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Xiaoying Pang

Associate Professor

Calculated based on number of publications stored in Pure and citations from Scopus
20092024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Personal profile

I am Dr. Xiaoying Pang, an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the School of Mathematics and Physics at XJTLU. My research interests include the formation and evolution of star clusters, binary evolution in star clusters, and the morphology of open clusters. My work in these areas has been published in several prestigious journals, including the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the Astrophysical Journal, the Astrophysical Journal Supplements, the Astronomical Journal, and Research in Astrophysics and Astronomy. I have led two research programs to completion under the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and I am currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of an NSFC general program, a China Space Station Telescope (CSST) program, and a Co-Investigator of an NSFC Key program. In 2022, a paper of which I am the corresponding author was awarded the IOP Top Cited Paper Award 2022 in Astronomy and Astrophysics.Beside research, I also enthusiastic at outreach activity. One of my successful outreach activities is the play entitled Space Meet Cute, which I wrote to popularize the science of searching for the second earth-like planet. The play debuted on November 18, 2022, at XJTLU and generated a lot of buzz on campus, drawing a significant crowd to the performance. The overwhelmingly positive response to the play was a testament to its effectiveness in engaging the audience and making science accessible to the general public.In addition to my research work, I am also actively involved in teaching activities. I have developed the Scientists Creation 101 program, which provides undergraduate students with hands-on research experience. Ten students have been involved in five paper publications through this program. I have also incorporated superheroes into my physics teaching and initiated the XJTLU Superhero Design Contest in 2021, which has become an annual event for students to design their own superheroes with the physics they have learned. I received the Highly Commended award for the Most Innovative Teaching Practice in the 2019/2020 Annual XJTLU Learning and Teaching Award, and in 2020, I won the third prize in the micro-teaching video competition in Jiangsu Province. I have been awarded the titles of 2019-2020 Excellent Educator in Suzhou City, Excellent Educator in Suzhou Industrial Park District, Teaching Qinglan Talent Award of Jiangsu Province, and Teaching and Research Talent Award of Suzhou City (苏州市先进教育工作者,苏州工业园区先进教育工作者,江苏省青蓝工程教师骨干,苏州市科教骨干人才).Thank you for visiting my personal page.

Research interests

Probing the Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy via open clusters

The formation, evolution and disruption of star cluster in the Milky Way

Data reduction of Gaia DR2 / DR3 via machine learning neural network

Big data reduction of Million particle N-body simulation.

Experience

Associate Professor: Department of Physics, Xian Jiaotong Liverpool University (September 2022-present)

Assistant Professor: Department of Physics, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (February 2019 - August 2022)

Lecturer: School of Science, Shanghai Institute of Technology (September 2013 - 2019 January)

Postdoctoral Fellow: National Astronomical Observatory of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences (September 2012 - August 2013)

Teaching

I wrote an astronomy drama: Space Meet Cute, which is about searching for the habitable exoplanets. This is a new version of my old drama script Planets, fight back!. From September to November 2022, I selected students as actors and actresses to play the roles in the drama. I was also the director of the drama performance, teaching students to perform and act. The drama has featured the method to searching for exoplanets and the characteristics of habitable planets. The performance of the astronomy drama was scheduled on 18 November 2022, one show in the afternoon at 14:00, and one at 19:00 in the evening. Totally we have 700 students and staff as the audience. The drama has been a sensation on campus and received complement from students and teachers. At the end of the show, there was an astronomy quiz. Audience were active in answering the astronomy questions which they can find the solution when watching the drama. The report of the astronomy drama on 18 November 2022 is available online https://www.xjtlu.edu.cn/zh/news/2022/11/tianwenkepuhuaju

Scientist creation 101 program: As I am doing research on astronomy, I would like to inspire more students to become future scientists. Therefore, I initiated the ``scientist creation 101 program, aiming at training undergraduate students with hands-on experience in astronomy research and data reduction, using the statistics technique they learnt from MTH,113. Ten students are voluntary to participate in this program. Tutorials on the programming language ``Python and astronomy background knowledge are provided each week. Currently, students are working on the data from the satellite Gaia launched by the European Space Agency. Four papers have been published together with seven students on the topic of star clusters in the solar neighborhood. I also supervised students in the program to participate in the 4th XJTLU student Competition for Research-led learning. Two teams won the third and second prizes. The reports of undergraduate students involvement in scientific publication under the ``scientist creation 101 program are available at 1) https://www.xjtlu.edu.cn/en/news/2020/11/discovery-recognised-by-astrophysics-journal; 2) https://www.xjtlu.edu.cn/zh/news/2022/03/kexuejiapeiyangxiangmu.

Physics teaching with superheroes: I refer to popular culture, superhero, in my physics classroom and help students to learn academic things within their realm of experience. Three or four Students form a group to work out the physics behind the superhero, which offers an opportunity for students to gain deep processing in the learning experience. Since 2019, my superhero teaching has been carried out for 3 semesters in PHY002. See the XJTLU new release on this teaching practice: https://www.xjtlu.edu.cn/en/news/2021/06/superheroes-spark-students-success-in-science.

Video competition on looking for physics in daily lives: When the teaching switch to online mode due to the corona virus outbreak in early 2020, I organized a physics video competition among PHY002 students to engage online learning. The topic of the video competition was Looking for physics in daily lives. Students could choose any subject in daily lives to make a video. The video should explain the physics for the subject. They could use cartoon, screen-recording, home-made experiment in the videos. We received fantastic videos made by students when they were home studying. Finally six students were awarded first, second and the third prizes.At the same time, I also organized the awarding ceremony (18 November 2020), in which prize students each gave a five-minute presentation sharing their learning experience in making the physics video. News of the video competition is available online : https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/wgT19g2ekGvQ-nIB0oIu_Q

Final Year Project: MTH301

Introduction to Statistical Methods (MTH 205)

Introduction to statistics and probability (MTH113)

Physics (PHY002)

Awards and honours

2022,Teaching and Research Talent Award of Suzhou City.

2021,Teaching Qinglan Talent Award of Jiangsu Province

2021, Excellent Advisor Award in the 4th XJTLU student Competition for Research-led learning, Xian Jiaotong Liverpool University.

2020, Third prize in the micro-teaching video competition of Jiang Su province, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

2020, Excellent Educator in Suzhou City, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

2020, Excellent Educator in Suzhou industrial park district, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

2020, Highly commended of Academic Year 2019/2020 Annual XJTLU Learning and Teaching award for THE MOST INNOVATIVE TEACHING PRACTICE, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

2018, Best teaching award, in the annual evaluation of teaching in the Physics division of School of Science, Shanghai Institute of Technology.

2017, Second prize in annual teaching achievement, Shanghai Institute of Technology.

2016, First Price in the micro-teaching video competition, Shanghai Institute of Technology.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Education/Academic qualification

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) of the UK Professional Standards Framework 2020 for teaching and learning support in higher education, Fellowship reference: PR201304 (September 2020-present)

PhD: Heidelberg University (2008-2012)

Person Types

  • Staff

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