CASSA opens TDMMA 2026, a five-day workshop on the changing sky

The Center for Astronomy, Space Science and Astrophysics (CASSA) of Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) opened its workshop on Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Astronomy (TDMMA) 2026 on 7 September in the Digital Classroom at IUB. The five-day programme runs to 11 September and closes at the ACI Centre in Tejgaon with participant short talks and a closing ceremony.

Time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy is the study of a sky that changes — and of the several different signals that now carry news of those changes. Over the week the programme moves through electromagnetic transients and modern survey astronomy, gravitational waves and compact-object mergers, X-ray binaries, pulsars and fast radio bursts, exoplanet science, stellar transients, machine-learning methods for transient classification, and the facilities coming next. Roughly half the week is hands-on: participants work with real alert brokers, gravitational-wave sky localisation, light curves and classification pipelines.

The workshop’s visiting lecturer is Dr. Andrew L. Miller, Assistant Professor at ICTP-AP, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, who searches gravitational-wave data for the signals of compact objects and of dark matter, and who is in Dhaka for the week. He is joined in the room by Dr. Syed Ashraf Uddin and Dr. Khan Muhammad Bin Asad of CASSA and Dr. Colin J. Burke of Yale University, and online by Dr. Dipen Bhattacharya, Dr. Payaswini Saikia and Md Redyan Ahmed.

The opening ceremony

The opening session was hosted by Dr. Syed Ashraf Uddin, Associate Professor of Physical Sciences at IUB, Core Member of CASSA and the convener of the workshop.

Four IUB officials spoke: the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. M. Tamim; the Pro-Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Daniel W. Lund; the Dean of the School of Engineering, Technology and Sciences (SETS), Dr. Habib Bin Muzaffar; and the Head of the Department of Physical Sciences (DPS), Dr. Rifat Ara Rouf.

All four welcomed the workshop and thanked the visiting lecturer for travelling to Dhaka to teach it. Each spoke about where CASSA goes from here, and more than one raised the same ambition: that the Center’s work should lead, in time, to BSc and MSc programmes in astronomy and astrophysics at IUB — degree programmes in a field the university has so far taught through a minor, a research center, and workshops like this one. It is an ambition with some history at these ceremonies: at the opening of CASSA’s radio-telescope workshop in November 2025, the Dean of SETS looked forward to the day IUB would offer astronomy and astrophysics as majors.

The ceremony was attended by the workshop’s participants — students and early-career researchers drawn from universities across the country — together with CASSA members and IUB faculty.

Who is in the room

Thirty-three people were present on the opening day: 25 registered participants and eight from the CASSA team. Of the registered participants, 20 are undergraduates, four are master’s students, and one is a high-school student admitted on the round-one exceptional-applicant route. The CASSA eight span the same range — three undergraduates, two postbaccalaureate and two graduate research assistants, and one member of staff.

They come from 12 institutions. The largest groups are from the University of Dhaka and Independent University, Bangladesh, with BRAC University next; the rest arrive one apiece from the University of Chittagong, Chittagong College, Jashore University of Science and Technology, Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, the University of Scholars, Govt. Edward College in Pabna, and Assemblies of God Church School in Dhaka. One participant travels from University College London.

The full list — name, institution and academic status — is published on the workshop page, where it is drawn live from the workshop’s registration system and updates as attendance is recorded.

The week ahead

Days one to four run in the Digital Classroom at IUB, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, each closing with a hands-on laboratory. On Friday 11 September the workshop lunches early and moves across town to the ACI Centre in Tejgaon — hosted and sponsored by ACI, along with the workshop dinner — for participant short talks and the closing ceremony, where certificates are awarded.

The full programme, hour by hour, with session details and the slide decks as each day is taught, is on the TDMMA 2026 workshop page. Applications for the workshop closed on 5 September.