Events

"Observing Black Holes from the Stratosphere"

Mayukh is currently a PhD candidate in Astronomy at Queen's University, Canada, working with Prof. Laura Fissel on the Balloon-borne VLBI Experiment (BVEX). His research focuses on developing balloon-borne radio telescopes for Very Long Baseline Interferometry.

Felix Thiel currently is a PhD student in the Department of Physics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario Canada and a member of the Balloon-borne VLBI Experiment (BVEX) collaboration under the supervision of Laura Fissel.

"Tracing Dark matter halos and their boundaries"

Susmita Adhikari obtained her PhD in Astronomy at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. After her PhD she was a Postdoctoral fellow at The Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University. She then spent a year as a postdoc in a joint position between the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at The University of Chicago & Fermilab before she moved to IISER Pune.

Rachel Bezanson is Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She is an observational astronomer interested in empirical studies of massive galaxies, both today and in the early Universe. Her research aims to disentangle and interpret the morphological, structural, and dynamical evolution of massive galaxies through cosmic time. She is interested in understanding how and when galaxies form, how star-forming galaxies turn off - or “quench” - their star-formation, and the physical processes that drive the evolution of early galaxies into the bimodal and well-behaved galaxy populations observed in the local Universe.

"Feedback Mechanisms and Diffuse Gas: What Can We Learn from Hydrodynamic Simulations?"

Skylar Grayson is a postdoctoral fellow at the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics. Her research focuses on understanding how feedback from active galactic nuclei impacts diffuse gas reservoirs around galaxies. . Beyond research, she is currently serving as the Outreach Coordinator for the WCA and does science communication on social media with her “Space According to Skylar” accounts.

David Dayi Li earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Western University before joining the University of Toronto (U of T) in 2020 to pursue a PhD in astrostatistics as a CANSSI Multidisciplinary Doctoral Trainee. David now holds an NSERC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award and is jointly appointed as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science and the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on developing computational and statistical methods for efficient Bayesian inference in complex astrophysical and cosmological problems.

"The Stellar Recipe for an Earth-like Planet"

Emily Pass is an observational astronomer who studies exoplanets and small stars. Her research seeks to uncover how stellar diversity sculpts planet populations, with the ultimate goal of determining the stellar conditions necessary for habitable worlds. In recognition of this work, she was named one of Forbes 30 under 30 for 2026. As a PhD student at Harvard University, she was also a Peirce Fellow and NSERC Postgraduate Scholar, and her thesis was awarded the 2024 Fireman Prize. She is currently a Juan Carlos Torres Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, but will soon be moving to the Université de Montréal as an assistant professor.

"The ins and outs of black hole accretion"

Dr. Luigi Gallo is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary's University.  His research interests include the study of high energy X-rays emitted from black holes and active galactic nuclei.  He also plays an active role in the definition and realization of future X-ray missions including Hitomi and the recently launched XRISM X-ray observatories led by JAXA and NASA.

Qinxun Li is a PhD candidate at University of Utah. His research focuses on the measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) from large-scale structure surveys. He is actively involved with DESI, especially the galaxy/quasar clustering working group, and co-leads the BAO topical group for the DR3 analysis. Beyond BAO, he is also interested in various cosmological and astrophysical topics, including galaxy-halo connection and gravitational lensing.

Guilhem Lavaux is a permanent CNRS research director at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris. Before this, he was a CITA National Fellow at the University of Waterloo and Associate postdoctoral researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Guilhem works on modelling of the dynamics of the Universe, the exploration of new statistical tools to constrain cosmological parameters.

"Cosmological inference from DESI galaxies and CMB lensing"

Mark Maus is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the WCA and Perimeter Institute.