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

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

During my PhD at ETH Zurich I had the chance to mentor and work with Bachelor's and Master's students. At UCLA and currently at Stanford I am involved in the mentoring of PhD and undergraduate students. In addition, I collaborate with several PhD students around the globe on projects they are thriving.