Personal website of Simon Birrer

Teaching and Mentoring

I consider teaching and mentoring students as an integral part of being a scientist. Since the beginning of my undergraduate studies, I actively taught and mentored students, ranging from senior high school to advanced PhD students.

If you are interested in pursuing a research project in my group, visit my group page and get in touch with me!

Teaching at Stony Brook

Other teaching activities

As a PhD student at ETH Zurich I had the opportunity to contribute to the teaching efforts at ETH Zurich. During my bachelor and master's degree, I got employed by the Department of Mathematics at ETH as a teaching assistant for undergraduate mathematics courses. Throughout my studies and my PhD at ETH, I coached high school students to prepare them for physics competitions, and, more importantly to me, enlighten the passion for STEM sciences to the younger generation. More recently as a PostDoc, I provide online interactive course material, as additional resources targeted for undergraduates and starting graduate students, to gain access to the field of gravitational lensing and the use of open-source software.

HPP Telescope at ETH Zurich, which I used as an instructor for the Astrophysics Lab. It is a 50 cm telescope (corrected Dall-Kirkham design) located on the roof of the HPP building. The telescope is installed on a computerized equatorial mount, and as a CCD detector a SBIG STX-16803 camera is used, which can be equipped with various broad-band and narrow-band filters. Image credit: ETH Zurich.

Mentoring students

I am delighted to work with students at all levels of their education and training. See my group page for current and past students, and potential opportunities to work with me at Stony Brook. In addition, I collaborate with several PhD students around the globe on projects they are thriving. Students I worked with at prior research institutions are listed below: