Events

Colloquia

Colloquia: The Astronomy Department has regular, weekly colloquia during the fall and spring terms by distinguished scientists and scholars covering essentially all aspects of current astronomy, astrophysics, and space sciences - observations, theory, simulations, instrumentation, and history of astronomy. 
 
The colloquia are held every Thursday afternoon 3:30-4:30 pm in person with a Zoom option. The public is welcome. To view via Zoom, please contact Monica Carpenter (mla20@cornell.edu), or Jason Jennings (jej34@cornell.edu) for the link.
 
NOTE:  
  • We ask all members of our community to take voluntary actions to help curb the spread of COVID-19, including wearing a mask in all social settings (even when not required), or stay at home if you feel unwell.  Stay informed.
  • Hybrid participation: Zoom and in person (Rm 105 Space Sciences Building)
  • Please note: Requirements could change if we are directed to make changes by federal, state, local or university authorities.
Date Topic Speaker      
08/25/2022

"Machine Learning and Cosmology"

 David Spergel, Simons Foundation
09/01/2022

"Shock acceleration in the inhomogeneous interstellar medium"

 Siyao Xu, Institute for Advanced Study
09/08/2022 "Current and Next Generation Millimeter-wave Surveys" Mark Devlin, U. Penn - Gordon Lecture
09/15/2022

"Observing Planet Formation"

 Sean Andrews, CfA
09/22/2022

Two 30 minute talks.

Titles:

Léa Bonnefoy:  "Composition, Roughness, and Topography from Radar Backscatter at Selk Crater, the Dragonfly Landing Site". 

  Laura Flagg: "Direct Detection of CO in CI Tau b and the Implications for Planet Formation”

 Léa Bonnefoy & Laura Flagg, Cornell University
09/29/2022 "Reconstructing the Properties of the Protosolar Disk Using Cosmochemistry" Alessandro Morbidelli, Univ. Côte D'Azur - Gold
Lecture
10/06/2022 "Ultra-massive, merger remnants and double-faced: studying exotic white dwarfs with ZTF and Gaia" Ilaria Caiazzo, Caltech
10/13/2022

"Studying the formation of stars with stratospheric balloon-borne telescopes"

 Laura Fissel, Queen's University
10/20/2022 "Are We Alone in the Universe?" Paul Davies, Arizona State U. - Terzian Lecture
10/27/2022

"Exploring the Subsurface Processes of Ice Sheets and Icy Moons with Ice Penetrating Radar"

 Dustin Schroder, Stanford
11/03/2022 "The Local Volume Mapper" Nick Konidaris, Carnegie Institute of Science
11/10/2022 "Circulation and Heat Transfer in Europa's Global Subsurface Ocean" Krista Soderlund, University of Texas at Austin
11/17/2022

"Searching for Signs of Life and its Origin on Other Planets"

 Laura Barge, JPL
12/01/2022 "Models of Peculiar Supernovae" Dan Kasen, UC Berkeley
     

Planetary Lunch

The Planetary Lunch Seminar Series (PLunch) is an informal seminar series with talks that are relevant to everybody with an interest in planetary science.  Speakers include both members of the Cornell community and visitors.  Talks are aimed to appeal to and presented by faculty members, research associates, and both graduate and undergraduate students from various academic departments.  The seminar is every Monday during the term at 12:15 pm in Rm 622.  To view via Zoom, please email Ngoc Truong (tnt45@cornell.edu) for the link. 

NOTE: 

  • In person attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty. 
  • We ask all members of our community to take voluntary actions to help curb the spread of COVID-19, including wearing a mask in all social settings (even when not required), or stay at home if you feel unwell.  Stay informed.
  • Hybrid participation: Zoom and in person (Rm 622)
Date    
Topic
Speaker
Aug 22, 2022
 
   
Aug 29, 2022
  
 
Sep 5, 2022 LABOR DAY  
Sep 12, 2022   Dr. Laetitia Rodet (Cornell)
Sep 19, 2022   Akash Gupta (UCLA)
Sep 26, 2022   Dr. Darryl Seligman (Cornell)
Oct 3, 2022  
Oct 10, 2022 FALL BREAK  
Oct 17, 2022   Dr. Michael Hammer (ASIAA)
Oct 24, 2022

Joint Planetary/Astrophysics Seminar:
"A planetary engulfment event in the Galactic disk revealed as an exceptional infrared transient"

 Dr. Kishalay De (MIT)
Oct 31, 2022    
Nov 7, 2022  
Nov 14, 2022 TBD Dr. Ligia Coelho
Nov 21, 2022    
Nov 28, 2022    
Dec 5, 2022    

Astrophysics Lunch

Astrophysics Lunch is a series of informal talks on topics related to theoretical astrophysics, gravitational physics, and cosmology.  Speakers are free to present their own research or present papers that they find of particular interest.  The audience consists of faculty members, research staff, as well as graduate and undergraduate students, so talks should be at a level accessible to most. Astrophysics Lunch is open to talks from all members of the Cornell community, as well as to visiting scientists. We will reschedule a local speaker in order to accommodate visitors.

Astrophysics Lunch is held every Wednesday during the academic year at 12:15 PM. Please contact Larry Kidder (kidder@astro.cornell.edu) for further information.

NOTE: 

  • In person attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty. 
  • We ask all members of our community to take voluntary actions to help curb the spread of COVID-19, including wearing a mask in all social settings (even when not required), or stay at home if you feel unwell.  Stay informed.
  • Hybrid participation: Zoom and in person (Rm 622)
Date Topic Speaker
Aug 31, 2022 UltraViolet EXplorer Shri Kulkarni
Sep 7, 2022

"Formation of Black Hole Binaries in AGN disks through Close Encounters"

"IXPE detection of polarized X-rays from a magnetar and QED vacuum resonance"

Jiaru Li

 

Dong Lai
Sep 14, 2022 "Seeing into the immediate post-merger environment of a neutron star merger"

Aaron Tohuvavohu (U. Toronto)
Sep 21, 2022

"'Hypernebulae' as Precursors of Common Envelope Events and Persistent Counterparts of Fast Radio Bursts"

Navin Sridhar (Columbia)
Sep 28, 2022 "Giant planet migration in low-viscosity disks"

Alessandro Morbidelli (Obs. de la Cote d'Azur)
Oct 5, 2022

"Solving the three-body problem statistically"

 Barry Ginat (Technion)
Oct 12, 2022 "Pulsars, Magnetars and FRBs Under the Microscope"

Chris Thompson (CITA, U. Toronto)
Oct 19, 2022 "Gravitational entropy and the generalized second law of thermodynamics" Paul Davies (Arizona State U.)
Oct 26, 2022 "From milliseconds to decades: The dynamic Galactic Plane unveiled with infrared time domain surveys"; AND
"Dust Dynamics and Coagulation in Vortices in Protoplanetary Disks"

Kishalay De (MIT)

AND

Hui Li (LANL
Nov 2, 2022 "Protostellar disks: a planet formation perspective" Wenrui Xu (CCA - Flatiron)
Nov 4, 2022 SPECIAL TIME: 11:00AM, "Quasi-normal filters and their impact on future black-hole spectroscopy" Sizheng Ma (Caltech)
Nov 9, 2022 GUSTO: the Gal/Xgal U/LDB Spectroscopic/Stratospheric THz Observatory

Chris Groppi (Arizona State U.)
Nov 16, 2022

"Accretion Onto Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Just Before Merger"

 Mark Avara (U. Cambridge)
Nov 23, 2022 No Lecture  
Nov 30, 2022

 

 
Dec 7, 2022 TBA Dan Perley (Liverpool John Moores Univ.)

Galaxy Lunch

The Galaxy Lunch Series is held every Tuesday during the academic year, from 12:00 to 13:00 (new time) in Room 622 SSB and via zoom.  Please email Jill Tarbell (jtm14@cornell.edu) for zoom link.

NOTE: 

  • In person attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty. 
  • We ask all members of our community to take voluntary actions to help curb the spread of COVID-19, including wearing a mask in all social settings (even when not required), or stay at home if you feel unwell.  Stay informed.
  • Hybrid participation: Zoom and in person (Rm 622)

In general, the topics are related to galactic and extragalactic astronomy, and large-scale structure. The audience consists of faculty members, research staff, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. Galaxy Lunch is open to talks from all members of the Cornell Astronomy department, as well as to visiting scientists and speakers from different disciplines/departments.

Date Topic Speaker
Aug 23, 2022

Introduction/Overview

 Thomas Nikola
Aug 30, 2022 Canceled  
Sep 6, 2022 "High-z JWST Candidate Galaxies and Molecular Gas in Tidal Tails" Catie Ball & Bo Peng
Sep 13, 2022

"A small discovery from JWST calibration data"

 Shri Kulkarni
Sep 20, 2022 "On CO/[CII] Line Intensity Mapping" Dongwoo Chung, UToronto
Sep 27, 2022 Canceled  
Oct 4, 2022 "Tools for Measuring the Cosmic Molecular Gas History" Ryan Keenan, U. Arizona
Oct 11, 2022 FALL BREAK  
Oct 18, 2022 "New Contraints on the CO Luminosity Function and Cold Gas History of the Universe from the COLDz Survey" Daniel Vieira, U. Cologne
Oct 25, 2022

"Cosmic Noon super star clusters seen through gravitational lensing"

 Massimo Pascale, UC Berkeley
Nov 1, 2022 "A shot in the Dark (Ages): a faint galaxy at z=9.76 confirmed with JWST"
https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.15639		 Rodrigo Freundt
Nov 8, 2022 "Discovery of a Dusty, Chemically Mature Companion to a z~4 Starburst Galaxy in JWST ERS data" (https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.16968)  Bo Peng
Nov 15, 2022 "The ALFALFA BTFR and the search for infall in the local universe" Catie Ball
Nov 22, 2022 "First Results from WERLS: Tracing Ionized Bubbles with Keck and JWST" Olivia Cooper, UT Austin
Nov 29, 2022

"Very High-z Galaxies: Star Formation, Dust(-free), Outflows, ..."

 Thomas Nikola
Dec 6, 2022    

The Thomas Gold Lecture Series

On the occasion of the retirement of the world famous astrophysicist, Tommy Gold, the University established the Thomas Gold Lectureship in Astronomy to bring outstanding scientists to Cornell for brief visits. 

Former Thomas Gold Lecturers:

  • 1987-88: Peter Goldreich (Caltech)
  • 1988-89 Joseph Taylor (Princeton)
  • 1989-90 Martin Rees (University of Cambridge)
  • 1990-91 Dennis Sciama (University of Oxford)
  • 1991-92 Gordon Pettengill (MIT)
  • 1992-93 Tony Hewish (University of Cambridge)
  • 1993-94 Irwin Shapiro (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
  • 1994-95 Wallace Sargent (Caltech)
  • 1995-96 Lyman Spitzer (Princeton)
  • 1996-97 Igor Novikov (Theoretical Astrophysics Center, Copenhagen)
  • 1997-98 David Schramm (University of Chicago)
  • 1998-99 Mal Ruderman (Columbia University)
  • 1999-00 Bohdan Paczynski (Princeton)
  • 2000-01 Clifford Will (Washington University)
  • 2001-02 Frank Shu (UC Berkeley)
  • 2002-03 Vera Rubin (Carnegie Institution of Washington)
  • 2003-04 Charles Townes (UC Berkeley)
  • 2004-05 Geoff Marcy (UC Berkeley)
  • 2005-06 Roger Blandford (Stanford University)
  • 2006-07 Andrew Lyne (University of Manchester)
  • 2009-10 Don Brownlee (University of Washington)
  • 2010-11 Rashid Sunyaev (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)
  • 2011-12 Maria Zuber (MIT)
  • 2012-13 David Jewitt (UCLA)
  • 2013-14 J. Richard Bond (University of Toronto)
  • 2014-15 Reinhard Genzel (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)
  • 2015-16 Simon White (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)
  • 2016-17 Adam Burrows (Princeton)
  • 2017-18 Renu Malhotra (U. Arizona)
  • 2018-19 Bruce Draine (Princeton)

Upcoming Lecturer: 
Fall 2023 Victoria Kaspi (McGill University)

The Salpeter Lecture Series

The Salpeter Lecture Series was established in 1998 to honor Professor Edwin E. Salpeter, one of the most important astrophysicists of the 20th century. Under the auspices of the lectureship, distinguished astronomers and astrophysicists are invited to visit Cornell for one to two weeks.

Former Salpeter Lecturers:

The Yervant Terzian Lecture Series

On the occasion of Yervant Terzian's 70th birthday, the University established the Yervant Terzian Lectureship in Astronomy to bring outstanding scientists to Cornell for brief visits. The Lectureship was endowed by a generous gift from Friend of Astronomy Charles Mund, Jr.

Former Terzian Lecturers:

The William E. and Elva F. Gordon Distinguished Lectureship

William E. Gordon, then professor of electrical engineering at Cornell, proposed the construction of the Arecibo telescope in 1958 to study the Earth's ionosphere via the incoherent scatter of powerful radio waves from the individual electrons in the ionospheric plasma. He also understood that the telescope would be able to make significant contributions to planetary science and the then relatively new field of radio astronomy. Gordon raised the funding for the telescope and organized its construction. Completed in 1963, the 305m (1000ft) diameter telescope and its powerful radar systems were continuously upgraded over the intervening years and were used to made major advances in the areas of ionospheric physics, radio astronomy and planetary science. Sadly, after fifty-seven years of ground-breaking contributions to astronomy, planetary science and ionospheric physics the telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020.

The Gordon Lectures are made possible by an endowment by Tom and Betty Talpey. Tom and Betty Talpey were one of the families that moved with the Gordon's to Arecibo in the summer of 1960 to supervise the telescope's construction and build the observing instrumentation.

Former Gordon Lecturers:

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