): Cool Star Lab members organized a pair of outreach events with the Native Like Water program, demonstrating physics concepts at UCSD and holding a star party at the La Jolla Indian Reservation Campground. Native Like Water curates experiences through an Indigenous lens, focusing on conservation and cultural practice.

Meeting with INSITE artists

(Feb 2023): Adam Burgasser hosted an international group of artists to discuss art-science collaborations, as part of the INSITE Lab program. Adam discussed some of the science-art partnerships the Cool Star Lab has participated in over the years, and Emma Softich conducted a live demonstration of N-body dynamics using rulers and masking tape.

Cool Star Lab at the Southeast Science & Art Expo

(Aug 2022): Cool Star Lab team members participated in the 2022 Southeast Science and Art Expo at the Malcolm X Library, where they led demonstrations in physics phenomena and made a to-scale model of the Solar System along the Library parking lot (learn more...)

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