Workshop Program

Four days of discussion, collaborative sessions, presentations, and hands-on working groups

Overview

Schedule at a Glance

The workshop is structured to maximize collaboration and discussion

Day 1 - Monday, March 9

Welcome and Introduction

  • Opening remarks and workshop goals
  • Datasets for TDABench
  • Defining the benchmark scope

Day 2 - Tuesday, March 10

Building Benchmarks

  • Defining anomalies
  • Public benchmarks
  • Working group sessions

Day 3 - Wednesday, March 11

On-going Research

  • Existing real-time classification models
  • Poster session
  • Working group sessions

Day 4 - Thursday, March 12

Synthesis and Planning

  • Working group reports
  • Roadmap for future model development
  • Closing and next steps
Detailed Schedule

Day 1 - Monday, March 9, 2026

Time Session Speaker/Details
09:00 - 09:30 Registration & Coffee SkAI Institute Cafe
09:30 - 10:00 Welcome Remarks & Goals and Outline for the Workshop Adam Miller
10:00 - 10:30 Invited Talk: The ZTF Bright Transient Survey Data Set Christoffer Fremling
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:30 Invited Talk: PLASTICC, ELASTICC, and Lessons Learned From Simulated LSST Light Curves Alex Malz
11:30 - 12:00 DISCUSSION: What makes a good benchmark data set? Discussion leads: TBD
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:00 DISCUSSION: What taxonomy makes sense for *real* data? Discussion leads: TBD
14:00 - 14:15 Scalable time-domain science with LSDB framework and HATS catalog format Kostya Malanchev
14:15 - 14:30 Sub-Second Transient Detectability with Deep Learning and Continuous-Readout Imaging Shar Daniels
14:30 - 14:45 High-Cadence Transient Discovery with the Argus Array Jon Carney
14:45 - 15:00 Pre-trained Vision Models Enabling Scalable Image Encoding for Massive Alert Streams Nabeel Rehemtulla
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 - 16:00 DISCUSSION: The growing importance of multi-modality for Rubin/LSST. What data should supplement BTS light curves? Discussion leads: TBD
16:00 - 16:30 DISCUSSION: metrics - how do we ensure holistic scientific output, and not "p-hacking" to make a single number as large as possible? Discussion leads: TBD
16:30 - 16:45 The Open mulTiwavelength Transient Event Repository (OTTER): A tool for curating time domain datasets Noah Franz
16:45 - 17:00 The Need for a Light Curve Interpolation and Forecasting Benchmark Dataset Siddharth Chaini

Day 2 - Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Time Session Speaker/Details
09:30 - 10:00 DISCUSSION: What is an "anomaly" and can they be incorporated into this benchmark? Discussion leads TBD
10:00 - 10:30 Invited Talk: HuggingFace, data prep, building legacy data sets in astronomy TBD
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:00 Parallel working sessions: (i) light curves, (ii) host galaxies, (iii) cutouts, (iv) anomalies
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 15:00 Parallel working sessions
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 - 15:45 Poster Lightning Talks Poster Presenters
15:45 - 16:30 Poster Session All Participants
16:30 - 17:00 Working group share backs Parallel session reporters

Day 3 - Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Time Session Speaker/Details
09:30 - 09:45 Anomaly detection with AppleCiDEr Argyro Sasli
09:45 - 10:00 ORACLE: A Real-Time, Hierarchical, Multi-Modal Photometric Classifier for ZTF and LSST Ved Shah
10:00 - 10:15 Attention-Based Preprocessing Framework for Improving Rare Transient Classification Xinyue Sheng
10:15 - 10:30 Simulating realistic ZTF events using LightCurveLynx Mi Dai
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:30 Parallel working sessions: (i) light curves, (ii) host galaxies, (iii) cutouts, (iv) anomalies
12:30 - 14:00 Lunch
14:00 - 15:00 Parallel working sessions
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 - 16:30 Poster Session All Participants
16:30 - 17:00 Working group share backs Parallel session reporters
17:30 Workshop Reception and Dinner SkAI Hub

Day 4 - Thursday, March 12, 2026

Time Session Speaker/Details
09:30 - 10:00 DISCUSSION: what do (future) classification models need that is currently absent from existing models (& can we incentivise this in the Benchmark) Discussion leads TBD
10:00 - 11:00 Parallel working sessions wrap up
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:00 Closing Remarks and Meeting Summary (Workshop Concludes) Adam Miller
Additional Information

Program Notes

Contributed Talks

Contributed talks will be short and focused on the benchmark. Please submit your abstract by February 6, 2026 for consideration.

Poster Sessions

Posters should be A0 size (portrait orientation). Poster boards and materials will be provided.

Working Groups

Participants will be assigned to working groups based on their expertise and interests indicated during registration.