Colloquium Calendar

Below is the colloquium calendar for the current semester. All in-person colloquia are held in Malott Hall 1003, beginning at 11:00 a.m. Colloquium refreshments will be available outside room 1003 at 10:30 a.m. unless otherwise announced. Talk titles and abstracts can be found in the accordions below the calendar when available. Please visit the department YouTube Channel (external) for recordings of colloquia when available. 

 

Graduate students in the department can submit their attendance by filling out this form.

 
DateFormatSpeakerTopicAffiliationKU Faculty HostZoom
August 25th, 2025In-PersonJennifer LotzAstroSpace Telescope Inst.RudnickZoom Link pw: 408508
September 1st, 2025No ColloquiumLabor Day Holiday 
September 8th, 2025In-PersonGabriele Carcassi Univ MichiganTapia TakakiZoom Link pw: 408508
September 15th, 2025In-PersonRachael Farber KU Chemistry DeptZhouZoom Link pw: 408508
September 22nd, 2025In-PersonDiana Qiu Yale UnivZhouZoom Link pw: 408508
September 29th, 2025In-PersonHai Fu Univ IowaRudnickZoom Link pw: 408508
October 6th, 2025In-PersonQimin Yan Northeastern UnivZhouZoom Link pw: 408508
October 13th, 2025No ColloquiumFall Break 
October 20th, 2025In-PersonXia HongCMPUniv Nebraska-LincolnZhaoZoom Link pw: 408508
October 27th, 2025In-PersonBruce MacintoshAstroDirector, UC ObservatoriesCrossfieldZoom Link pw: 408508
November 3rd, 2025In-PersonWennie Wang Univ Texas AustinPeelaersZoom Link pw: 408508
November 10th, 2025In-PersonZoya Valairi Ohio State UnivBrunettiZoom Link pw: 408508
November 17th, 2025In-PersonStefania Gori Univ California, Santa CruzLewisZoom Link pw: 408508
November 24th, 2025No ColloquiumThanksgiving Break 
 

 

 

Fall 2025 Colloquia

Title: The Legacies of Hubble, Webb,  and future NASA astrophysics flagship missions

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For the past four decades, the Space Telescope Science Institute has served as the bridge between NASA's flagship astrophysics missions and the scientific community through its role as the science operations center for Hubble, Webb, and Roman. The Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 35th year of operations,  and continues to lead innovative new discoveries with its ultraviolet-optical capabilities and decades of high precision data. In its third year of operations, the infrared James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever built and is rapidly transforming a broad range of astronomy fields, including galaxy evolution, cosmology,  star-formation, and exoplanet science. In two years,  the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch and begin to survey the sky at speeds 1000 times that of Hubble.  Roman is designed to study cosmological questions about the nature of dark energy, the evolution of the expansion rate, and the growth of large-scale structure over cosmic time,  as well as detect tens of thousands of exoplanets and demonstrate cutting-edge technology to directly image exoplanets. Finally,  STScI is working to support the next generation NASA astrophysics flagship mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory.  This mission will be a "super-Hubble" capable of detecting earth-like planets around sun-like stars, tracing the cosmic intergalactic medium, and spatially-resolving every known galaxy in the universe. These NASA flagship missions have immeasurable impact on the field of astrophysics and how astronomers around the world do science.  They enable STEM workforce development across the U.S. and are clear demonstrations of U.S. and NASA's leadership in science and technology.   I will discuss the challenges that cuts to NASA's science budget pose for the future of these missions.

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Please follow this link for an archive of previous colloquia.