Public lecture

The public lecture is organised together with Studium Generale and The Kapteyn Astronomical institute.

Speaker: Stephen Serjeant, Professor of Astronomy at the Open University (UK)
Date: Wednesday 27 March 2019, 8:00 PM
Location: Aula, Academy Building, University of Groningen

Title: Citizen Science and the data avalanche

Abstract: Astronomy and particle physics have begun a new data-rich era of discovery, from finding warps in space and time to new particles in accelerators. But the data avalanche is so fast, so large and so complex that it’s a challenge for computing. Artificial Intelligence regularly offers no easy solutions. Humans are still often much better than AI at classification tasks. This has led to a new way of doing science: crowdsourcing, with the help of citizen science volunteers. This gives members of the public a genuine and valuable participation in scientific discovery, and there is a huge public appetite for taking part. This talk will show you how you can join in, and review some of the highlights of ASTERICS citizen science on the leading crowdsourcing platform, the Zooniverse.

ASTERICS is a project supported by the European Commission Framework Programme Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation action under grant agreement n.653477

E-mail: locasterics@astron.nl