Paul Duffell

Preparing my first day of teaching, realizing my grading system (most of the grade is homework) is based on antiquated (3-year-old) assumptions about how much students learn from homework in this new era of AI. I don't want to fall back on exams being most of their grade; what else can I do? 🎢

My daughter has recently learned to do a hand motion that means "come closer I want to give you a slobbery kiss" and every time she does the hand motion I feel like I've won an academy award.

My graduate student Miranda Pikus was featured on the AAS Journal Author Series! We were interviewed by editor Frank Timmes about our paper, check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDTs... 🧪🔭

My student Miranda Pikus just had her paper accepted to ApJ! arxiv.org/abs/2511.08519 She developed a suite of detailed 3D simulations demonstrating how the unusual "spiky" shape of the supernova remnant Pa 30 could be naturally generated via a fluid instability in a rapidly cooling remnant. 🔭🧪

Congratulations to my student Ranadeep Dastidar for a successful defense of his thesis!

Near the halfway-point in my GR course, I am officially done with "Kerr week". That's a rough metric but we all got through it together! 🎢

Halfway through feeding my baby, she starts pointing ominously at the clock, making me feel like I'm forgetting an appointment or something. But no, she just really likes clocks.

🔭🧪 The latest episode of the #astrophysics #podcast is now available! I discuss interesting ways of learning about dark matter in the Milky Way with Dr. Gurtina Besla from the University of Arizona: rss.com/podcasts/ast...

Tips for writing recommendation letters, by someone reading them: 🧪🔭 1. If you're writing to give a very strong recommendation, say that in the first sentence. 2. If they did research for you, say that in the first few sentences. 3. "First, a little bit about me for context..." <- delete this.

Hmmm, interesting article. www.jconline.com/story/news/l...

December's episode of the #astrophysics #podcast is here! This month, I interview Dr. Kaitlin Kratter of the University of Arizona. We talk about how she figures out how the planets form by putting a solar system on the computer! 🔭🧪

Every now and then, you check into a hotel from a certain era and it's like you're spending the night inside a Denny's.

My daughter's current frustration: she wants to have her book and eat it too.

We just got our conference fliers printed out for Rise_Time 2026! Hope to hand out plenty of these at the HEAD meeting next week!

🔭🧪 Haven't posted here much lately, but I figured @sciencesocks.bsky.social would have words for me if I didn't promote Merel's episode of the #astrophysics #podcast! Dr. Merel van 't Hoff tells us all about the environments that new solar systems are born in! Check it out! rss.com/podcasts/ast...

Can't wait til half of these students stop coming to class so I can get a decent parking spot again.

The universe of Star Trek is set in an idyllic world where humans never invented social media.

My baby daughter gets pockets but my wife doesn't.

We're recording this episode soon, so in case you have any astronomy/astrophysics/science questions for us please post them here! The weirder the better. Also feel free to just ask about our lives. We're soliciting questions from a variety of sources! 🔭🧪

For the next episode of the #podcast, I hope to do an astrophysics Q&A. I invite you to reply with any questions about astrophysics, or questions about what it's like to be a scientist. To my scientist friends: feel free to reply if you like; just know I may quote your response in the podcast. 🧪🔭

Infant daughter: exhales air Me: I think she just said "dad"!

Good Morning! This month's episode of the #astrophysics #podcast is now available! I am interviewing Dr. Andrea Derdzinski and we talk all about black holes and how we search for them! Let's hope we can continue to do so in the future! 🔭🧪 rss.com/podcasts/ast...

To anyone wondering why I haven't been answering my email, I just became a dad and suddenly I seem to only care about one thing. I'll try not to post too many photos but here's one:

Excited to announce the 'Rutgers Summer Transient Soiree' this July 16-18! To offset the uncertain funding landscape, we are offering a hybrid option + requiring NO registration fee. Non-faculty are especially encouraged to apply! Please apply by May 31! More in the replies! 🧪🔭☄️ #highenergyastro

Another episode of the #astrophysics #podcast is now available! I am interviewing Dr. Jared Goldberg from the Flatiron Institute, and we talk all about Betelgeuse. rss.com/podcasts/ast... 🧪🔭

Apparently I am not good at bluesky so I am posting this again, with the appropriate tags 🧪🔭. The latest episode of the #astrophysics #podcast is out! This month, I am interviewing Dr. Yvette Cendes of the University of Oregon @whereisyvette.bsky.social. Enjoy! rss.com/podcasts/ast...

The latest episode of the #astrophysics #podcast just aired today! I'm interviewing Dr. Yvette Cendes, @whereisyvette.bsky.social. We talk about her latest research on the crazy things that we see happen when a black hole eats a star! rss.com/podcasts/ast...

Google AI with some slick mathemagic:

Happy Weekend! The latest episode of the #astrophysics #podcast has been released! 🧪🔭 This month I am interviewing Dr. Maxim Lyutikov, who studies fast radio bursts and astrophysical plasmas. We also discuss connections to our own sun and the aurora borealis. rss.com/podcasts/ast...

Very impressive astro seminar yesterday by @whereisyvette.bsky.social -- Incredible new data on tidal disruption events (TDEs), it pays to keep looking in the radio! 🧪🔭 (This plot is old data from 3 years ago -- you'll have to ask Yvette if you want the latest, but the light curve is still rising!)

Poor Google AI.

🧪🔭 Good Morning! The latest episode of the Astrophysics Podcast is out today! I'm interviewing Dr. Lindsey Kwok, a research fellow at Northwestern University. She uses JWST to learn how supernovae exploded! rss.com/podcasts/ast... #astrophysics #podcast

After reading through enough personal statements in grad school applications, the phrase "my academic journey" almost starts to sound like something a normal human would say.

So glad I burned through my NSF grant right away. Always eat the first marshmallow!

I've always said I hate applying for research grants. So in that sense, good news everyone! Be careful what you wish for!

At no point in our curriculum do we teach our students how to make a decent plot, and then on the off-chance we ask for a plot on the homework, we're always surprised when all their plots look hideous. 🎢

Hope all my astronomer friends are having fun at #AAS245. Some of us have to teach our first day of Stat Mech to a room full of graduate students. By the way, unrelated -- does anyone here know what a partition function is?

As we all know, "syllabus" is the latin word for "list of university-wide policies and legal disclaimers".