Colloquia

TAP Colloquia

Each semester the TAP Colloquia Committee invites new speakers working across all fields of theoretical astrophysics to share their current research. Along with providing a one-hour colloquium, each speaker also meets with faculty and students while on campus to discuss research more in depth. The TAP Colloquia series offers 5-6 talks on a bi-weekly basis. The goal of this program activity is to bring scholars to the UA campus to discuss new research, support shared research efforts and cross-fertilization, and increase awareness and communication across the broader U.S. community working in theoretical astrophysics.

Do you have a speaker in mind? Submit your suggestions here Speaker Suggestion Form. Sign-up here for the TAP listserv to receive details for each upcoming talk. 

Colloquia are held in person in the Gerard P. Kuiper Space Sciences Building, Room 312, Mondays, 3:30-4:30 pm. Please join us for refreshments starting at 3:00 pm in the Kuiper 3rd Floor Atrium. Talks are hosted live on Zoom (see a link to subscribe below).

Fall 2024 Speakers

Monday, September 9, 2024

“Meet Yourself” Event

Showcasing Speakers from Astronomy, Physics, and Planetary Sciences Departments at the University of Arizona

Line-up

1.   Jonah Barber, Physics: “Cosmological Stasis, and New Perspectives on It”

2.   Aldana Grichener, Astronomy: “Formation of the Heaviest Elements in the Universe in Neutron Star– core mergers”

3.   Anna Taylor, Planetary Sciences:  “Modeling the He I Triplet Absorption at 10830 Å and H I Balmer Lines in the Hot Escaping Atmosphere of HD209458b”

4.   Himansh Rathore, Astronomy:  “Response of the LMC’s Bar to a Recent SMC Collision and Implications for the SMC’s Total Mass Profile”

5.   M Smith, Physics:  “Zoom-Whirl Behavior and Near-Extremal Merger Remnants in Relativistic Mergers of Charged Black Hole Binaries”

6.   Jingyu Wang, Planetary Sciences:  “Interpreting the Cosmic Rorschach Test on Venus Using Photochemical Model”

Rescheduled for February 17, 2025

Dr. Yangyang Cai, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the 2024 TAP Research Prize Winner

Yangyang is the 2024 TAP Research Prize Awardee for his paper on “Dynamics of Ultra-relativistic Charged Particles with Strong Radiation Reaction. II. Aristotelian Equilibrium State.” Yangyang Cai received is Ph.D. in Physics in 2023; his advisor was Dr. Sam Gralla.

I’m currently a postdoc at Tsung-Dao Lee Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. I got my bachelor’s degree at Nankai University in China, studying physics. I got my PhD degree at the University of Arizona, studying theoretical astrophysics. During my PhD studies, I mainly focused on extreme electromagnetic fields around black holes such as force-free fields. Recently I have switched from analytic to numeric simulations. I am mainly interested in simulating plasmas around compact objects like black holes and neutron stars using Particle-In-Cell simulations

 

 

October 14, 2024

Dr. Shazrene Mohamed, University of Virginia

Dr. Shazrene S. Mohamed is a professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on supercomputer simulations of interacting stars and their explosions. Prior to moving to Charlottesville, she spent two years as an Argelander Research Fellow at the University of Bonn in Germany, followed by a decade at the South African Astronomical Observatory and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She was also a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where she earned her PhD in astrophysics.

November 4, 2024

Dr. Nicholas Wogan, NASA Ames Research Center

Nick Wogan is a 2nd year postdoctoral fellow at NASA Ames Research Center, where he uses atmospheric models to interpret observations of exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope. Nick received his PhD at the University of Washington (UW), where he used the same atmospheric models to study the early Earth atmospheres to aid understanding of the origin of life.

November 18, 2024

Dr. Sultan Hassan, New York University

Sultan’s research focuses on developing more accurate physically motivated sub-grid models of ionizing sources to unravel the nature of reionization on small and large scales. He is interested in developing efficient tools that are capable of extracting the maximum amount of information from current and future reionization surveys, using a wide range of techniques including semi-analytical/semi-numerical models, radiative transfer hydrodynamics simulations with machine learning, and Bayesian inference.

December 2, 2024

Dr. Ann-Marie Madigan, University of Colorado Boulder

Dr. Ann-Marie Madigan is a theoretical astrophysicist who explores the dynamics of stars and gas around supermassive black holes, dark matter in galaxies, and the icy worlds of the outer solar system. She is an Associate Professor in the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Previous Speakers

Floor Broekgaarden Columbia University, CCA, John Hopkins University January 22, 2024
William Coulton University of Cambridge February 5, 2024
Ana Lobo University of California Irvine February 19, 2024
Gil Holder University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign March 11, 2024
Joonas Nättilä Columbia University, CCA March 25, 2024
Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein Carnegie Observatories April 8, 2024
Vera Gluscevic University of Southern California April 22, 2024

 

TAP “MEET YOURSELF” EVENT University of Arizona August 28, 2023
Haowen Zhang University of Arizona September 11, 2023
Yao-Yuan Mao University of Utah September 25, 2023
Kaze Wong Flatiron Institute – CCA October 23, 2023
Neil Cornish Montana State University November 6, 2023
Alexander Philippov University of Maryland November 20, 2023
TAP “MEET YOURSELF” EVENT University of Arizona January 30, 2023
Mikhail Ivanov Hubble, Institute for Advanced Study February 20, 2023
Brian Metzger Columbia University February 27, 2023
Martin Pessah Niels Bohr Institute March 13, 2023
Jorge Moreno Soto Pomona College March 27, 2023
Caroline Morley University of Texas – Austin April 10, 2023
Susan Clark Stanford University April 24, 2023

February 14, 2022

Rebekah Dawson, Penn State

February 28, 2022

Alexander van Engelen, Arizona State

March 14, 2022

Luca Comisso, Columbia University

March 28, 2022

Ferah Munshi, University of Oklahoma

April 11, 2022

Michi Baubock, University of Illinois

April 25, 2022

Kimberly Boddy, University of Texas

 

Gabriele Bozzola University of Arizona August 29, 2022
Tanvi Karwal University of Pennsylvania September 12, 2022
Saverio Cambioni Massachusetts Institute of Technology October 3, 2022
Michael Kesden University of Texas – Dallas October 24, 2022
Emily Cunningham Columbia University November 7, 2022
Miki Nakajima University of Rochester November 21, 2022

 

Seth Jacobson Michigan State University April 9, 2021

 

Nicolas Garavito-Camargo Flatiron, CCA September 27, 2021
Jimmy Juno University of Iowa October 11, 2021
Xiangcheng Ma University of Arizona November 8, 2021
Darin Ragozzine Brigham Young University November 22, 2021

 

Emily Lichko University of  Arizona September 14, 2020
Oliver Gressel AIP, Leibniz Institute fr Astrophysics Potsdam  October 5, 2020
Jens Jasche Stockholm University October 19, 2020
Debora Sijacki Cambridge Institute of Astronomy November 2, 2020
Barbara Ercolano Max Planck Research School on Astrophysics at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich November 30, 2020
Fred Adams University of  Michigan January 27, 2020
Nicole Lloyd-Ronning Los Alamos National Laboratory February 10, 2020
Antonija Oklopcic Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian February 24, 2020
Andreu Font-Ribera University College London March 16, 2020
Colby Haggarty University of Chicago April 27, 2020
Ruth Murray-Clay
Univ. of California Santa Cruz September 9, 2019
Hagai Perets Technion Israel Institute of Technology September 23, 2019
Kat Volk University of Arizona October 7, 2019
Marco Raveri University of Pennsylvania October 21, 2019
Matthew Kunz Princeton University November 4, 2019
David Nesvorny Southwest Research Institute- Boulder November 18, 2019
Camille Avestruz University of Michigan December 2, 2019
Yacine Ali-Haïmoud
New York University January 14, 2019
Kyle Parfrey NASA Goddard Space Flight Center February 11, 2019
Ken Shen University of California-  Berkeley February 25, 2019
Kent Yagi University of Virginia March 11, 2019
Joshua Lothringer University of Arizona – TAP Student Research Prize Recipient April 1, 2019
Eve Lee Caltech April 15, 2019
Yanqin Wu University of Toronto April 29, 2019
Jia Liu
Princeton September 17, 2018
Konstantin Batygin CalTech October 1, 2018
Shea Garrison-Kimmel CalTech October 15, 2018
Monica Valluri University of Michigan October 29, 2018
Gil Holder University of Illinois November 19, 2018
Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz University of California- Santa Cruz December 3, 2018
Kathryn Johnston Columbia University  February 19, 2018
Jim Stone Princeton University  March 12, 2018
Graciela Gelmini UCLA  March 19, 2018
Rachel Somerville Rutgers University  March 26, 2018
Aaron Zimmerman University of Toronto  April 9, 2018
Emily Rauscher University of Michigan  April 23, 2018
Sarah Stewart-Mukhopadhyay UC Davis August 28, 2017
Daniel Tamayo University of Toronto September 11, 2017
Chris Hayward Flatiron Institute October 2, 2017
Annika Peter Ohio State University October 16, 2017
Renee Hlozek University of Toronto November 27, 2017
Jim Fuller Caltech December 4, 2017
David Radice Princeton March 20, 2017
Elisabeth Krause Stanford March 24, 2017
Matt Hedman Cornell March 27, 2017
Simeon Bird JHU March 30, 2017
Vassilios Paschalidis Princeton April 10, 2017
Zhaohuan Zhu UNLV April 14, 2017
Gongjie Lie Harvard April 17, 2017
Ann-Marie Madigan Berkley September 26, 2016
Alexandre Lazarian U of Wisconsin-Madison October 10, 2016
Francis Nimmo U California, Santa Cruz October 24, 2016
Laura Blecha U Maryland, College Park November 7, 2016
Will East Perimeter Institute November 21, 2016
Andy Strominger Harvard January 25, 2016
Robin Canup Southwest Research Institute February 22, 2016
Jerry Sellwood Rutgers U February 1, 2016
Matthew Baring Rice University (Houston) March 7, 2016
Myoungwon Jeon U of Texas March 21, 2016
Ewine Van Dishoeck   April 4, 2016
Tracy Slatyer MIT April 11, 2016
Adam Showman University of Arizona September 14, 2015
Jeremy Heyl U of British Colombia September 28, 2015
Dimitrios Psaltis University of Arizona October 12, 2015
Norbert Wex Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomie October 26, 2015
Eliot Quataert UC Berkeley November 9, 2015
Diego Munoz Cornell University November 23, 2015
Tessa Baker Oxford University December 7, 2015
Jonathan Mitchell UCLA February 9, 2015
Cameron Hummels UA February 23, 2015
Eliot Quataert Berkeley March 9, 2015
Cathie Clarke IoA, UK March 23, 2015
Smadar Naoz UCLA April 6, 2015
Norbert Wex MPIfR Germany April 20, 2015
Cora Dvorkin Harvard April 27, 2015
Evan Scannapieco ASU October 6, 2014
Nick Cowen Amherst College October 20, 2014
Phil Armitage U of Colorado, Boulder November 3, 2014
Priya Natarayanan Yale November 17, 2014
Evan Schneider UA Astronomy December 8, 2014
Name Affiliation Date
Peter Behroozi Stanford January 14, 2013
Konstantin Batygin Caltech GPS January 28, 2013
David Arnet UA February 4, 2013
Charlie Conroy UCSC March 4, 2013
Lars Hernquist Harvard March 18, 2013
Yoram Lithwick Northwestern April 1, 2013
Zhi-Yun Li Univ of Virginia April 22, 2013
Herve Dole ? April 29, 2013

 

Name Affilation Date
Adam Burrows Princeton September 10, 2012
Doug Lin UC Santa Cruz October 8, 2012
Rebekah Dawson Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr for Astrophysics October 22, 2012
Eugene Chiang Berkeley October 29, 2012
Charlie Conroy UC Santa Cruz November 5, 2012
Phil Arras Univ of Virginia November 19, 2012
Mark Vogelsberger CfA December 3, 2012
Siming Liu Purple Mountain Observatory December 10, 2012

More Information

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