Astro Summer Seminar Series

Every summer the astronomy graduate students host a series of seminars highlighting the novel and diverse research being conducted by astronomers at UVic and the NRC-HAA. Not only does this allow local astronomers to present the depth and range of their current research, but it gives the audience the opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research being done in Victoria.

Interested in presenting? We invite all astronomers from UVic and NRC-HAA (faculty, post-docs, research personnel, graduate students, co-op students) to present for 30-45 minutes on a current research project. We also welcome external collaborators of UVic and NRC-HAA personnel to present as well. If you are interested in presenting, reach out to anyone on our organizing committee.

Organizing Committee: Mallory Thorp (mallorythorp@uvic.ca), Vida Saeedzadeh (vidasaeedzadeh@uvic.ca)

Interested in attending? The 2022 astronomy seminar series will be held from 12pm – 1pm on Wednesdays (with some flexibility for certain speakers). We will be providing the option to attend the seminar virtually over zoom. See the table below for scheduled seminars.

Upcoming Seminars

Date
Speaker
Seminar Title
Location
1 – 6 – 2022 Cancelled
8 – 6 – 2022 William Thompson Fireflies, wobbles, sirens, and sunsets Recording Coming Soon
15 – 6 – 2022 Sara Ellison Gas and star formation in the nearby universe with the ALMA-MaNGA QUEnching and STar formation (ALMaQUEST) survey. Recording Coming Soon
22 – 6 – 2022 Shoshannah Byrne-Mamahit Enhanced Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Rates in Post-Merger Galaxies from Cosmological Simulations Recording
29 – 6 – 2022 James Lane Picking apart the stellar halo of the Milky Way in the Gaia era Recording
6 – 7 – 2022 Federico Sestito Galactic archæology in the Gaia era: tracing the Milky Way assembly with the oldest and most metal-poor stars Recording
13 – 7 – 2022 Spencer Bialek Astronomers and their Intelligent Machines: Advancing the Research Pipeline Recording
20 – 7 – 2022 Logan Francis Things that go Bump in the Night – Accretion Burst Echoes as Probes of Protostellar Environments Recording
27 – 7 – 2022 Katie Crotts A Multi-Wavelength Study of the Highly Asymmetrical Debris Disk Around HD 111520​ Recording
3 – 8 – 2022 Fletcher Waller A Spookily Good New High-Resolution Optical Spectrograph for Gemini South: Get Inspired to Use GHOST Recording
10 – 8 – 2022 Ariane Trudeau Galaxy populations in distant, X-ray selected clusters Recording
17 – 8 – 2022 Scott Wilkinson Are all post-starbursts galaxies caused by mergers? An investigation into the triggering of rapid quenching. Recording
24 – 8 – 2022 Kim Venn Cancelled
31 – 8 – 2022 Max Kurzner How Clusters of Galaxies Shape Up: Galaxy Morphology with the Next Generation Virgo Survey CLE A313

We respectfully acknowledge that the UVic astronomy seminar series is held on the ancestral territories of the Lekwungen peoples. We strive to honour the Songhees, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples who were the first astronomers of this land and whose continued stewardship is crucial to its preservation.

Past Seminars – 2021

The organizing committee thanks all the volunteer speakers at the 2020 Summer Seminar Series for their engaging presentations.

Date
Speaker
Seminar Title
Link / Location
17 – 05 – 2021 Jon Willis Discovering the first cosmic cities: Distant galaxy clusters and the growth of large-scale structure in the Universe.

Recording
07 – 06 – 2021 Doug Rennehan Mixing Matters Postponed
14 – 06 – 2021 Robert Bickley Machine vision-based studies of post-merger galaxies in observations & simulations Recording
21 – 06 – 2021 Alan McConnachie The Milky Way, its satellites, and their analogs in the Local Universe Recording
28 – 06 – 2021 Cancelled for Extreme Heat
05 – 07 – 2021 Nienke van der Marel Ice pebble chemistry in a dust trap and its influence on the C/O ratio in a planet-forming disk Recording
12 – 07 – 2021 Isabel Santos Magellanic satellites in LCDM cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Group Recording
19 – 07 – 2021 Austin Davis Turbulent convective mixing at the end of a massive stars life: Motivation for multi-physics code validation Recording
26 – 07 – 2021 Dhruv Muley Observational Signatures of Planets in Protoplanetary Disks: Temperature structures in spiral arms Recording Coming Soon
02 – 08 – 2021 No Seminar Happy British Columbia Day!
09 – 08 – 2021 Megan Donahue Quenching of Star Formation in Massive Galaxies: Insights from X-ray Observations of their Gas Halos Recording Coming Soon
16 – 08 – 2021 Asya Borukhovetskaya The tidal evolution of the Fornax and Crater II dwarf spheroidals Recording Coming Soon
23 – 08 – 2021 Salvatore Quai The rarity of quenching in simulated post-merger galaxies Recording Coming Soon
30 – 08 – 2021 Jess Speedie Observing planet-driven spiral arms in the dust with ALMA https://uvic.zoom.us/j/86420210010

2020

Date
Speaker
Seminar Title
Link / Location
05 – 05 – 2021 Jon Willis All These Worlds Are Yours – The Scientific Search for Alien Life. Recorded Seminar
06 – 05 – 2020 Falk Herwig 3D hydrodynamic simulations of core-convection in massive stars: new solutions to an old problem No Recording
13 – 05 – 2020 Alan McConnachie Pushing Gaia to the limits: new insights into the outer Galaxy and the Local Group Recorded Seminar
20 – 05 – 2020 JJ Kavelaars TBD Recorded Seminar
03 – 06 – 2020 Arif Babul Cosmology with Galaxy Clusters Recorded Seminar
17 – 06 – 2020 Kim Venn The Metal Poor Galaxy Recorded Seminar
24 – 06 – 2020 Raphael Errani Tidal stripping 101: substructure abundance and the dark matter halos of Milky Way dwarfs Recorded Seminar
08 – 07 – 2020 Clare Higgs The Stellar Structure of Isolated Local Group Dwarf Galaxies with the Solo Survey Recorded Seminar
15 – 07 – 2020 Guillaume Thomas Reconstructing the history of the Milky Way and probing the dark matter nature with our stellar halo and its structures Recorded Seminar
22 – 07 – 2020 Doug Johnstone Steady Wind-Blown Cavities within Infalling Rotating Envelopes: Application to the Broad Velocity Component in Young Protostars Observed by the Herschel Space Observatory Recorded Seminar
29 – 07 – 2020 Maan Hani The spatially resolved effects of galaxy mergers on star formation and metallicities in IllustrisTNG No Recording
05 – 08 – 2020 Nienke van der Marel On the origin, diversity and fate of gapped protoplanetary disks Recorded Seminar
19 – 08 – 2020 Toby Brown Early Results from VERTICO, the Virgo Environment Traced in CO Survey No Recording
02 – 09 – 2020 Katie Crotts A Deep Polarimetric Analysis of the Debris Disk HD 106906 Recorded Seminar