Pathways to Understanding Active Galactic Nuclei: A Citizen Science Perspective

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) hosting galaxies are unique laboratories to study the evolution of central super-massive black holes and their pivotal role in governing the evolution of the host galaxy and surrounding intra-galactic medium. Astronomers have used multi-wavelength observational methods, numerical simulations, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to study AGN amongst the general galaxy populations, albeit with many critical open questions yet to be answered. Crowdsourced research through citizen science platforms such as Zooniverse have been successful in recruiting tens of thousands of individuals to help with astronomy projects over the past decade. Citizen science projects can provide a means for the public to engage with a wide variety of data that might otherwise be hidden behind professional infrastructure such as instrument specific analysis pipelines. Platforms such as the Zooniverse also offer the opportunity to accelerate knowledge production by combining the relative strengths of human and machine intelligence. In this talk, I will elaborate on how several Zooniverse projects provide the public with the opportunity to learn not only about the inspiring science of AGN and their supermassive black holes, but also about the process of scientific research and engagement with scientific data alongside AI partners.