Add to Calendar 2026-11-02T16:00:00 2026-11-02T17:00:00 ASTRO Colloquium with Lisa Dang Event Information: Title: Mapping Alien Worlds: from Infernal to Habitable Worlds  Abstract:  Although we will never get the same level of details for exoplanets as we do for Solar System bodies, the large diversity of exoplanets revealed by exoplanet hunting missions, e.g. Kepler and TESS, provide thousands of study cases to refine formation and evolution pathways as well as theories of how their climate is shaped by their environment. Particularly amenable for atmospheric characterization, short-period exoplanets with dayside blasted with stellar radiation are some of the best-characterized exoplanets to this day. Due to their synchronous rotation, they exhibit large day-to-night difference, and their observation can be difficult to interpret without a full understanding of their “3D-ness”. In the past 2 decades, a suite of observational techniques along with new space-based and ground-based observatories with exquisite precision that now allows us to reveal the inhomogeneous nature of these exoplanets and provide a more comprehensive view into their atmosphere, or lack thereof.  In this talk, I will present what we have learned from observations of a variety of close-in planets ranging from scorching hot exoplanets and how these observational techniques are now used to study temperate rocky planets to investigate their habitability. Bio: Professor Dang studies exoplanets strikingly different from our Solar System planets and characterizes their climate with a variety of world class space-based and ground-based observatories, most excitingly with the recently launched JWST. Before the exoplanets era, the architecture of the Solar System’s planets has long been the primary inspiration for planet formation and evolution theories. Her research interests include exoplanets and their atmosphere characterization, exoplanet cartogrpahy, exoplanetary graviational microlensing, planetary climates and exoplanet demographics.  Professor Dang’s research interests include using time-series observation of exoplanets to map their emission and characterize their atmospheres using transit and eclipse spectroscopy with space telescopes, detecting the Doppler shifts of planetary signals using high-resolution spectra with some of the largest ground-based telescopes and detecting exoplanets using the gravitational microlensing technique with the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Learn More: See her faculty and bio from the University of Waterloo Read this article from the University of Waterloo news, "Professor Lisa Dang brings the heat with lava planet research" Meet Lisa in 60 seconds on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wy5Rtinlu6M    Event Location: HENN 318

Add to Calendar 2026-11-16T16:00:00 2026-11-16T17:00:00 ASTRO Colloquium with Ronan Kerr Event Information: Abstract: [Coming soon!] Bio: Dr. Ronan Kerr is a Canadian astrophysicist whose research primarily focuses on star formation, stellar populations, and the early evolution of stellar and planetary systems. Learn More: See his personal website here: https://www.rkerrastro.com/  Watch him on Youtube, "Revealing the processes guiding galactic star formation using young stellar populations" Event Location: HENN 318

Add to Calendar 2026-11-23T16:00:00 2026-11-23T17:00:00 ASTRO Colloquium with Renee Hložek Event Information: Abstract: [coming soon!] Bio: Prof. Renee Hložek is an Assistant Professor of Astrophysics at the Dunlap Institute in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto in Canada. She is a member of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration and the Simons Observatory, which study the cosmic microwave background (or CMB) at a very sharp angular resolution to unlock the secrets of the early universe and the period of star formation. She uses this data to answer questions about the structure of the universe, its initial conditions and its eventual fate using data. Hložek hails from South Africa, where she studied at the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town. She received her DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2011, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She was a Lyman Spitzer Jr. Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University and the Spitzer-Cotsen Fellow in the Princeton Society of Fellows. She is also a TED Fellow.  Learn More: See her faculty bio from the University of Toronto: https://www.astro.utoronto.ca/people/faculty/name/renee-hlozek/  Read more about her from her Rhodes Project boi: https://rhodesproject.com/renee-hlozek-profile  See her video from Story Collider, "The Universe doesn't care about you": https://www.storycollider.org/singles/2020/9/23/renee-hlozek-the-universe-doesnt-care-about-you      Event Location: HENN 318