Cybersecurity, Aliens and Asteroids: Welcome to Prof.

CYBERSECURITY, ALIENS AND ASTEROIDS: WELCOME TO MIKE GOWANLOCK’S RESEARCH

Trent alum says it’s an “exciting time for science” as his research supports cutting-edge work

Whether improving cybersecurity, enhancing science’s ability to detect asteroids in the solar system, or helping maximize the chance of finding extraterrestrial life, Trent alumnus Professor Mike Gowanlock ’03 is working on the cutting edge of computer science, astroinformatics and astrobiology. Prof. Gowanlock, who completed his undergrad in Computer Science and his master’s in Applied Modelling and Quantitative Methods at Trent University, is currently an assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University.

His forward-thinking work includes research into post-quantum cryptography that will increase security for governments and banking, improving algorithms for a telescope that surveys space for events such as active asteroids, better understanding which areas of the galaxy may be most hospitable to complex land-based life, and calculating where to point a telescope in the night sky to maximize the chances of detecting a signal from an alien civilization.

“I have been fortunate to have been able to work in numerous areas of research, including those that address fundamental questions about the universe and pressing societal questions, such as the threat of near-future quantum computers to modern cryptographic systems,” he says. “Due to the enabling nature of computer science and the field of parallel computing, I have been able to contribute my expertise to several areas of scientific investigation.”

The rise of a star

When studying at Trent, Prof. Gowanlock co-authored a paper with Trent’s Dr. David Patton, professor in Physics and Astronomy, and Dr. Sabine McConnell, professor in Computer Science, about locations within the Milky Way Galaxy that may favour the development of complex life. After being published in Astrobiology—the most-cited peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the understanding of life’s origin, evolution, and distribution in the universe—the article is still being referenced by other researchers more than a decade later.

Professor Patton says it has been a joy to watch the progress of Prof. Gowanlock’s career. “It has been wonderful to follow Mike’s progression from his first undergraduate astrobiology class to a career as a professor and researcher. During my career, I have had numerous opportunities to supervise and mentor students in research projects. Typically, this involves teaching them about astrophysics and training them in areas such as programming, statistical analysis, how to read and write peer-reviewed articles, and how to build a career in academia. I have really enjoyed this process, and I take particular satisfaction in seeing these students move on to successful careers. Mike Gowanlock is an excellent example of this.”

After studying at Trent, Prof. Gowanlock obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2015 and was a postdoctoral associate at MIT Haystack Observatory from 2015 to 2017.

Exploring new frontiers

Throughout his career, Prof. Gowanlock’s computer science research has included designing multi-dimensional data access methods for graphics processing units (GPUs), which exploit the GPU’s high on-card memory bandwidth and massive parallelism. He has also worked on hybrid CPU/GPU algorithms for several domains.

His recent projects involving cybersecurity are on the cutting edge due to the rapidly emerging technology of quantum computing, which uses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that are too complex for traditional computers. While current technology, for example, would take upwards of a million years to break online banking safety algorithms, quantum computers make this task more a more feasible reality. Prof. Gowanlock’s work focuses on improving post-quantum cryptography, which will protect against this kind of data breach. He’s currently funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, but his work is applicable and critical around the World, as all government computers will need to switch to post-quantum computing in the coming years.

Computing the evolution of our solar system

His work in astroinformatics, meanwhile, involves working on a solar-system event Prof. Mike Gowanlock broker for the Solar System Notification Alert Processing System (SNAPS). SNAPS relies on parallel multi-core CPU and GPU-accelerated near realtime outlier detection algorithms to detect interesting events on small bodies in the solar system. Prof. Gowanlock supports complex algorithms for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory—an astronomical observatory currently under construction atop a mountain in northern Chile. The Rubin Observatory, using the latest in technology, will require modern computational approaches for sifting through that vast amounts of data that it will produce. SNAPS processes that data and sends alerts to the solar system community about noteworthy events and/or anomalies in space. “These edge cases help us understand the formation and evolution of the solar system,” he says.

Is there life out there?

As for his astrobiology research, Gowanlock focuses on the regions of the galaxy expected to have the highest carrying capacity for land-based complex life. His research explores the age of stars and planets as well as their proximity to supernova events (exploding stars) that could wipe out landbased life. The research helps indicate which planets, which have not been exposed to supernovae, are likely to have life on their surfaces. This also helps astronomers know where to point telescopes to maximize chances of finding techno signatures (signals) from extraterrestrial life.

Renowned Astronomy Scholar Wins Distinguished Research Award

Dr. David Patton recognized for career of research exploring galaxy formations, interactions and evolution

Dr. David Patton, an internationally renowned scholar, researcher and leader in the field of galaxy formation, galaxygalaxy pairs and galaxy evolution, is 2021’s recipient of Trent’s Distinguished Research Award. The award celebrates a career of internationally recognized intellectual contributions and is the highest honour conferred by the University for research and scholarly activity.

“Given all the amazing research that takes place at Trent, there is stiff competition for this award, so it was quite an honour to be selected. I am grateful to my colleagues for taking the time out of their busy lives to nominate me for this award,” said Professor Patton.

One of Prof. Patton’s most notable contributions to the field has been his work on interacting and merging galaxies using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which has created the most detailed threedimensional maps of the Universe ever made. While Prof. Patton is not part of the Sloan collaboration, much of his research over the past 15 years has made use of Sloan images and spectra that are publicly accessible online.

His research focuses on galaxies that are close enough to each other to undergo strong gravitational interactions and, in many cases, merge to create larger galaxies. Along with collaborators, he has carried out a series of studies of interacting galaxies, using a sample of more than 10,000 close galaxy pairs from the Sloan survey to determine how interactions change galaxy properties. His research has shown that interacting galaxies form stars more rapidly compared to more isolated galaxies and that interacting galaxies have distorted shapes, bluer colours, lower metal content, and more active supermassive black holes than isolated galaxies.

During his career, Prof. Patton has fostered numerous collaborations and partnerships with scientists elsewhere in Canada and around the world. He has published 74 peer-reviewed articles, which have been cited more than 8,000 times. In addition to his intensive publication output, Prof. Patton has received considerable funding to support his research, including continuous support from NSERC grants during his time at Trent. Prof. Patton has also played a supporting role in research projects of other faculty, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers at institutions around the world.

His work is recognized as a benchmark in understanding galaxy interactions. In fact, he co-authored a paper with then-student Mike Gowanlock and Dr. Sabine McConnell about locations in the Milky Way Galaxy that may favour the development of complex life and that work is still being cited by researchers more than a decade later.

Finding an interdisciplinary galaxy at Trent

Prof. Gowanlock credits Trent’s interdisciplinary approach for preparing him for a rewarding and successful multidisciplinary career in science.

“To realize the model of the habitability of the galaxy, I learned many fundamental astronomy and astrobiology concepts from Dave Patton. Furthermore, to process the simulation within a tractable amount of time, I needed to learn new computational techniques from Sabine McConnell. Working at the intersection of computer science and astronomy has since been an interest of mine.”

Prof. Gowanlock, an Oshawa Native, chose Trent for both its size and its location within a close-knit community that felt like home. He enjoyed that the small class sizes provided the opportunity to develop strong professional relationships with faculty, who he said were always very approachable and deeply invested in student success. Now a professor himself in Arizona, he teaches courses in Introduction to Parallel Programming, and High Performance Computing.

As his research and work continue to expand scientific knowledge, he knows there’s no limit to what he can learn and help achieve in his lifetime.

“Scientific knowledge is a funny thing,” he says. “At the time of undertaking a scientific investigation, it is often unclear what the future impacts of the work might be. I can only hope that my contributions have a lasting impact on my fields of research. And while I cannot predict what impact my work might have, I can enthusiastically say that it is a very exciting time for science, and thus I’m appreciative of being a scientist and professor at this moment in history.”