Faculty and Staff

Hello! My name is Andrew and I love learning. I have an M.S. in Instructional Science and an M.S. in Physics. For ten years I taught high school science classes and supported early career science teachers develop their teaching practice. More recently I've been teaching college physics and astronomy. I developed a love of astronomy through stargazing on camping and backpacking trips. To get a better look, I built a telescope in high school in a class taught by John Dobson, a famous astronomer. I also enjoy hiking, running, board games, traveling, cooking, and coffee. I've recently started to learn more about gardening so that I can grow my own vegetables. I try my best to foster an inclusive, supportive learning community in my classes where we all build knowledge together. My lessons involve active engagement from students as we work in teams to develop new concepts and models for physics and astronomy. If you want to learn in a community, I'd love to have you in my class!

I studied Math & Astrophysics at UC Davis & the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and Astrophysics at UC Berkeley. After grad school, I worked for IBM as an engineer & manager, then as a manager in a startup software firm. I was fortunate to teach a summer Astro class at Chabot, enjoyed the challenge, & have been here since, now in my 35th year. I also taught at CSUEB & UC Berkeley. I was an editor of Mercury, an astronomy magazine & helped to develop educational activities at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and worked for NASA writing about results from the Hubble Space Telescope, reviewing proposals for space missions, and developing labs using data from current satellites observing the Sun and planets around other stars. In 2022 I worked on NASA's SOFIA Airborne IR Observatory. I am an honored recipient of the Reed L. Buffington award for teaching, absolutely love teaching Astronomy & Physics, and love sharing how much astronomy is actually a part of our lives.