Colloquia and Seminars 2013-14

Colloquia talks are held weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year (September through to April) in the Bob Wright lecture theatre A104 at 3:30 pm (unless otherwise stated). They are geared at a general audience — faculty, staff, students and interested members of the general public are welcome.

Seminar talks are more specialized and are geared for those in a particular field. Dates and times for these talks vary.

Colloquia and seminar listings from previous academic years are listed in our archive.

PAST COLLOQUIA

April 23
3:30 p.m. / Elliott Building 167
Dr. Sun Kwok, University of Hong Kong
"Synthesis of Complex Organics in the Late Stages of Stellar Evolution"

April 08
2:00 p.m. / Dr. Colin Bischoff, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
"Detection of B-Mode Polarization at Degree Angular Scales Using BICEP2"

April 02
Dr. Bill Phillips, National Institute of Standards and Technology
"Spinning Atoms With Light: A New Twist on Atom Optics"

March 26
Dr. Tami Pereg-Barnea, McGill University
"Driving Topology, Hunting Majoranas"

March 19
Dr. Juan Collar, University of Chicago
"Recent Progress (or lack thereof) in Direct Searches for Dark Matter"

March 12
Dr. Darren Grant, University of Alberta
Not of this Earth: The Advent of Neutrino Astronomy

March 05
Dr. Christine Wilson, McMaster University
"Gas and Star Formation in Nearby Galaxies: New Results From the Herschel Space Observatory"

February 26
Dr. Chris Fryer, Los Alamos National Laboratory
"Astrophysics' Extreme Matter Experiments: Understanding the Diagnostics"

February 25
2:30 p.m. / Engineering & Computer Science Building 116
Dr. Jacob Levman/ University of Oxford
"MRI in Breast Cancer and Stroke"

February 20
2:30 p.m. / Elliot Building 062
Dr. Sara St. James/ Harvard Medical School
"Instrumentation for improving the spatial resolution and sensitivity of small animal PET"

February 19
Dr. Eva Halkiadakis, Rutgers University
"Searching for Physics Byond the Standard Model at the CMS Experiment at the LHC"

February 07
2:30 p.m. / Engineering & Computer Science Building 116
Dr. Gloria M. Orchard, University of Ontario
"Tritium in Air: Electrons in Gases"

February 05
Dr. Michael Landry, LIGO Hanford Observatory
"Pursuing Gravitational Waves with Advanced LIGO"

February 04
2:30 p.m. / Engineering & Computer Science Building 116
Dr. Magdalena Bazalova, Stanford University
"From Slow X-ray Imaging to Fast Electron Beam Radiotherapy"

January 29
Dr. Rob McPherson, University of Victoria/ IPP
"Light at the Start of the Tunnel: the LHC and ATLAS"

January 22
Dr. John Wise, Georgia Institute of Technology
"The First Stars and Galaxies in the Universe"

January 15
Dr. John Dutcher, University of Guelph
"Nanomechanical Response of Bacteria to Antimicrobials: A Pressing Issue"

January 08
Dr. Douglas Scott, University of British Columbia
"Planck, the Universe, and Everything"

December 04
Dr. Andy Becker, University of Washington
"How to Find the Needle in the Haystack: Variable Star Lightcurve Classification Techniques"

November 27
Dr. Paula Heron, University of Washington
"Is “Interactive” Teaching Sufficient to Promote Conceptual Development in Physics?"

November 20
Dr. Jenny Hoffman, Harvard University
"Topological Materials at the Nanoscale"

November 13
Dr. Paul Goldbart, Georgia Institute of Technology
"Strands of Superconductivity at the Nanoscale"

November 06
Dr. Dan Stamper-Kurn, University of California, Berkeley
"Magnetism in Quantum Gases"

October 30
Dr. Mike Roney, University of Victoria
"Applying EPR Entanglement to Observe Time-Reversal Violation & Searching for New Physics with BABAR"

October 23
Dr. Eugene Demler, Harvard University
"Studying Many-body States with Quantum Noise"

October 16
Dr. James Bullock, University of California, Irvine
"A Cold Dark Matter Controversy in Dwarf Galaxies"

October 09
Dr. George Lake, University of Zurich
"What's a Galaxy?"

October 02
Dr. Joe Polchinski, KITP, University of California, Santa Barbara
"The Black Hole Information Paradox, Alive and Kicking"

September 25
Dr. Hilke Schlichting, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"New Insights into Planet Formation from the Kepler Satellite & Our Solar System"

September 18
Dr. Christopher Stubbs, Harvard University
"The Dark Energy Crisis in the Longer Term"

September 11
Dr. Tom Ruth, TRIUMF
"99Mo/99mTc: Canada from World Leader in Medical Isotope Production to Follower and Return to Leadership, Maybe?"

PAST SEMINARS

Thursday, August 28
11:00 AM / Elliott Building, Room 160
Dr. Tatsuma Nishioka, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Entanglement Entropy in Gapped Systems

Wednesday, August 13
11:00 AM / Clearihue Building, Room A202
Dr. Thomas de Boer, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK
"The Star Formation History of Classical Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies"

Friday, August 8
11:00 AM / Clearihue Building, Room A203
Dr. Erik Rosolowsky, University of Alberta
"Finding the Recipe for Star Formation"

Wednesday, July 30
11:00 AM / Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Large Conference Room
Dr. Caty Pilachowski, Dean Kirkwood Chair, Astronomy Department, University of Indiana
"Exploring Multiple Populations in Globular Clusters in the Milky Way and Beyond"

Wednesday, June 25
10:30 AM / Engineering Computer Science Building, Room 108
Dr. Samantha Lawler, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics
"What on Earth is Fomalhaut B?"

Friday, June 20
10:30 AM / Elliott Building, Room 162
Dr. Geraint Lewis, University of Sydney, Australia
"Lessons Learnt from PAandAS: Cosmic Evolution and the Great Plane of Dwarfs"

Friday, May 30
2:00 p.m. / Elliott Building 162
Dr. Doron Lemze, John Hopkins University
"Using Spectroscopic Data of Galaxies Within and Around Galaxy Clusters to Test Structure Formation"

Wednesday, April 30
2:00 p.m. / Elliot Building 060
Dr. Carlos Vera Ciro, University of Wisconsin
"The Effect of Radial Migration on the Structure of Galactic Disks"

Thursday, April 24
2:30 p.m./ Elliott Building 160
Dr. Stefan Janiszewski, University of Washington
"Universal Horizons in a Non-Relativistic Holography"

Tuesday, April 22
3:00 p.m./ Elliott Building 162
Dr. Rachel Mason, Gemini Observatory
"The Nuclear Regions of Local Active Galaxies"

Thursday, April 10
2:00 p.m./ Engineering and Computer Science Building 125
Dr. Robert Braun, SKA Science Director, Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK
"Science with the Square Kilometre Array"

Monday, April 7
2:00 p.m./ Elliott Building 162
Dr. Jorge Peñarrubia, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh
"A Dynamical Model of the Local Cosmic Expansion"

Monday, March 31
12:00 p.m. / Engineering and Computing Science Building 130
Dr. Orsola De Marco, Macquarie University, Sydney, Austraila
"Getting Ready for the Changing Sky"

Friday, March 21
10:30 a.m. / Elliott Building 061
Dr. Matthias Steinmetz, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam, Germany
"The Wobbly Galaxy: Kinematics North and South with RAVE"

Thursday, February 27
11:30 a.m. / Elliott Building 161
Dr. Adolfo Malbouisson, Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF)
"Field Theories in a toroidal topology: Finite size effects in phase transitions"

Monday, February 03
2:30 p.m. / Elliott Building 060
Dr. Mitsutoshi Fujita, University of Tokyo/ IPMU
"From Maxwell-Chern-Simons Theory in AdS3 towards Hydrodynamics in 1+1 Dimensions"

Tuesday, January 28
1:30 p.m. / Elliott Building 061
Dr. Chiara Mingarelli, University of Birmingham
"Characterizing Anisotropy in the Gravitational Wave Background with Pulsar Timing Arrays"

Monday, January 27
12:00 p.m. / Engineering & Computer Science Building 130
Dr. Alyson Brooks/ Rutgers University
"Solving CDM's Small Scale Crisis with Baryons"

Tuesday, January 21
11:30 a.m. / Elliott Building 162
Dr. Danielle Wills, Durham University
"Dark D-brane Cosmology"

Thursday, January 09
1:00 p.m. / Clearihue Building D131
Dr. Elena D'Onghia, University of Wisconsin, Madison
"Spiral Waves and Wobbles in Galactic Disks"

Tuesday, December 17
10:00 a.m./ Elliott Building 160
Dr. Inger Jorgensen, Gemini-N, Hilo, Hawaii
"Galaxy Evolution in the Densest Environments ­ from z=1.27 to the Present"

Thursday, December 12
2:00 p.m./ Elliott Building 160
Dr. Itay Yavin, McMaster University and Perimeter Institute
"Looking into the Darkness: Old and New Experiments to Look for Dark Matter"

Friday, December 06
10:30 a.m./ Elliott Building 061
Dr. Robyn Sanderson, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, the University of Groningen, Netherlands
"Inferring the Galactic Gravitaional Potential"

Wednesday, December 04
11:00 a.m./ Clearihue Building C113
Dr. Nicola Amorisco, DARK Institute, Copenhagen
"Cosmology in Our Backyard: Supernova Feedback and Hierarchical Assembly in Dwarf Spheroidals"

Friday, November 08
10:30 a.m./ MacLaurin Building D103
Dr. Rubén Sanchéz Jassen, National Research Council Canada
"The Impact of Dwarf-Dwarf Galaxy Tidal Interactions"

Friday, November 08
2:30 p.m./ Elliott Building 060
Dr. Aleksey Cherman, University of Minnesota
"Resurgence in Quantum Field Theory: Handling the Devil's Invention"

Tuesday, November 05
2:00 p.m./ Elliott Building 161
Dr. Wolfgang Altmannshofer, Perimeter Institute
"New Physics in B --> K* μ+μ- ?"

Thursday, October 31
2:30 p.m./ Clearihue Building C111
Dr. Jeff Bowen, Bucknell University
"Closed Timelike Curves and the Initial Value Problem"

Friday, October 25
10:30 a.m./ MacLaurin Building D114
Dr. Luc Simard, National Research Council Canada
The Thirty-Meter Telescope

Tuesday, September 24
3:30 p.m./ Elliott Building 161
Dr. Jason Loeppky, University of British Columbia, Okanagan
"Comparing Simulated Emission from Molecular Clouds Using Experimental Design"
Joint work with: Erik Rosolowsky, Stella Offner, Miayan Yeremi and Mallory Flynn

Thursday, September 19
2:30 p.m./ Elliott Building 062
Dr. Carlos Tamarit, Perimeter Institute
"Running Couplings with a Vanishing Scale Anomaly"

Tuesday, September 17
2:30 p.m./ Elliott Building 060
Dr. Ivan Gordeli, International Institute of Physics, Natal
"Glueball Spectrum of SUSY Theories from Holography"

Tuesday, September 17
10:30 a.m./ Elliott Building 160
Dr. Michelle Collins, Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy
"Andromeda's Dwarf Spheroidals and the Universal Mass Profile"

Thursday, September 12
3:30 p.m./ Clearihue Building C113
Dr. Eder Izaguirre, Perimeter Institute
"New Electron Beam-Dump Experiments to Search for MeV to Few-GeV Dark Matter"

PAST SPECIAL TALKS

Public Lecture Series
Thursday, May 8, 2014
7:30 p.m./ Bob Wright Building B150
Dr. Edward "Rocky" Kolb, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences & Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
"The Quantum and the Cosmos"

Public Lecture Series
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
7:00 p.m./ Bob Wright Building B150
Dr. William D. Phillips, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1997 National Institute of Standards and Technology, University of Maryland
"Time, Einstein and the coolest stuff in the universe"

CAP Lecture
Friday, March 14, 2014
3:30 p.m./ Elliott Building 167
Dr. Jeff Lundeen, University of Ottawa
"Seeing is Believing: Direct Observation of the Wavefunction"