courses taught
Physics Discovery Series: PHYS 190 (Fall 2023)
Lower-division course for physics majors at USC. This is a re-design of the existing PHYS 190 freshman seminar series, now augmented with a programming and data analysis Practicum. Through hands-on collaborative exercises, the Practicum aims to equip new students with basic data and programming fluency, and guide them to unpack the process of scientific inquiry and discovery on concrete research examples presented by our faculty in the Physics Discovery Seminar. The goal of the Practicum is to shift students’ perspective from that of passive observers to practitioners of science and invite them to self-identify as physicists and astronomers. This effort is suppored by the Cottrell Scholars Award to Dr. Gluscevic by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.
Advanced Cosmology: ASTR 540 (Fall 2022)
A graduate-level course covering advanced topics in cosmology, for PhD students and advanced undergraduates majoring in astrophysics at USC. The objective of the course is to equip students with the conceptual vocabulary and technical skills to engage with the specialized literature and research in the field. The course gives a brief overview of a homogenous universe and then transitions to a deep dive into advanced topics in physical cosmology, focusing on cosmological perturbation theory, inflation, structure formation, cosmic microwave background anisotropy, gravitational lensing, dark matter, dark energy, and the thermal history of the universe. With a mix of traditional lectures, in-class group exercises, and student presentations, it balances theoretical aspects of modern cosmology with their practical application to data.
Cosmology: ASTR 424 (Spring 2020)
An upper-division undergraduate course, introducing cosmology to astrophysics and physics majors at USC. The course introduces the standard Big Bang theory and discusses the evolution and expansion of a homogenous universe, motivating classical derivation of the Friedmann and continuity equations and their application. Through lectures and in-class discussions and problem solving, the course aims to provide students with foundational knowledge in modern physical cosmology.
The Universe: ASTR 100 (Sring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022)
A general-education course in Astronomy, for non-majors. This course touches on questions as old as humankind: “How old is the universe?”, “What is it made of?”, and “What is our place in it?”. The lectures begin with an overview of our Solar System, touch on the diverse lives of stars and galaxies, and go all the way to the farthest reaches of space and time, unveiling the physics underlying astronomical phenomena. The course is designed for students with no background in the sciences and mathematics and the accompanying labs offer a gentle introduction to calculations that help illustrate key concepts from the lectures. The class mixes traditional lectures with think-pair-share exercises and discussion sessions. This course and especially its new module on building Knowledge is designed to inspire, practice, and sharpen scientific thought on an awe-inspiring journey through the universe.
Extracurricular weekly tutorials on data analysis and inference, for USC graduate and undergraduate students interested in starting research in astrophysics and cosmology. CosmoLab Hacks are now taking place a few times a semester, as a part of CosmoLab weekly meetings, and are targeting the use of advanced computational tools for research in cosmology.
Lectures on Dark Matter Cosmology (2021)
International School on Astroparticle Physics (ISAPP) at Erwin Schrodinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics, Vienna, Austria. The topic of the summer school is theories and laboratory tests of dark matter, for advanced graduate students.