From Fellow to Faculty: Professor Josh Speagle

 

I’m an Assistant Professor of Astrostatistics jointly appointed between the Department of Statistical Sciences and the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics. I moved from the role of Dunlap Postdoctoral Fellow in 2022. 

I spent a lot of my childhood shuttling back and forth between the United States and China, splitting my time between small suburban cities around Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the mega-cities of Beijing and Shanghai. I fell in love with in astronomy and physics in high school after reading a copy of “From Eternity to Here” by Sean Carroll. That kicked off a crazy but incredible journey that led me to Harvard, the University of Tokyo, and now the University of Toronto! 

 

 

Congratulations on your position as Assistant Professor! What are you most looking forward to in the role?

Thanks so much! I’m super excited and humbled to be joining the faculty here and the wondeeful and vibrant community at the University of Toronto. The thing I’m most looking forward to in my new position is being able to better create and support efforts to make astronomy, statistics, and science in general a more welcoming and inclusive place so everyone can feel like their own background, interests, and expertise feel like an integral part of our community.

Can you tell us a little bit about your specific field of research?

My research focuses on trying to understand how galaxies like our own Milky Way form, behave, and evolve, and what that can teach us about the physical processes which gives us the extremely diverse population of galaxies we see today. This often involves working with large datasets of whatever astronomers can get there hands on, which leads me to use a fun mix of astronomy, statistics, and data science to try and analyze these data.
I like to think of this type of work in terms of trying to understand people, such as the story of whoever is reading this interview (you!). Understanding the story of how exactly you found your way to this specific place involves many twists and turns that include personal choices but also interactions with other people, your family, and even larger societies forces like technological advancement. Studying the Milky Way is essentially doing this process in reverse, which is both incredibly rewarding and challenging. It also feels very personal, since unraveling the history of our own Galaxy is in a very real sense uncovering the secrets behind our own origins.
What originally brought you to the Dunlap Institute?

What originally brought me to Dunlap was the incredibly friendly, supportive, and vibrant intellectual atmosphere it actively cultivates along with its commitment to teaching, service, and public outreach. I really loved all those aspects of the program, which I find unique compared to many other postdoctoral opportunities.

What are you most proud of about your time as a Dunlap Fellow?

Most of my time as a Fellow was spent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many people, this time was really difficult for me as I struggled with feelings of isolation and depression. However, one bright spots in during that time was getting to work with students as part of the astronomy Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) in 2021. Although students participated remotely, to try and build a sense of community among ourselves and the students, a few other Dunlap Fellows and I banded together to create a mini-research group. It meant the world to me when they told us at the end of the summer that our efforts really made a difference and that many of them have continued to keep in touch and even become close friends.

What do you hope to achieve in your time as Assistant Professor?

Oh gosh! I guess my hope for the next few years is I can help my colleagues in making the University of Toronto a world leader in the growing (and exciting!) interdisciplinary areas of astrostatics and astroinformatics. And hopefully figure out a few more things about stars, galaxies, the Milky Way, and everything in-between along the way!

 

 

With the help of colleagues, I mapped the distances to, and properties of, 170 million stars in the Milky Way.

 

An artist’s impression of The Milky Way galaxy. Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky.

 

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