Events

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.

A hundred years ago, astronomers believed the Milky Way to be the only galaxy in the Universe. In this month's KPL astronomy talk, Skylar Grayson will take us on an adventure through history, exploring how the discoveries of the early 20th century expanded our understanding of the scale of the Universe, and created the new scientific field of extragalactic astronomy. We'll learn about the cutting edge research happening in that field today, and the ways in which anyone can contribute to actual scientific research!

"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.

At Astronomy on Tap this month, we'll hear from two speakers about how we can study these elusive parts of space. Alice Chenwill give a brief history of our Universe, and its components like dark matter and dark energy. Then, Ethan Smith will speak about dark sirens -- signals produced by colliding black holes in the distant Universe.

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.

Despite its cosmic focus, this month’s KPL Astronomy talk will be a down-to-earth, cartoon-filled presentation about something called dark energy. Batia Friedman-Shaw will walk us through this mysterious topic, asking “What exactly IS dark energy?”, discussing the surprises that scientists face when trying to measure it, and finally exploring some of the latest ideas for explaining these surprising measurements.