Matthew Turk

Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Matthew Turk is an accomplished academic and researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds dual appointments as an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Sciences and the Department of Astronomy.1 3 His research interests span multiple disciplines, focusing on:

Formation of the first stars and galaxies
Primordial chemistry
High-performance computing and computational simulations
Analysis and visualization of astrophysical data3

Education and Career

Matthew Turk completed his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University, earning a BA in Physics and Math in 2003. He then pursued his doctorate at Stanford University, obtaining a PhD in Physics in 2009.1 3

After completing his education, Turk joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been serving as an Assistant Professor since August 2016.4 In addition to his primary appointments, he is also affiliated with:

National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Center for Social & Behavioral Science
Informatics program3

Research and Teaching

At the University of Illinois, Turk leads the Data Exploration Lab, where he investigates how individuals interact with data and how that data is processed and understood.1 His interdisciplinary approach combines elements of information sciences, astronomy, and high-performance computing.

Turk is involved in several significant research projects:

Crops in Silico: An integrative and multi-scale modeling platform for generating virtual crops1 6
Whole Tale: An initiative to build a scalable, open-source platform for reproducible research1

In terms of teaching, he has instructed courses in Data Visualization, Data Storytelling, and Computational Astrophysics.1

Publications and Impact

Matthew Turk is a prolific researcher with numerous publications in prestigious journals. His work has been widely cited, with over 10,000 citations according to Google Scholar.2 Some of his most influential papers focus on astrophysical simulations, the formation of early galaxies, and computational methods in astronomy.