Lloyd Knox

Outreach

 

Public lectures

I enjoy giving public lectures. From January 2014 to July 2015 I have presented at the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series, the Mt. Tamalpais Mountain Theater, the University of Toledo (the McMaster Cosmology Lecture), the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Ohio Center of Science and Industry, and the Allegheny Observatory. A description and link to a video recording of one of these is available here.

 

Sometimes these are for free, sometimes for an honorarium. Please contact me if you are interested in having me speak to your group. 

 

Workshops

I led a workshop for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in 2013 called "Introduction to Modern Cosmology." It was a mixture of presentation by me, working on exercises in small groups, and whole-class discussions that we fit into two two-hour sessions. Some of the pictures on this page are from that workshop. Student evaluations from the workshop are available on my Workshops page.

 

I have also led workshops for teachers through the Science in the River City program on the campus of Sacramento State and, for a different group on the campus of Sonoma State.

 

Please contact me if you are interested in a workshop on big bang cosmology for your group. 

 

Video production

I have produced a handful of very low-budget videos via the "Spherical Cow Company" that I founded with graduate student Damien Martin and undergraduates Justin Smith and David Gribble. Our first and best production is described and linked here.

 

It has been a while since we've made any videos, but we may return to it in the future.

 

One-on-one conversation

Some of my favorite outreach takes place informally, such as on airplanes when a curious person sits next to me. I have also been hired to address questions one-on-one via phone and/or Skype. Please contact me if you are interested.

 

Blogging

I write a blog about careers in physics, which consists mainly of interviews I conduct with people with physics degrees who are, for the most part, working outside of academia. I do this mainly to bring a broader perspective to our students than my academic colleagues and I are able to provide directly.

 

Consulting

Since there is not (yet?) any industrial cosmology, at one point I thought I would never do any consulting. However, it turns out that an ability to infer truth from data is a widely applicable skill. I have done part-time consulting work for three different companies. If you have an interesting data analysis challenge feel free to run it past me; I might be able to help. For any problem that you think might interest me and for which my skills might be useful, drop me an email.