ASTRONOMY & PHYSICS PROFESSOR – DR.MICHAEL ENDL, Teaching Methods & Style
What to expect in class:
Astronomy is fun and a great adventure of exploration!
My goal is to communicate the tremendous human joy of discovering the nature of the universe in my classes. I tell stories about the people who made important discoveries, and make you reflect on the impact that these discoveries had on the people at that time, not only on the scientists, but on the public as well. Examples are milestone discoveries like Newton’s realization that the Moon follows the same basic natural motion laws as a rock thrown by a person. Or, the time only about 100 years ago, that Astronomers realized the size of our Milky Way galaxy, and then, just a short time later, discovered that it is just one of an untold number of galaxies in a mind-blowingly large universe! I am using this to encourage you not only to be interested in the course material, but also so that you stay connected – or even participate – in the scientific exploration of nature after the class has ended.
In my lectures, I frequently use slides projected on the large screen in the classroom. But I also show many videos and the lab classes have hands-on activities, including using the ACC telescopes to view the Sun and the planets and stars at night. I am in charge of the ACC astronomy outreach activities, so you will see me at star parties as well! Another tool that I employ is movies and TV shows. Connecting well-known pop-culture items (like Star Trek, Star Wars or Alien) to the class material is a very powerful educational tool and will help you learn the concepts faster and easier (of course, it is not required that you have seen all these movies to be successful in my class).
If you want to get an even better impression of how I teach, here is an example video lecture about exoplanets from my asynchronous online ASTR1304 (Solar System Astronomy) course:
Please do not hesitate to contact me directly with any remaining questions: [email protected]
About me:
I am associate professor of astronomy and physics at ACC, and a lecturer at UT Austin. I am a former senior research scientist at UT, and I am still doing research in astronomy and frequently use the telescopes at McDonald Observatory in West Texas. My field of research is the study of exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than the sun. For instance, in 2016, I helped discover Proxima b, a possibly rocky planet in the habitable zone of the nearest star to the Sun.
I was born and raised in Vienna, Austria (so my accent will sound familiar if you have seen a lot of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies!). In 2001, I received my PhD in Astronomy from the University of Vienna, after spending nearly 3 years in Chile to work on my thesis at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). My personal hobbies include playing tennis, alpine climbing (not much anymore, which is sad), reading, skiing, science fiction (books, movies, TV shows), computers (VR), and generally talking about aliens (check out my Honors course in Astrobiology) and space stuff.
Fun fact: I was once nearly killed by a flying cow in the Himalayas.