Dr. Ashley Villar

Biography

Ashley Villar is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University, focusing on using data-driven methods and machine learning to study stellar eruptions, mergers, and explosions. Her research particularly emphasizes the utilization of multiband light curves to understand the underlying physics of optical transients. Before her current position, she held the inaugural Mercedes Richards Career Development Professorship at Penn State and was a Simons Junior Fellow at Columbia University and the Flatiron Institute. Villar received her PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics from Harvard University in 2020, where she was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow under the guidance of Edo Berger. Earlier, she graduated from MIT in 2014 with a major in Physics and a minor in Mathematics, and she was inspired to pursue astronomy after reading 'Death by Black Hole' by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Outside of academia, she volunteers, climbs, and engages in various projects with her husband, including understanding statistics and training neural networks.

Research Interests