Dr. Paul Strycker

Dr. Paul Strycker earned his B.S. in physics from the University of Notre Dame and his M.S. and Ph.D. in astronomy from New Mexico State University. His doctoral work with hyperspectral imaging of Jupiter led him to develop PCA filtering—a novel image analysis method—while teaching astronomy and physics at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He moved to Concordia University Wisconsin, where he reached the rank of professor as he improved the applicability of PCA filtering. He also expanded his teaching to include an integration of the philosophy of science, a Catholic understanding of the human person, and great books in a Socratic seminar.

Dr. Strycker joined Benedictine College as an associate professor in 2024. His research interests include observational astronomy, detecting extremely faint impacts on solar system objects, and finding ways to remove noise and background signals from any kind of data. He enjoys teaching the wide variety of topics that come with astronomy and physics—from the broad knowledge base in Earth Science to the fine details of Galileo’s life and writings.