244th meeting
Meeting Program
Plenary Speaker
Thomas Beatty is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin's Department of Astronomy. His research primarily focuses on exoplanet atmospheric characterization and detection using ground- and space-based observatories, with the goal of understanding both planetary habitability and formation processes. Prior to joining the faculty at Wisconsin, Beatty was an instrument scientist on the JWST/NIRCam instrument scient team at the University of Arizona, where he helped develop NIRCam's timeseries observing modes. He also helped discover several new exoplanets with the KELT transit survey and has worked extensively to understand the properties of transiting brown dwarfs.
June 2024 Fred Kavli Plenary Lecture
Rachel Bezanson is an observational astronomer who uses a variety of ground and space-based telescopes to study the lives of massive galaxies through cosmic time. She grew up in a tiny mountain town in Colorado and earned her bachelor’s degree in astrophysics at Barnard College and her PhD in Astronomy at Yale University, with an interlude teaching middle and high school physics and astronomy in Brooklyn. Following her PhD, she was a Hubble fellow at Steward Observatory in Arizona and a Russell fellow at Princeton University, before joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in 2017. She is a Cottrell Scholar and recipient of an NSF CAREER award.
Plenary Speaker
Cecilia Garraffo is the AI Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the founding director of the AstroAI & EarthAI Institutes at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Her work focuses on developing AI models for astrophysics and atmospheric sciences. Previously, Cecilia conducted research in machine learning and artificial intelligence at Harvard’s Institute for Applied Computational Science. Besides her AI work, Cecilia is interested in stellar rotation and magnetic activity and their impacts on exoplanets, and she actively participates in mission developments, including leadership roles in the Line Emission Mapper and several mission concepts.
Plenary Speaker
Robert Hurt is an astronomer and "astrovizicist" at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, CA, where he supports science communication with the public through data visualization and science illustration. Initially the public-facing imagery for NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, he has worked with other NASA astrophysics missions including WISE/NEOWISE, Kepler, GALEX, and NuSTAR, and has also contributed material to major LIGO and EHT press conferences. He has led the development of the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) standard used in the public image archives of major observatories. Work supported by NASA’s Universe of Learning includes promoting a visualization community of practice and ongoing development of the AstroPix.org image archive.
2024 Karen Harvey Prize
Kristopher G. Klein is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Dr. Klein's research focuses on studying fundamental plasma phenomena that governs the dynamics of systems within our heliosphere as well as more distant astrophysical bodies, focusing on identifying heating and energization mechanisms in weakly collisional plasmas as well as evaluating the effects of the departure from local thermodynamic equilibrium. He is the deputy Principal Investigator for the upcoming NASA mission HelioSwarm, and was co-awarded the 2022 Lev D. Landau and Lyman Spitzer Jr. Award for Outstanding Contributions to Plasma Physics "(f)or the theoretical development of the field-particle correlation technique and its application to spacecraft measurements directly showing that electron Landau damping plays a role in the dissipation of space plasma turbulence."
LAD Plenary Lecture
Erika Kohler is a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and is the Deputy Project Scientist of the DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission. She is the PI of the Hot Environments Lab where she investigates the chemical and spectral properties of exoplanetary clouds and atmospheres, and the surface-atmospheric interactions on Venus. Her work addresses the need to enhance the accuracy of models and observations by designing and developing experimental studies to simulate and understand the chemical and physical effects of high-temperature gas and the geochemical high-temperature environments.
2024 George Ellery Hale Prize
Judith Lean is a Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, and formerly the Senior Scientist for Sun Earth System Research at the Naval Research Laboratory, where she is now Emeritus. Her research focuses on mechanisms and measurements of variations in the Sun's radiative output and the effects of this variability on Earth. She has developed models that account for observed solar irradiance variability in terms of solar magnetic features, reconstruct this variability in the past, and project it into the future. These models, which inform detection and attribution of climate change, ozone layer variability, and impacts of space climate on spacecraft orbits and communication, are used to produce NOAA’s operational Solar Irradiance Data Climate Data Record. She is a member of NASEM and APS, an AGU Fellow, and the 2024 recipient of the George Ellery Hale Prize.
2023 RAS Gold Medal Lecture
John Peacock is Professor of Cosmology at the University of Edinburgh, where he was Head of Astronomy from 2007 to 2013. He has written extensively on statistical methods for studying cosmological density fields, including co-inventing the widely used Halo Model. He was UK Chairman of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (1999-2005), a project that transformed our detailed knowledge of cosmological large-scale structure. He is the author of "Cosmological Physics", a highly successful postgraduate textbook. Major awards for his research include election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (2007); the Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2014); the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023).
Plenary Speaker
Kerstin Perez is the Lavine Family Associate Professor of Natural Sciences at Columbia University. She is interested in using cosmic particles to look for beyond the Standard Model physics, in particular evidence of dark matter interactions. Her work focuses on opening sensitivity to unexplored cosmic signatures, with impact at the intersection of particle physics, astrophysics, and advanced instrumental techniques. She is Deputy-PI of the GAPS Antarctic balloon mission, lead of the inner X-ray optic for the International Axion Observatory (IAXO), and involved with the NuSTAR and HEX-P science teams. In addition to mentoring students in research, Prof. Perez has a passion for science education and outreach, with a particular emphasis on developing evidence-based classroom practices to increase recruitment and retention of minoritized students.
Plenary Speaker
Noemi Pinilla-Alonso is a Planetary Scientist that joined the Florida Space Institute in late 2015 as an Associate Scientist. Her career as a researcher started in the Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain, where she got her PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics (2009). After that she was a post-doctoral researcher at the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the University of Tennessee; at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada, Spain; and at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
Plenary Speaker
Teznie Pugh is the Superintendent of the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory. Dr. Pugh has worked for more than a decade in observatory operations and management. She works closely with local, regional, and national representative and organizations on limiting artificial light at night and was a driving force behind the founding of the world's largest international dark sky reserve. She serves with Aparna Venkatesan as co-Chair of the American Astronomical Society's Committee to Protect Astronomy and the Space Environment (COMPASSE).
2024 Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy
Carl L. Rodriguez is a theoretical astrophysicist working at the interface of stellar dynamics, gravitational waves, and transient astrophysics. Originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, he is now an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his PhD at Northwestern University in 2016 before moving on to be a Pappalardo Fellow at MIT, an ITC Fellow at Harvard, and an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon (2020-2022). He is PI of the stellar dynamics, stellar evolution, black holes, and gravitational waves group at UNC, and is a recipient of the Sloan Fellowship, the Packard Fellowship, and the 2023 Vera Rubin Early Career Award from the Division of Dynamical Astronomy.
2024 Laboratory Astrophysics Prize
Randall Smith is the Associate Director of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of SAO. He has made significant contributions to X-ray astronomy, including the construction of the APEC code, as well as the development of AtomDB, a database of atomic rates and wavelengths that provides the underpinnings of the APEC and a number of other plasma models. Dr. Smith is a PI and a Co-I on a number of X-ray observatories, such as Arcus, Athena, XRISM, and Astro-H. In addition to leading and contributing to past, present, and future X-ray missions, Dr. Smith has also made significant contributions to studies of the interstellar medium as well as the field of accretion processes in compact objects from black holes and neutron stars to symbiotic stars. He is the current Chair of the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD).
Plenary Speaker
Aparna Venkatesan is an astronomer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of San Francisco, and co-Director of USF's Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellence. She serves with Teznie Pugh as co-Chair of the American Astronomical Society's Committee to Protect Astronomy and the Space Environment (COMPASSE). Dr. Venkatesan works on studies of the first stars and quasars in the universe, and on numerous cultural astronomy and space policy projects. She is deeply committed to improving ADEI in astronomy and STEM, and to developing respectful scientific partnerships co-created with Indigenous communities worldwide.