Coughlin part of team that wins Scialog Award in early LSST research

Associate Professor Michael Coughlin of the School of Physics and Astronomy was part of a team that won an award from the second year of the Scialog: Early Science from the LSST from the  Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA).

This Scialog–short for science + dialog– is a “three-year initiative that aims to advance the foundational science needed to realize the full potential of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)”.

The awards are aimed at closing possible gaps in funding and capability that might occur during the survey, which will give the broadest possible view of the night sky during a particular time. The survey is scheduled to begin with the first public alerts of the telescope in February 2026, with the full survey beginning March 2026. Coughlin submitted a proposal “Democracy Now: Accessible and rapid alerts for the astronomical community,” with colleagues Rebecca Phillipson (Villanova University) and Mathew S. Madhavacheril (University of Pennsylvania).

Coughlin and the team will deliver a compressed Rubin alert stream to the community based on existing machine learning codes developed by members of Coughlin's group in the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics.