The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a survey conducted by a team including dozens of researchers across the globe. The survey is named after the astronomer Fritz Zwicky (shown below), who, among other things, played a pivotal role in the initial discovery and understanding of explosive variable stars. Funding support for ZTF is provided by the National Science Foundation and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Los Alamos National Laboratories, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories.

Image credit: Caltech Optical Observatories

Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths

Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths is operated by a subset of ZTF researchers that are working at the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astronomy (CIERA) at Northwestern University, Caltech, and the University of Minnesota. The goal of Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths is to classify every variable star found by ZTF. You can learn more about the team below!

Adam Miller (he/him/his) (Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths PI)
Thank you for your help identifying variable stars that have been observed by ZTF. Every classification you provide brings us a little closer to understanding the birth, death, and life cycle of stars throughout the Universe. While the first variable stars were identified several millenia ago, there are still many mysteries regarding precisely why they get brighter and fainter. I'm a postdoctoral researcher at CIERA working on machine learning algorithms to help classify variable stars – classifications from Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths
I am also the Program Director of the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program.

Xander Hall (he/him/his)
With every click you make in Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths, we learn about a new variable star. These identifications can then be used in machine learning models to classify the tens of millions of variable stars we expect to find in the next decade. I started working on Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths while in high school, and I am now a freshman undergraduate at Caltech where I plan to major in Astronomy. I am particularly interested in the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which will find tons and tons of new variables! I hope to eventually use Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths classification to build machine learning models to classify Rubin Observatory sources.

Aaron Geller (he/him/his)
I am an astronomer jointly appointed at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the Adler Planetarium. The focus of my research is the study of gravitational dynamics, and particularly how dynamical encounters between stars influence the evolution of multiple-star systems, planetary systems, and star clusters. I also work with the Northwestern IT group to develop visualizations of scientific data, and I am the director of Northwestern's CIERA summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. I am also very passionate about communicating science to the public, which I do regularly at the Adler Planetarium's Space Visualization Lab. For more information about me, please see my website.

Michael Coughlin (he/him/his)
Astrophysics, Data Science
Each click you make will help us understand not only astronomy, but also help unleash the capabilities of machine learning on these massive astronomical data sets. I’m an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics (MIfA at the University of Minnesota. In addition to working on Zwicky's Stellar Sleuths, I am interested in ballroom dancing.

Nick Easton (he/him/his)
I am a physics and mathematics undergraduate student at Case Western Reserve University with a big interest in astronomy. As this is my first major research endeavor, I don't have any other interesting work to tell you about. I do however, hope to continue researching and am looking forward to the trials and tribulations of graduate school in my future.

Wynn Jacobson-Galán (he/him/his)
I am currently a graduate student at UC Berkeley (previously at Northwestern) working on supernova progenitor systems and transient astronomy. My work combines multi-wavelength observations (radio to X-ray) of a variety of supernova types to create a complete picture of the final stages of stellar instability and mass-loss before explosion. For more information about me and my research, please see my website.

David Matthews (he/him/his)
I am a graduate student at UC Berkeley (previously Northwestern) studying rare supernova explosions. My research focuses on radio and x-ray observations of superluminous supernovae in order to understand the nature of the power source driving their extreme luminosity.