Events

Hailing from Algeria, I have a background in High Energy Physics,  in which I hold Master's from Sorbonne University in Paris. I spent four years at the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics where I did my PhD, 
working with James Taylor, on trying to leverage Galaxy Cluster structural properties for Cosmology. I am now an Analyst in Economics and Investment Research at the Alberta Investment Management Corporation 
(AIMCo).

In the past few years, we have seen for the first time an image of the “event horizon” around a supermassive black hole – the mysterious and powerful object lying at the heart of a nearby galaxy. In this month’s KPL astronomy talk, Dr. Avery Broderick will talk about what we can learn about fundamental physics from these images, and how we go from a fuzzy image to sharp conclusions about the nature of gravity.

Sit back, relax, and learn about the Universe, while also having a couple of drinks and a bit of fun. This month we will learn about worm holes and black holes with María Rosa Preciado Rivas and Conner Dailey! 

Hannah Dykaar is currently a PhD student at the Dunlap Institute and the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, where she works with Professors Maria Drout and Bryan Gaensler. Her research focuses on tidal disruption events (TDEs), which occur when stars get sufficiently close to supermassive black holes and are torn apart.

Naadiyah Jagga is a Ph.D. candidate in Astronomy at York University. She did her undergraduate and master's degrees at Leiden Observatory. She is interested in the evolution of galaxies, with focus on the stellar mass of galaxies. Her research, under supervision of Dr. Adam Muzzin, involves creating and analysing spatially resolved maps of galaxies observed by JWST.  She is a member of the Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) program, the JWST Ultradeep Nirspec and NIRCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization (UNCOVER) program and co-PI of the JWST Ultimate Medium-band Photometric Survey (JUMPS) program.

Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting other stars, opening a new chapter in our understanding of the Universe and our place in it. In this month’s KPL astronomy talk, Dr. Michael Balogh will discuss how scientists find and study these distant worlds, and how upcoming technology will help us search for life beyond our solar system.

Eduardo Martín-Martínez is a Full Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. He is also an Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) Associate, a Perimeter Institute Affiliate and a member of the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics. Since July 2022, he has served as the Chair of the International Society for Relativistic Quantum Information.

Steffani Grondin is a final-year PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the evolution of compact object binaries and the common envelope phase, using star clusters as laboratories to study binary evolution. Steffani is also the main developer of Corespray, a Python package that efficiently simulates dynamical interactions in star clusters. Her software has provided new insights into a variety of Milky Way science cases, including hypervelocity stars, stellar streams and the composition of the Galactic halo.

Join usat Astronomy on Tap as researchers Marie-Joëlle Gingras (University of Waterloo) explores how these cosmic titans influence the Milky Way. Then, Kiana Salehi (Perimeter Institute) will dive into a weird mystery of black holes and tackle a burning question: do black holes have hair? (No, not the kind you’re thinking of — but don’t worry if you have no idea what that means. Come find out!)

Tobias Geron finished his PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, UK, and he recently started as a Rubin fellow at the University of Toronto. Tobias spends his time between studying bars in galaxies and developing software to study transients with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory.