The Della Pietra Lecture Series is pleased to present a series of lectures by Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, University of Oxford
All talks will be streamed live at scgp.stonybrook.edu/live
General Public Lecture *NOTE this event has been rescheduled to Wednesday 2/14 due to inclement weather:
Wednesday, February 14 at 5:00pm
Location: Della Pietra Family Auditorium – 103
Reception at 4:15pm, Simons Center Lobby
Title: Tick, Tick, Tick, Pulsating Star, How We Wonder What You Are!
Abstract: In this talk I describe the discovery of pulsars (pulsating radio stars) and what we know about them today.
Technical Talk for Faculty and Advanced Graduate Students
Wednesday, February 14 at 11:00am
Location: SCGP Room 102
Title: Women in Astrophysics
Abstract: Is the USA (or the UK) typical in the proportion of its astrophysicists that are female? In this talk I focus on several prominent female astrophysicists, and, using International Astronomical Union data, examine how the number of female astrophysicists varies with time and place.
Special Talk for High School Students
Thursday, February 15 at 11:00am
Location: Della Pietra Family Auditorium – 103
Title: You Are Made of Star Stuff!
Abstract: This talk examines which chemical elements are abundant in our human bodies and discusses how and where in the cosmos these elements were created and how they came to be in our bodies.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell inadvertently discovered pulsars as a graduate student in radio astronomy in Cambridge, opening up a new branch of astrophysics – work recognised by the award of a Nobel Prize to her supervisor. She has subsequently worked in many roles in many branches of astronomy, working part-time while raising a family. She is now a Visiting Academic in Oxford. She has been President of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society, in 2008 became the first female President of the Institute of Physics for the UK and Ireland, and in 2014 the first female President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was one of the small group of women scientists that set up the Athena SWAN scheme. She has received many honours, including a $3M Breakthrough Prize in 2018. The public appreciation and understanding of science have always been important to her, and she is much in demand as a speaker and broadcaster. In her spare time, she gardens, listens to choral music and is active in the Quakers. She has co-edited an anthology of poetry with an astronomical theme – ‘Dark Matter; Poems of Space’.
