Da-Ming Yang

I am currently a second year PhD student in Astronomy at Leiden Observatory. My research experience includes several topics under the field of extragalactic astronomy, especially tidal disruption event (TDE) and quasar. During my research, I deal with data, both raw and reduced one, therefore I presume that I am an "apprentice" to an observational astronomer. Nevertheless, I hope to extend my expereince in two dimensions: Firstly, I wish to explore more topics in the future, e.g. observational work in cosmology or planetary system; Secondly, I would like to do some simulation work, or algorithmic work (i.e. statistical learning or machine learning based) in the future.

To me, there are three moments in research that I especially enjoy:
1)  When I capture something on the fly. This stems from my quasar hunting experience with Joe, one of my advisor at Leiden. One of the lesson I learnt from Joe is to understand the data as complete as we can during the observation, otherwise the probability of screwing-up will be boosted drastically. By doing so, it's natural to actually find something in real-time. I really enjoy the feeling of coming home with fruitful results after a long day of observation.
2)  When I successfully predict something. The scope is quite broad, but the common reason is that in the field of astronomy, it's hard to actually verify something. Therefore, every moment that I find out I can predict something, it's cheerful to me. By saying broad, it could be a scientific prediction, or maybe a technical one. They are equally cheerful to me.
3)  When I understand the logic of something thoroughly. I often find myself "swallowing a date without chewing", i.e. I sometimes try to do things before I fully understand it. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, but it is by no means the best way to improve. Now I try to urge myself to understand things as much as possible before I do anything, which actually feels very rewarding.

These thoughts establish my style and philosophy of research. I don't really confine myself to the fields that I am familiar with. With these experiences, I think I can be independent and flexible enough in my research.

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