edX Online
Instructor photo

Alyssa Goodman

Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard University

Harvard University

Areas of expertise

  • - - Astrophysics (Star Formation, the Interstellar Medium, and Galactic Structure)
  • - - Data Visualization
  • - - Technology in STEM education

Major works

The Bones of the Milky Way (sample of astrophysics work)

Ten Simple Rules for the Care and Feeding of Data (role of data and metadata sharing today)

_Principles of High-Dimensional Data Visualization in Astronomy _(modern data visualization)

A Role for Self-Gravity at Multiple Length Scales in the Process of Star Formation (example of a scientific paper using an interactive 3D PDF)

Please see full list of publications online.

Social links

About me

Alyssa Goodman is a physicist by training (Sc.B, MIT 1984, PhD, Harvard 1989), but an artist at heart. She combines her passions for science and art with interests in computing, archaeology, the history of science, and new technologies in her work, which spans astrophysics, data visualization, and new approaches to STEM education. She was named “Scientist of the Year” by the Harvard Foundation in 2015. The PredictionX effort began during Goodman’s sabbatical as “Scholar-in-Residence” at the WGBH media organization in Boston, and crystallized into the highly collaborative project you see today when HarvardX committed to creating re-usable, modular, online, multi-media content.