A photo of Ryan Golant

Hi! I'm Ryan Golant.

I'm a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Astronomy at Columbia University. My research interests lie primarily in computational plasma astrophysics, or the simulation of hot gas in extreme environments throughout the Universe. I am particularly interested in the question of cosmic magnetogenesis, or how the first magnetic fields in the Universe came into being; my thesis work — advised by Professors Greg Bryan and Lorenzo Sironi — looks at how magnetic fields may arise from turbulence and how this could explain the presence of magnetic fields in (largely empty) cosmic voids. You can read more about my research here.

I'm also very interested in teaching, science communication, and public outreach. I have dedicated much of my grad school career thus far to pedagogical development, science writing for a non-specialist audience, and community service leveraging my scientific expertise. You can read more about my teaching, writing, and outreach down below.

Beyond academics, I enjoy playing violin and video games, learning new things (my interests range from art history to mythology and folklore to jazz and music theory), and watching cat videos on the internet. If you have any cute cat videos, feel free to send them my way!.

Research

Here's a sample of some of the research I'm working on:

a GRB and its afterglow

GRB Afterglows

We know that the "afterglow" light left behind by gamma-ray bursts (or GRBs, a class of violent astrophysical explosions) is due to charged particles spiraling around in magnetic fields. Curiously, however, observations of GRB afterglows suggest that these magnetic fields must have strengths and spatial scales much larger than any of our current theoretical models can produce. So, where do these large-scale magnetic fields come from? Our particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations demonstrate that a significant amount of field amplification occurs ahead of the GRB's external shock wave as a result of kinetic plasma instabilities; the field generated by these instabilities could be a key contributor to the field powering the afterglow. For more info, check out my paper with Lorenzo Sironi and Arno Vanthieghem coming soon!

a cosmic web simulated by Enzo

Gravity in Enzo-E

With the number of computational cores in supercomputers increasing exponentially each year, it is vital that we design software that can keep pace with these rapid improvements. Enzo-E — a state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamics code — is designed to deliver the scalability required to bring computational astrophysics into the exascale era. I've been leading the development of Enzo-E’s new gravity solver, a novel implementation of the Fast Multipole Method (FMM), a tree-based algorithm that should scale nearly linearly with the number of particles in a simulation. When coupled with efficient adaptive mesh refinement and asynchronous parallelization, we expect this implementation of FMM to speed up Enzo-E substantially, allowing for unprecedented detail in future cosmology and astrophysics simulations. Stay tuned for more details on Enzo-E's performance once the new gravity solver is fully implemented (with help from Greg Bryan, Matthew Abruzzo, and James Bordner)!

a simulation showing the growth of magnetic fields due to turbulence

Turbulent Magnetogenesis

Magnetic fields are everywhere in the Universe — and we don't know why. Even in the most underdense regions of the cosmos — in cosmic voids, where densities can sink down to 27 orders of magnitude smaller than the density of air at sea level — we find magnetic fields. How (and when) did voids fill up with magnetic fields? Were these fields generated early in the Universe (soon after the Big Bang), or were they generated by more recent astrophysical phenomena? By studying how turbulence can produce magnetic fields — and by studying how turbulence behaves in cosmic voids — we may be able to solve this magnetic mystery. This is the topic of my Ph.D. thesis with Greg Bryan and Lorenzo Sironi — so stick around for more updates over the coming years.

A photo of Ryan leading a pedagogy workshop

Teaching

I believe that no one is a "natural teacher;" being an effective educator requires practice, observation, and ongoing critical self-reflection. As such, I've tried to take advantage of Columbia's pedagogical development resources to improve my teaching practice. For the past year, I have participated in the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning's Teaching Development Program (CTL TDP), participating in workshops, learning communities, and other teaching exercises. I've also taken advantage of the resources offered by the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) to learn the best practices for STEM teaching. In Fall 2022, I completed the online CIRTL course "An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching," and in Spring 2023 I will be taking the course "Advancing Learning Through Evidence-Based STEM Teaching."

For the 2022-2023 academic year, I am serving as a Lead Teaching Fellow (LTF) for the CTL. In this role, I serve as a liaison between the CTL and the Columbia astronomy department, organizing pedagogical development events in the department and advertising the CTL's teaching resources to the astronomy grad students. In October 2022, I held a workshop called "Teaching Scientifically: Improving your teaching via the scientific method," in which I introduced the concept of "Teaching-as-Research" and led participants through the basic steps of planning a Teaching-as-Research project. The workshop had a total of 19 participants, including astronomy grad students, postdocs, and faculty.

In December 2022, I helped start a new teaching development initiative in the astronomy department called "Teaching Tea." The goal of Teaching Tea is to provide an open forum for teaching-related discussions in the department, bringing together astronomers at all career stages to share and reflect on their teaching experiences. We're currently holding two meetings per month, so I'm excited to see how this impacts teaching in our department!

The Astrobites logo

Writing

I believe that the ability to convey complex scientific ideas in a way that's understandable and interesting to a non-specialist audience is a vital skill that, unfortunately, still remains undervalued by many scientists. Over the past two years, as a regular author for Astrobites, I've been able to practice this skill, translating recent astronomy research into brief, undergrad-level written summaries. Check out some of my Astrobites articles below!

Recently, I've been getting acquainted with longer-form science writing, on the scale of feature articles for major popular science publications. As I continue writing about science, I'll be sure to post my articles here!

People looking through telescopes on Columbia's College Walk

Outreach

My favorite aspect of being an astronomer is the opportunity to share my enthusiasm for the cosmos with others. As a grad student, I've had the privilege to engage with the public on many occassions.

Recently, I took the lead in reviving the Columbia astronomy department's public outreach program, after the pandemic all but dismantled the department's in-person outreach opportunities. With the help of Professor Kathryn Johnston and a handful of undergrads, we successfully organized the first departmental outreach event in over a year, featuring a public talk by Professor David Kipping and a night of telescope observing in the center of Columbia's main campus.

Now, in Spring 2023, I'm organizing two public events per month (on Friday evenings), similar to how things were pre-pandemic. If you'd like to receive notifications about upcoming Columbia Astronomy events, contact me!

Over the past three years, I've tried to seize every possible opportunity to use my science expertise for community service. For three semesters, I taught computer science and programming fundamentals to underrepresented students at Democracy Prep High School in Harlem as part of an after-school "Coding Club." In the Spring, I will be participating in a new outreach program called "Science Storytellers," in which I'll be giving planetarium-style talks on different sky cultures to underrepresented youth in Queens. This coming semester, I also plan to implement a new astronomy outreach and education program for pediatric patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; as a former pediatric cancer patient myself, it's an honor to be able to give back to the pediatric oncology community in a meaningful way.

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