Dr. Daniel O'Conner Peluso (Dan) is an astrophysicist, educator, and singer-songwriter whose work blends astrophysics, citizen science, education, and music to connect public audiences and students directly with authentic astronomical data. As a Research Scientist at the SETI Institute, he collaborates with the Unistellar citizen science team and SkyMapper to support SETI, citizen science networks, and related education initiatives. He is currently funded under the STRIDE grant, where he and Dr. Lauren Sgro are building "Celestial Harmonies: Connecting Skies, Cultures and Communities," a project partnering with Indigenous communities in Australia (Djaara) and Mexico (Maya) to expand participation in astronomy through culturally grounded engagement using a Two-Eyed Seeing framework. Dan also co-leads national astronomy education professional-development workshops with the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA) and the NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory Education Team, and in August 2026 will join Los Medanos College as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Astronomy.

Dan earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics (2024) from the University of Southern Queensland, where his dissertation pioneered methods uniting professional astronomers, citizen scientists, and educators in publishable exoplanet research. His peer-reviewed work includes a first-author paper in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific on the Unistellar Exoplanet Campaign and the confirmation of exoplanet TIC 139270665 b in The Astronomical Journal, which notably included sixteen high-school students as co-authors. A passionate communicator, he produces documentaries, educational videos, public outreach talks, and live performances merging astronomy, storytelling, and music, and as singer-songwriter Conner Eko he writes original songs inspired by cosmic themes and mental-health awareness.

Across all of his work, Dan is driven by one mission: to connect people to the cosmos through democratized science, music, and story, and to show that curiosity, awe, and empathy fuel both our wellbeing and our shared prosperity.

Semi-finalist for the 2025–2026 U.S. Fulbright Scholars Program for proposal, Celestial Harmonies: Blending Modern Pop & Traditional Music to Share Aboriginal Sky Knowledge

Producer/director of award-winning science documentary, The Quest for Another Earth, featured at international science conferences

• Personal website: https://astropartydan.com/ 
• Published blog post on Congressional Visits Day and science advocacy work in DC featured
  on the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Policy Blog in April 2026: https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/04/proposed-federal-science-cuts-threaten-our-future-we-went-congress-fight-back 
• Interviewed by Sky & Telescope (2024) with high school students about shared published
  paper confirming exoplanets with the Unistellar Citizen Science Network: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/high-school-citizen-scientists-join-the-hunt-for-exoplanets/
• Quest for Another Earth exoplanet documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9GCrtIM7D8
• Out of the Gloom - ISS Moon Transit (Secured rights to feature music of internationally known rock group, Muse, in self-produced
  video of the International Space Station (ISS) transiting the Moon using Unistellar telescope): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIhPgUr90u8 
• Original self-produced music has been featured in podcasts, music blogs, has had over
  75,000 streams on Spotify, and has aired on terrestrial and satellite radio (Sirius XM): see https://astropartydan.com/music 

• https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GONihwEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao 
• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9427-0014 

Celestial Harmonies: Connecting Skies, Cultures and Communities: With Dr. Lauren Sgro, were running a one-year SETI Institute pilot that deploys Unistellar and SkyMapper telescopes to Indigenous communities in Australia (Djaara) and Mexico (Maya), using a Two-Eyed Seeing framework to merge Indigenous sky knowledge with Western citizen science astronomy projects. The project pairs research-grade observing (exoplanet, asteroid/comet, and supernova follow-up) with creative co-production, including original song(s) with the Indigenous musicians.

From LSST Alert to Classroom Discovery: Student-Led Supernova Follow-Up: Integrating Rubin Observatory's Exploding Stars Investigation with Astronomy Modeling Instruction so high school and college students can perform authentic transient follow-up, using Unistellar, SkyMapper, and Slooh to observe supernovae, conduct photometry, coding, and light-curve analysis. It's a proof of concept for feeding LSST alerts directly into classrooms where students contribute to publishable research while learning by doing.