2016-2017 WRF and Moore/Sloan Postdoctoral Fellow
Yi Cao was a Moore/Sloan Data Science and WRF Innovation in Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow for in 2016-2017. He is currently a Software Engineer at Google in Mountain View, CA.
Biography
Zeljko Ivezic, Astronomy
Magdalena Balazinska, Computer Science & Engineering
Education History
Ph.D., Astronomy, California Institute of technology, 2016
M.S., Astrophysics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 2011
B.S., Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 2008
Research Goals
Astronomy is transforming from a data-starved to data-swamped discipline. The observational data obtained in the next decade will supersede everything accumulated over the preceding centuries of astronomy, fundamentally changing the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery.
Yi Cao’s research goals were to maximize the science gains from these huge volumes of data in understanding cosmic explosions (such as supernovae) and variable stars. With existing data sets, Cao forecasts and optimizes performance of future astronomical surveys that produce large volumes of data (such as LSST), develop and validate algorithms for future realtime processing of big data, and organize realtime follow-up observations to enhance the scientific returns from the survey data.