Jonathan's Astro Pages

Summer Colloquium Program

The Summer Colloquium Program takes over CfA's normal Thursday colloquium slot during its summer break. The summer talks are aimed at the REU students (although open to all) and the idea is to expose them to the range of research done at the CfA.


I have organized the summer colloquium program since its inception in 1994 (in collaboration with Kim Dow for the first few years).


The list below was mostly taken from schedules prepared at the beginnning of each summer and does not always reflect what actually happened, due to occasional rescheduling and cancellations. But it's mostly accurate.


YearDateSpeakerTopic
1994Jun 16 Dan Fabricant Conversion of the MMT
Jun 23 Somak Raychaudhury ?
Jun 30 Alyssa Goodman Dust in the Corners of the Universe
Jul 7 Andrea Dupree Star Light, Star Bright: Stellar Spectroscopy
Jul 14 Ramesh Narayan Measuring the Universe with Gravitational Lenses
Jul 21John Huchra So Many Galaxies...So Little Time
Jul 28 Adair Lane Astronomy in Antarctica
Aug 4 Kathy Flanagan X-ray Satellites: Rocket Scientist Tells All
Aug 11 Phil Sadler Misconceptions and their Role in Learning Science
1995Jun 15 Brian Marsden New Discoveries in the Outer Solar System
Jun 22 Jim Moran Searching for Massive Black Holes in the Nuclei of Galaxies
Jun 29 Kate Kirby Understanding Global Change: Heating and Cooling in the Earth's Atmosphere
Jul 6 Bob Kirshner Taking the Measure of the Universe
Jul 13 Jonathan McDowellQuasars
Jul 20 Ursula MarvinAntarctic Meteorites: Frozen Samples of Asteroids, the Moon and Mars
Jul 27 Diana WorrallActive Galaxies: A Matter of Perspective?
Aug 3Paul HoThe Galactic Center
Aug 10Shaddia HabbalThe Solar Wind, Messenger from the Sun
1996Jun 13 Steven Saar ?
Jun 20 George Rybicki ?
Jul 3 Fred Seward[Supernova remnants] ?
Jul 11 Kim McLeod? [Quasars]?
Jul 18 Scott Kenyon ?
Jul 25 Saku Vrtilek?[X-ray binaries] ?
Aug 1 Pepi Fabbiano[X-ray galaxies] ?
Aug 8 Emilio Falco ?
1997 [Schedule unknown]
Aneta Siemiginowska Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes and Accretion Disks
Bob Phillips [Equivalence principle measurement?]
Jeremy Drake [Stars?]
Brian McLeod?
1998Jun 18Charlie Lada Star and Planet Formation in the Galaxy
Jun 25 Bob Donahue Is the Sun Weird? Adventures in the Solar-Stellar Connection
Jul 2 Alison Coil *Voyage to the Galactic Center
Jul 9 Andrea PrestwichX-ray Astronomy
Jul 16 Shaddia Habbal The Dynamic Sun and the Solar Wind
Jul 23 Peter ChallisFrom Signal-To-Noise to Measuring the Universe
Jul 30 Lincoln GreenhillMaser and Brobdignagian Beasts in AGN
Aug 6 Eric HooperMonsters in the Night: Quasars and their Wily Ways
1999Jun 24 Rene Plume Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite
Jul 1 Pete Nisensen Finding Planets Orbiting Sun-Like Stars
Jul 6/8 John Huchra Cosmology, Part I/II
Jul 15 Pauline Barmby Globular Clusters in M31
Jul 22 Brian Patten Give Us Back Our Fortnight!
Jul 29 Leon Golub The Sun from TRACE
Aug 5 Christine Jones The Chandra X-ray Observatory
2000Jun 22 Rosanne Di Stefano Binaries and What They Can Do For You>
Jun 29 Amy Winebarger *Plasma in the Solar Transition Region
Jul 6 Rupert Croft Structure in the Early Universe
Jul 20 Irene PorroSeeing sharper: Optical interferometry and adaptive optics
Jul 27 Pat Slane Chandra looks at Supernova Remnants
Aug 3 Sam PalmerMapping the Galaxy from the Roof of 60 Garden St
2001Jun 21 Martin WhiteSeeing spots on the sky: the geometry of the universe.
Jun 28 Kathy FlanaganThe Chandra X-ray Observatory: Twenty Years to Make a Point!
Jul 9-13 John Huchra[Short lecture course on cosmology]
Jul 19 Jeno SokoloskiFlicker, Flicker, Little Star: Rapid Optical Varability and Accretion
Jul 26 Robin McGaryThe Black Hole in the Galactic Center
Aug 2Dave Charbonneau Sizing Up Planets Around Sun-Like Stars
2002Jun 14Matt Holman Satellites in the Outer Solar System
Jun 27Lori Allen The Space Infrared Telescope Facility>
Jul 11Ken Rines * Galaxy Cluster Suburbs
Jul 18Andrea Prestwich X-ray Galaxies
Jul 24Bryan Gaensler Radio polarization: probing the interstellar medium
Aug 1Michel Tognini[Special astronaut talk]
Aug 8Gaitee Hussain [Solar physics]
2003Jun 19Travis Metcalfe * Pulsating white dwarfs and physics
Jul 10Alyssa GoodmanStar Formation
Jul 17Gabriela Mallen-Ornelas The EXPLORE Search for Transiting Extrasolar Planets
Jul 24Andy Szentgyorgyi Multi-Object Spectroscopy
Jul 31Leonard Strachan UV Spectroscopic Observations of the Solar Corona
Aug 7Aneta SiemiginowskaX-rays from Quasars
2004Jul 8Dimitar SasselovExoplanets
Jul 15Vinay KashyapX Marks the Star
Jul 22Giovanni FazioResults from the Spitzer Space Telescope
Jul 29Brant Robertson *Disk Galaxy Formation in Our Cosmology
Aug 3Jenny Grene Intermediate-mass Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei
Aug 12Jasmina LazendicMixed-morphology supernova remnants and their disguises
2005Jun 23Marat GilfanovX-ray source pops in galaxies and star formation
Jun 30Nitya Kallivayalil Spitzer sheds light on dark matter
Jul 7 Lisa Kaltenegger The search for Earth-like planets around other stars
Jul 14 Scott Gaudi Sedna and Beyond: Explorations of the Outer Solar System
Jul 21 Mark Reid Micro-arcsecond Radio Astrometry
Jul 28Bryan Gaensler The Brightest Explosion in History: Amazing Magnetars, and the Giant Flare of 27th December
Aug 4Belinda Wilkes Red AGN with Chandra
2006Jun 29Charlie Lada The Origins of Star Formation Research: From Aristotle to Ambartsumian
Jul 6 Scott Gaudi Taking the Inventory of Extrasolar Planets with Microlensing
Jul 11 Charlie Lada The Nature and Origin of the Stellar IMF
Jul 13 Mark GurwellTaking the Temperature of Pluto (from 4.5 Billion Kilometers Away)
Jul 20 Jenny GreeneBlack Holes and the Galaxies They Live In.
Jul 27 Joe Hora An Infrared View of the Helix Planetary Nebula
Aug 3Karen MastersMapping the Cosmic Web
2007Jun 21Beth Willman The Least Luminous Galaxies in the Universe
Jun 28Erik Rosolowsky * The First Steps of Star Formation
Jul 12Christine JonesReflections from Outbursts of Supermassive Black Holes at the Centers of Galaxies
Jul 19Kelly Korreck Hot Topics on a Cool Star- A Look at the Sun in X-rays using XRT aboard Hinode
Jul 26Deborah WoodsWavefront Sensors and Adaptive Optics
Aug 2Dave Latham The Search for Earth-like Planets and the Kepler Mission
2008Jun 19Gurtina BeslaThe Magellanic Clouds
Jul 10Dave Charbonneau How to find a habitable exoplanet
Jul 17 Joey Neilsen * The Superluminal GRS 1915+105
Jul 24 Sukanya Chakrabarti The Lives of Galaxies
Jul 31 Aneta Siemiginowska X-ray observations of quasars
Aug 4 Justin Kasper Robotic Exploration of the Heliosphere
2009 Jun 18 Tim Spahr Near-Earth Objects and the Minor Planet Center
Jun 25 Liz Humphreys Supermassive Black Holes, Dark Energy & Other Stories
Jul 2 Edo Berger GRBs the biggest explosion since the big bang
Jul 9 Jessie Christiansen NASA Goes Green: How We Recycled the Deep Impact spacecraft.
Jul 16 Rosanne Di Stefano New Frontiers in Gravitational Lensing
Jul 23 Pat Slane 10 years of Chandra
2010Jun 24 Bob Penna * Spinning Black Holes and Accretion Flows
Jul 1 Anna Frebel Stellar Archaeology: New Science with Old Stars
Jul 12 Matt Ashby Brown Dwarfs to Galaxy Clusters, Deep and Wide with Spitzer
Jul 15 Kathy Reeves New Views of the Sun with Hinode and SDO
Jul 22 Laura Blecha Recoiling Black Holes in Merging Galaxies
Jul 29 Andrea Dupree Kepler and exoplanets
Aug 5 Paola Testa Solar and Stellar X-ray activity: The Sun as a star
2011Jun 16 Esra Bulbul SZ effect and XR obs of galaxy clusters
Jun 23 Zach Berta MEarth: The Joy of Planets Transiting Puny Stars
Jun 30 Nimesh Patel Exploring Astrochemistry with the SMA
Jul 14 Doug Finkbeiner Hubble/s Expanding Unvierse and the CMB
Jul 21 Katrien Kolenberg Kepler and the mysteries of RR Lyr stars
Jul 28 Kelly Korreck Solar Wind
Aug 4 Alicia Soderberg * Supernovae
2012Jun 14Chanda Prescod-WeinsteinWhy GR is Really Cool!
Jun 21 Ashley Zauderer Exploring the Energetic Transient Universe
Jul 5 Volker Tolls Mysteries of the Inner Galactic Clouds
Jul 12 Sarah Ballard * 3 Predictions in Exoplanets Worth $10K or More
Jul 19 Linda Watson * Star Formation In Nearby Galaxies
Jul 26 Moritz Guenther Accretion, winds and jets: High-energy emission from young stars
Aug 2 Dan Eisenstein Dark Energy and Cosmic Sound
2013Jun 20Francesco CivanoExtragalactic Surveys
Jun 27 Claudia Cyganowski Massive Star Formation
Jul 11 Shane Bussmann Submillimeter Galaxies and Lensing
Jul 18 John Kovac Cosmology with the Cosmic Microwave Background
Aug 1 Courtney Dressing Exoplanets
Aug 8 Giulia Migliori Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei
2014Jun 12Cameron McBride Large-scale structure: addressing the biggest questions with galaxy redshift surveys.
Jun 26 John Johnson Hot on the Trail of Warm Planets Orbiting Cool Stars
Jul 3 Steve Cranmer Stellar Winds Across the H-R Diagram
Jul 10 Chun Lin Wong B-mode polarization in the CMB
Jul 17 Francesca DeMeo Solar System Evolution from Compositional Mapping of the Asteroid Belt
Jul 24 Maria Drout * Extreme Supernovae: Transient Science in the Era of Wide Field Surveys
Jul 31 Jonathan McDowellThe Globalization of Earth orbit
Aug 7Belinda WilkesChandra's X-ray View of the Universe
2015Jun 18 David KippingMy Journey Searching for Exomoons
Jun 25Sarah Wellons * Cosmological simulations: Connecting galaxy populations across cosmic time
Jul 2 Charlie ConroyThe Stars in Galaxies
Jul 9 Nia ImaraThe Environments of Stellar Nurseries
Jul 16 Laura LopezDissecting the Remnants of Nearby Supernovae
Jul 23 Laura BrennemanX-ray puzzles from massive black holes
Jul 30 Gonzalo Gonzalez AbadCharacterizing atmospheres from Earth to exoplanets
2016Jun 16 John Johnson Getting More With Less: Big Science, Small Telescopes, Small Stars
Jun 23 Anna BarnackaThe High Energy Universe with Strong Gravitational Lensing
Jun 30 Elaine WinstonYoung Stars in Stellar Clusters
Jul 7 Ben Cook *Illustris stellar halos: Cosmological simulations of galaxies
Jul 14Joe HoraHow a Black Hole Feeds: Observations of Sgr A*
Jul 21Ilse CleevesZooming in on physics and chemistry of star formation with ALMA
Jul 28Rudy Montez Planetary Nebulae
2017Jun 14Ana Bonaca Renegades in the Solar Neighborhood
Jun 21Rafael Martinez Galarza Star Formation in Interacting Galaxies: A Tale of Compactness
Jun 28 Chelsea MacLeod Chasing the Tails of Quasar Variability
Jul 5 Dan D'Orazio *The Biggest Black Hole Binaries
Jul 13 Raphaelle Haywood Detecting and Characterizing Other Earths
Jul 27 Dan Castro Particle Acceleration in the Remnants of Supernova Explosions
2018Jun 13 Cecilia GarraffoGone With the Wind: stellar spin to planetary atmospheres
Jun 21 Sam Quinn Exoplanets in the TESS Era
Jun 28 Anastasia Fialkov Shining Light Into Cosmic Dark Ages
Jul 12 Atish Kamble Supernovae
Jul 19 Jill Naiman Modeling the Universe: Cosmological Simulations of Elemental Production
Jul 26 Grant Tremblay Lynx X-ray Observatory
Aug 2 Sarah Sadavoy Molecular Clouds and The Formation of Stars
2019 Jun 13Michael JohnsonTaking the First Picture of a Black Hole with the Event Horizon Telescope
Jun 20John Lewis California: CO and Dust in the Sleeping Giant
Jun 27 Catherine Zucker * and Josh SpeagleCharting Nearby Molecular Clouds with Gaia: A New Map of our Local Interstellar Medium
Jul 11 Laura Mayorga The Exoplanets in our Backyard
Jul 18 Ashley Villar * Stellar eruptions, explosions and collisions in the era of big data
Jul 25 Francesca Fornasini Black Holes in the Early Universe
2020 Jun 18 Michelle Ntampaka Machine Learning Approach to Galaxy Cluster Mass Estimates
Jun 25 Maurice Wilson *First Radial Velocity Results From the MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA)
Jul 2 Rebecca Nevin *Untangling the physical origin of galaxy kinematics with unsupervised learning
Jul 9 Lindy BlackburnThe Event Horizon Telescope
Jul 23 Francesca Fornasini Black Holes in the Early Universe
Jul 30Luca Matra Exocometary science
2021 Jun 17Yvette CendesThe Cosmic Zoo of Radio Transients
Jun 24Anna Rosen A Massive Star is Born
Jul 1Tyler St Germaine Inflation and BICEP
Jul 15Bryan Terrazas * Black Hole Feedback
Jul 22Amber Medina *Magnetics of Exo Host Stars
Aug 5Chima McGruder *Exoplanet atmospheres
2022 Jun 16Yvette CendesThe Cosmic Zoo of Radio Transients
Jun 23Mila ChadayammuriCluster Cosmology
Jul 7Diana PowellExoplanets
Jul 14Mike FoleyStar formation - In Dust We Trust
Jul 21Floor Broekgaarden Gravitational Wave Paleontology to understand Massive Stars.
2023 Jun 22Daniel CastroHigh Energy Studies of the Remnants of Supernova Explosions
Jun 29Jaya MaithilActive Galactic Nuclei
Jul 6Hannah RanaCryogenic instruments for future astrophysics discoveries
Jul 13Matt Ashby The SphereX Mission
Jul 20Kaley Brauer * The Legacy of the First Galaxies
Jul 27Mercedes Lopez-MoralesUnveiling the atmospheres of exoplanets with JWST
Aug 3Caroline NowlanMeasuring Air Pollution from Space with the TEMPO Instrument
* - Program alum