Colloquia
NOTE:
- All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
- Hybrid participation: Zoom and in person (Rm 105 Space Sciences Building)
Date | Topic | Speaker | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
01/21/2025 (Tuesday) | “Charting the Gravitational-wave Universe at Light-year Wavelengths” | Stephen Taylor, Vanderbilt University (Radio Astronomy Faculty Candidate) | |||
01/23/2025 | "The Fuzzy Cores of Giant Planets" | Dr. Benjamin Idini, UC Santa Cruz (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) | |||
01/30/2025 | "A Closer Look at Distant Comet Activity" | Dr. Theodore Kareta, Lowell Observatory (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) | |||
02/06/2025 | "The Wonderful World(s) of Planetary Ices: Across the Solar System and Beyond" | Dr. Jacob Buffo, Dartmouth College (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) PLEASE NOTE: This colloquium will start at 4pm this day only. | |||
02/13/2025 | "Trojan Asteroids: Past, Present, and Future" | Dr. Audrey Martin. University of Central Florida (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) | |||
02/20/2025 | "Icy-ocean worlds thermodynamics, mineral physics , habitability and exploration | Dr. Baptiste Journaux - University of Washington (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) | |||
02/27/2025 | "Geochemical context is necessary to interpret hydrothermal systems in planetary bodies" | Dr. Bonnie Teece, NASA JPL (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) | |||
03/06/2025 | "The Chiral Universe" | Stephon Alexander, Brown University | |||
03/13/2025 | "Imagining Other Worlds: How Planet-Forming Disks Can Shed Light on What is Possible" | Ilse Cleeves, University of Virginia | |||
03/20/2025 | "Detecting biosignatures through rockey planet evolution around other stars with future missions" | Sarah Rugheimer, York University | |||
03/27/2025 | TBA | Adam Langeveld, Cornell University | |||
04/10/2025 | 'Unraveling the physical processes that shape the smallest galaxies' | Erin Kado-Fong, Yale University | |||
04/17/2025 | Local speaker TBD | ||||
04/24/2025 | "Towards Precision Astrophysics for Galaxy Formation" | Viraj Pandya, Columbia University | |||
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 seminars will be on every other Monday listed below at 12:15 pm in the Terzian Conference Room (Rm 622 Space Sciences Bldg). For a Zoom link, please contact Alexia Kubas (ak2248@cornell.edu).
NOTE:
- Attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty.
- All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
Date | Topic | Speaker |
---|---|---|
No lectures provided during the Spring semester. | ||
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 will be held on Wednesdays at 12:10 PM in the Terzian Conference Room (Rm 622). For a Zoom link, please contact Larry Kidder (kidder@astro.cornell.edu).
NOTE:
- Attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty.
- All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
Date | Topic | Speaker |
---|---|---|
Jan 22, 2025 | "Standing Out from The Crowd: Finding Supermassive Black-hole Binaries in Gravity & Light” | Stephen Green (Vanderbilt) |
Jan 29, 2025 | ||
Feb 5, 2025 | ||
Feb 12, 2025 | "Galactic Dust: Emission and Extinction" | Dennis Lee (JPL) |
Feb 19, 2025 | "Energy needed to propel a tiny spacecraft to Proxima Centauri, and, an unstated assumption in Einstein’s 1905 paper” | Cyrus Umrigar (Cornell) |
Feb 26, 2025 | ||
Mar 5, 2025 | "Fermion Condensate Dark Matter" | Stephon Alexander (Brown University) |
Mar 12, 2025 | "Kilonovae and Numerical Relativity” | David Radice (Penn State) |
Mar 19, 2025 | "Dynamics across scales: Three Fun Instances of Dynamically-Induced Orbital Coalescence" | Yubo Su (Princeton) |
Mar 26, 2025 | TBD | Anna Ho (Cornell) |
Apr 2, 2025 | SPRING BREAK | |
Apr 9, 2025 | ||
Apr 16, 2025 | ||
Apr 23, 2025 | ||
Apr 30, 2025 | TBA | Matthew Nixon (U Maryland) |
Galaxy and Cosmology Lunch
The Galaxy and Cosmology Lunch Series is held on the Tuesdays listed below, from 12:00pm to 1:00pm in the Terzian Conference Room (Rm 622 Space Sciences Bldg). For a Zoom link, please contact Thomas Nikola (tn46@cornell.edu).
NOTE:
- Attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty.
- All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
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 |
---|---|---|
Jan 21, 2025 | no lecture | |
Jan 28, 2025 | "A Large Molecular Gas Reservoir in the Protocluster SPT2349−56 at z=4.3" (Zhou et al. 2025) | Rodrigo Freundt |
Feb 4, 2025 | "Rising from the ashes: evidence of old stellar populations and rejuvenation events in the very early Universe" (Witten et al. 2025) | Thomas Nikola |
Feb 11, 2025 | "Star formation efficiency and galaxy merger history at high-redshift" | Thomas Nikola |
Feb 18, 2025 | FEBRUARY BREAK | |
Feb 25, 2025 | "Ancient Star Formation History of the Extreme Low-mass Galaxy Leo-P" (McQuinn et al 2024) | Amit Vishwas, Catie Ball |
Mar 4, 2025 | ||
Mar 11, 2025 | "Towards a multi-tracer neutrino mass measurement with line-intensity mapping" | Abigail Crites |
Mar 18, 2025 | "Direct high-resolution observation of feedback and chemical enrichment in the circumgalactic medium at redshift z ∼ 2.8" (Peng et al. 2025) | Amit Vishwas |
Mar 25, 2025 | TBD | Sam Walker |
Apr 1, 2025 | SPRING BREAK | |
Apr 8, 2025 | Jianyang (Frank) Fu (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) | |
Apr 15, 2025 | TBD | Gordon Stacey |
Apr 22, 2025 | TBD | Mike Niemack |
Apr 29, 2025 | TBD | Catie Ball |
May 6, 2025 | TBD | Jim Higdon |
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)
- 2021-22 Scott Tremaine (U. Toronto)
- 2022-23 Alessandro Morbidelli (Lagrange, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur)
- 2023-24: Victoria Kaspi (McGill University)
- 2024-25: Lyman Page Jr. (Princeton)
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:
- 1999 Sterl Phinney (CalTech)
- 2000 Lars Bildsten (Univ. California-Berkeley)
- 2001 Dave Stevenson (CalTech)
- 2002 John Carlstrom (Univ. Chicago)
- 2003 Shri Kulkarni (CalTech)
- 2004 Andrea Ghez (UCLA)
- 2005 Victoria Kaspi (McGill)
- 2006 Avi Loeb (Harvard)
- 2007 Jonathan Lunine (Univ. of Arizona)
- 2008 Alexei Filippenko (Univ. California-Berkeley)
- 2009 Gilles Chabrier (ENS Lyon)
- 2010 David Spergel (Princeton University)
- 2011 Sara Seager (MIT)
- 2012 Elliot Quataert (UC Berkeley)
- 2013 Eve Ostriker (Princeton)
- 2014 Adam Showman (University of Arizona)
- 2015 Daniel Eisenstein (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
- 2016 Fiona A. Harrison (California Institute of Technology)
- 2017 Alyssa Goodman (Harvard)
- 2018 Fred Rasio (Northwestern)
- 2019 May Ruth Murray-Clay (UCSC)
- 2019 Nov Brian Metzger (Columbia University)
- 2022 Vicky Kalogera (Northwestern University)
- 2023 Matias Zaldarriaga, IAS Princeton
- 2024 Jenny Greene, Princeton
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:
- 2010 Nobel Prize Winner, John C. Mather (NASA/GSFC)
- 2011 Mario Livio (Space Telescope Science Institute)
- 2012 Nobel Prize Winner, Michel Mayor (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
- 2013 Jay Pasachoff (Williams College)
- 2014 Bruce Balick (University of Washington)
- 2015 Ken Kellermann (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)
- 2016 Nobel Prize Winner, Kip Thorne (California Institute of Technology)
- 2017 Shri Kulkarni (Director Caltech Optical Observatories) (Watch Dr Kulkarni's Lecture The Restless Universe (Palomar Transient Factory)
- 2018 Silvia Torres-Peimbert (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
- 2021 Shep Doeleman (Harvard University)
- 2022 Paul Davies (Arizona State University)
- 2023: Meenakshi Wadhwa (Arizona State)
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:
- 2002 Harold Ewen (University of Massachusetts)
- 2003 Tor Hagfors (Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy)
- 2005 Gordon Pettengill (MIT)
- 2006 Jocelyn Bell Burnell (University of Oxford)
- 2008 Lewis Duncan (Rollins College)
- 2009 Shri Kulkarni (Caltech)
- 2011 Joint Lecture & Arecibo Observatory Staff Event:
Donald Farley (Cornell University)
Miguel Feyjoo (Engineer)
Herbert Carlson (Utah State University)
Carl Heiles (UC Berkeley)
Donald B. Campbell (Cornell University) - 2013 Lara Waldrop (Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Jean-Luc Margot (UCLA)
- 2015 Xavier Siemens (Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
- 2018 Gregg Hallinan (Caltech)
- 2019 Amelie Saintonge (University College London)
- 2021 Maura McLaughlin (West Virginia University)
- 2022 Mark Devlin (University of Pennsylvania)
- 2023 Heino Falcke (Radboud University, Nijmegen)