Lectures & Colloquia
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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 4-5 pm in room 105 of the Space Sciences Building and are preceded at 3:30 pm by tea, coffee, and light refreshments. The public is welcome.
| Date | Topic | Speaker | |
|---|---|---|---|
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 Space Sciences room 622. To view via Zoom, please email Ngoc Truong (tnt45@cornell.edu) for the link.
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Date
|
Topic
|
Speaker
|
|---|---|---|
|
February 3, 2020
|
Revealing the Nature of Exoplanetary Atmospheres
|
Dr. Ryan Mac Donald (Astronomy, Cornell University)
|
|
February 10, 2020
|
Juno observations of Jupiter's Magnetic Field
|
Prof. Phil Nicholson (Astronomy, Cornell University)
|
| February 17, 2020 | Astronomy Chalk Talk and Pizza Lunch | Yubo Su (Astronomy, Cornell University) |
| February 24, 2020 | TBD | TBD |
| March 2, 2020 | TBD | TBD |
| March 9, 2020 | TBD | Dr. Andrew Harper (Astronomy, Cornell University) |
| March 16, 2020 | (Canceled for the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference) | |
| March 23, 2020 | TBD | TBD |
| March 30, 2020 | (Canceled for Spring Break) | |
| April 6, 2020 | LPSC: Lunar & Planetary Science at Cornell | Christian Tate, Ishan Mishra, Nicholas Kutsop |
| April 13, 2020 | CANCELLED | |
| April 20, 2020 | How much is a glacier likely to collapse when bed conditions change? | Whyjay Zheng (EAS, Cornell) |
| April 27, 2020 | Apocalypse: The End of Habitability on Terrestrial Planets | Dr. Illeana Gomez-Leal |
| May 4, 2020 | High-resolution Simulated Spectra for M Dwarf Exoplanets | Zifan Lin (Cornell) |
| May 11, 2020 | Exploration of Asteroid (101955) Bennu | Prof. Beth Clark (Astronomy, Ithaca College) |
| May 18, 2020 | No talk | |
| May 25, 2020 | HOLIDAY | |
| June 1, 2020 | Characteristics of Localized Lunar Pyroclastic Deposits | Olaf Gustafson (EAS) |
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 in Space Sciences 622.
Bring your own lunch.
| Date | Topic | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| January 29, 2020 | Differential Rotation in Convecting Stars | Adam Jermyn (Flatiron) |
| February 19, 2020 | The Dawn of Planet-Hunting with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array | Ted Bergin (Michigan) |
| February 26, 2020 |
Great Impostors: Extremely Compact, Merging Binary Neutron Stars in the Mass Gap Posing as Binary Black Holes Tales of the planetary graveyard |
Eamonn O'Shea and Chris O'Connor |
| March 4, 2020 |
Hierarchical Black Hole Mergers in Active Galactic Nuclei Orbital Inflation: inflating along an angular isometry of field space |
Dante Iozzo and Soumyajit Bose |
| March 11, 2020 |
Plasmoid formation in global GRMHD simulations and AGN flares Post-merger gravitational wave signatures of phase transitions in binary mergers |
Cristobal Armaza and Peter Rau |
| March 18, 2020 | TBA | Gabriel Bonilla and Yubo Su |
| March 25, 2020 | Giant planet migration in low-viscosity disks | Alessandro Morbidelli (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur) |
| April 8, 2020 | TBA | Georgios Valogiannis and Michael Pu |
| April 15, 2020 | TBA | Alexander Grant and Victoia Calafut |
| April 22, 2020 | TBA | Prayush Kumar |
| April 29, 2020 | TBA | TBD |
Galaxy Lunch
The Galaxy Lunch Series is held every Tuesday during the academic year, at 12:00pm, in Space Sciences room 622. In general, there will be an hour-long talk/discussion on topics 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, so talks should be at a level accessible to most. 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.
Bring your own lunch.
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:
- 2020-21 Alessandro Morbidelli (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur)
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)
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 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 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)
The William E. & 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. Gordon raised the funding for the telescope and organized its construction. Completed in 1963, the 305m (1000ft) diameter telescope and its powerful radar systems have been continuously upgraded over the intervening years and have been used to made major advances in the areas of ionospheric physics, radio astronomy and planetary science.
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)
Upcoming Lecturer:
- 2021 Maura McLaughlin (West Virginia University)
Other Talk Series
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2020 VLA Short Summer Talk Series begins June 25 through September 10. All talks will be given via zoom at 3pm on Thursdays.
The goal of the series is to draw a contingent of early-career researchers and students who are interested in open astronomy problems by facilitating discussions on topics that are particularly important and/or timely covering a broad range of astronomy research areas, while also drawing connections to a present or future facilities (e.g., ALMA, JWST, SKA, ngVLA, the ELTs, LSST/Rubin, or a proposed NASA observatory). Registration through the linked site is required.