Cheng-Han Hsieh

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Cheng-Han Hsieh

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Outreach and Service

I have constantly reminded myself it is a great privilege to learn the things I love. Outside the classroom, I am a learner, a risk-taker, and an education activist. As a child who grew up in multiple countries and studied in Indonesia for high school, I’ve interacted with diverse cultures and witnessed firsthand the impacts of poverty and discrimination. My upbringing cemented my dedication to promoting equal opportunities for all.

Teaching & Mentoring

DEI

From 2014 to 2017 I served as the Head Tutor in a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Riveria, which provided English education to Indonesian elementary students. I collaborated with an ESL teacher to design the curriculum for higher-level English classes. I taught weekly English lessons to a higher-level English class of 30 students over 3 years. The president of Riveria at that time, Christy Zakarias, was awarded the Princess Diana Memorial Award by former British Prime Minister David Cameron. I was honored to be the Head Tutor when the NGO received this international recognition. During my undergraduate years, I continued to teach aboriginal children math and English in the deep mountains in Taiwan. I have always dedicated myself to making an impact on and learning from as many people as possible. My experiences as a Head Tutor in an NGO, and collaborating with many people from different cultural backgrounds have equipped me well to bring equality into classrooms. I highly value education and have put significant effort into helping to educate underprivileged children or ethnic minorities.

DEI

At Yale, I mentored over 6 undergraduates and was a teaching fellow for 4 astronomy classes. I taught Ivaris Martinez, a Latino/Hispanic undergraduate student at the University of Puerto Rico, how to code with Python during the summer. With no prior experience in programming, our journey began with the basics of the Linux system, gradually progressing to Python programming. I also familiarized her with radio astronomy tools, particularly CASA, guiding her in producing integrated intensity maps and position-velocity diagrams. By summer’s end, she had acquired foundational skills essential for a radio astronomer.

Additionally, I guided a Yale undergraduate, Sally Jiang, for her senior thesis which focused on mapping Orion A’s magnetic field using Palomar polarization observations. We observed more than 10 nights together with the Palomar 200-inch telescope. I supervised her and was involved in the observation planning, data analysis, and reduction. Sally is now a first-year graduate student at the University of Columbia and is on track to publish her first-author paper this year. Another notable mentoring experience was with Daniel Chang, another Yale undergraduate. Over a span of two years, I supervised his project, “Identifying ISO-impacted Craters on the Moon.” He recently submitted his research note, which is slated for publication in the AAAS research note shortly.

Science Service

ACDC, graduate-undergraduate mentor, YURA reviewer

I also worked to make research opportunities more accessible to minority students. As a racial minority myself, I understand that one of the biggest problems for minorities to access graduate-level education is the racial and gender-biased GRE exam. As a member of the Yale Astronomy and Climate Diversity Committee (ACDC), we successfully convinced the department to drop the GRE Physics requirement. In addition, I participated in the AstroSibs program as a mentor for more than 4 years. AstroSib is a student-led professional development program that pairs an undergraduate student with a graduate student (Big Sib). The mentor gives students advice on taking courses, finding research opportunities, and how to apply to graduate school. I also volunteered as a reviewer for the Yale undergraduate research journal (YURA) to support the undergraduates’ research community.

ALMA Ambassador

DEI

I was also the 2022 ALMA Ambassador, a National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) program to make radio astronomy (ALMA) more accessible to the greater community. I ran the Cycle 9 ALMA proposal preparation workshop at Yale for the northeast coast area. I was the main organizer of the 1-day workshop. I wrote proposals to host the workshop, advertised the event, and obtained sponsorship from NRAO to prepare all the lectures, invited speakers, and coordinated the COVID rules. During that time, I was the only graduate student at Yale whose research involved radio astronomy. I designed lectures to include the hands-on ALMA proposal preparation sections, and I helped in total of around 25 undergraduates and graduate students from adjacent fields to come up with ideas and submit ALMA proposals. By having a free hybrid workshop, I enabled students from an Indian University to participate in the event. In addition, I also helped NRAO review the Student Observing Support (SOS) research grant proposals.

ERES Conference Main Organizer

Besides making learning opportunities for radio astronomy more accessible to the greater community, I also worked to give opportunities to early career astronomers to present their work at a conference. I was one of the main organizers of the 2023 Emerging Researchers in Exoplanet Science Symposium (ERESVIII @ Yale). I was on the scientific committee, reviewing the registration, sorting out the abstracts, and completing other administrative tasks. The main purpose of ERES is to provide a venue specifically for early career researchers to share their research, network, and seek new collaborations. Over 100 early career astronomer participants from four different countries attended the conference. We wrote proposals to the Heising-Simons Foundation and secured over 140,000 USD in funding to cover all participants’ registration fees and provide meals, lodging, and travel funds for those in need. Significantly reducing the cost of attendance helps ERES to promote equity and inclusion in the field as most attendees (undergraduates) do not have travel funds of their own.

Through my service, teaching, and research, I am committed to making the field a more welcoming space for scholars from marginalized communities, and I look forward to continuing this work as a postdoctoral researcher in the future.

Media and Interview

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