Jatila van der Veen, Ph.D. Project Scientist, Experimental Cosmology Group, Interstellar Exploration Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, Santa Barbara City College Office: 1001, Physics Trailer 2 (Bldg. 937 on the Interactive campus map ) Office phone: 805-893-5068 email: jatila[at]physics[.]ucsb[.]edu Current CV (Feb., 2019)

• Arts-based teaching strategies to improve access to physics for all students
• Learning astronomy in virtual immersive spaces
• Visualization and Sonification of astrophysical data - applications in research and education

• Interdisciplinary Center for Interstellar Exploration (iC)
• Sending Life to the Stars
• Spectroscopic analysis of laser-ablated ejecta from rocks in the lab

Some Recent publications:

• Book chapter pre-print: Draw Your Physics Homework? Art as a Path to Understanding and Assessment in Undergraduate Science Education
• Poster: Astronomy Learning in Virtual Environments Results of a Pilot Study conducted in 2014.
• Symmetry as a Thematic Approach to Physics Education published in Symmetry: Culture and Science , Darvas, G. (Ed.), 24(1-4), pp. 463-484, 2013.
• Folk dance as culturally-situated mathematics: A workshop for the 2013 Symmetry Festival, Delft, The Netherlands, 4 August, 2013.
• van der Veen, J. (2013). Student-generated Representations of Special and General Relativity in an Interdisciplinary College Course Invited paper presented on 28 April, 2013 at the national conference of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
• van der Veen, J. (2012). Draw your physics homework? Art as a path to understanding in Physics Education, American Educational Research Journal, April 2012, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 356–407.
  Click HERE for the UCSB press release.

Current Collaborations:

• The Rothman Lab, UCSB
• Professor Michael Waltemathe, Ruhr University, Germany

Classes for Winter, 2019

1. Lecture 1: Introduction
2. Lecture 2: Exoplanets & history of SETI
3. Lecture 3: Current ETI searches
4. Lecture 4: Optical SETI
5. Lecture 5: Panspermia
6. Lecture 6: What we can learn about a planet from probing its interior

The last symmetry class, Spring quarter, 2016. Sadly, the NASA funding for teaching this class ended in June, 2016. The last slides and syllabus still available for anyone who is interested. See web.physics.ucsb.edu/~jatila/symmetry-and-aesthetics-in-physics.html

Links to Older Papers:

• van der Veen, J., McGee, R., & Moreland, J. (2012). The Planck Visualization Project: Immersive and Interactive Software for Astronomy and Cosmology Education in Conference Proceedings of the International Dynamic, Interactive and Explorative Learning (IDEAL) Conference, Bayburt University, July 2-5, 2012
• McGee, R., van der Veen, J., Wright, M., Kuchera-Morin, J., Alper, B., Lubin, P. (2011). SONIFYING THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND, in Conference Proceedings of The 17th Annual International Conference on Auditory Display . Pdf available HERE .
  Slides available under the talks section, below. Click HERE to download Ryan McGee's Sonification of the CMB application, which sonifies 15 model universes, all "flat" (Omega_total = 1).
• Dekker, J., Moreland, J., and van der Veen, J. (2011). DEVELOPING THE PLANCK MISSION SIMULATION AS A MULTI-PLATFORM IMMERSIVE APPLICATION, in Conference Proceedings of The ASME 2011 World Conference on Innovative Virtual Reality (WINVR2011) Pre-print available HERE .
• van der Veen, J. (2010) Planck Visualization Project: Seeing and Hearing the CMB Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, Vol. 431
• van der Veen, J. and Cook-Gumperz, J. (2010) invited, International Pragmatics Association Doing Physics, Performing Gender?
  A sociolinguistic approach towards understanding the persistent gender gap in physics Preprint
• van der Veen, J.K. (2010 in prep) The Role of Narratives in the Co-Construction of Community Identity in Physics Preprint
• van der Veen, J.K., Lubin, P.M., Natoli, P., and Seiffert, M. (1998) Small Scale Anisotropies: The Final Frontier The Physics Teacher, Vol. 36, December, 1998.
• Results of 2006 Dance and Physics Questionnaire 60% of respondents who dance recreationally also have jobs in STEM fields! How can we utilize these data to create more accessible learning pathways to science and math by incorporating strategies from the arts?

Talks of potential interest:

• Astronomy Learning in Digital Virtual Environments, Preliminary Study
• (Draw your physics homework?) Art as a Path to Understanding in Physics Keynote Lecture, Arts in Learning Symposium, November 3, 2012, California Lutheran University
• Teaching Astronomy in Immersive Virtual Reality - a talk given for the Oregon Immersive Education Conference, October 18, 2012. Download slides and videosHERE
• Sonification of the CMB talk given at ICAD 2011 International Community for Auditory Display, 2011, in Budapest.
• Here's a talk in avatar on 04-04-2012 in the The ARVEL Sig CAVE on our Planck Mission Simulations.
• And Here's a recording of a talk I gave about Planck for the Meta Institute of Computational Analysis (MICA) also in Second Life, on May 26^th 2012, on Stella Nova.
• Symmetry: a gender-neutral approach to introductory physics Invited talk for the First Annual Women in Physics Conference at the University of Oregon
• Visualization, Sonification, and Immersive Virtual Spaces in Science Education A colloquium given at the School of Earth and Space Science, Arizona State University, March 21, 2011.
• 3D Immersive Cosmology in the UCSB Allosphere, UCSB Astro Day, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, October 1, 2010
• Planck Visualization Project: Seeing and Hearing the CMB
• Invited talk: Symmetry and Aesthetics in Contemporary Physics AAPT meeting, Feb. 2010
• From Sound Waves to Microwaves: "Listening" to the Oldest Light of the Universe with the Planck Mission
• Listen to the original webinar at the Learning Center, National Science Teachers Association

Dissertation:

Symmetry and Aesthetics in Introductory Physics: An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Physics and Fine Arts Education
Download complete dissertation HERE

For Fun:

• I had the honor of being one of two winners of the contest to name the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• I joined twitter although I rarely use it.
• Clowning around with my 3-D Planck glasses at dotAstronomy-2009!
• Link to my personal Dance Page
• I am a member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists