Current Courses

Courses I Teach

• ASTR/PHYS 4080 - Introduction to Cosmology   (https://utah.instructure.com/courses/982390/assign...)
  An introductory course which explores modern cosmological concepts. Discusses formation of galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, the expansion and the age of the Universe. Topics include the existence and properties of the cosmic microwave background, the origin of the light elements, cosmological inflation, and the role of dark matter and dark energy in the formation and expansion of the Universe. The course will introduce concepts of statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, special and general relativity as needed to explore the course topics.
• PHYS/ASTR 7730 - Statistical and Computational Methods   (https://yymao.github.io/phys7730/)
  This course will discuss a few widely applicable statistical and computational methods of analyzing and modeling phenomena in astrophysics, biophysics, and physics in general. The learning objective is to apply the methods learned in this course to connect experimental or observational data with underlying physical processes through numerical simulations and statistical analyses. Topics that will be covered in this course include stochastic process simulations, Monte Carlo methods, Bayesian analysis, and basic machine learning algorithms. This is a graduate-level course. The course will use Python as the programming language for demonstration and use many examples in physics and astronomy. Students are assumed to be comfortable in programming and have an introductory-level knowledge in physics.