The annual lecture, named for Dr. Elizabeth Laird, is hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
This years talk was given by Dr. Olga Popova of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Popova’s talk was titled “Chelyabinsk Meteoroid Entry and Airburst Damage”.
The audience was welcomed by Department Chair Shantanu Basu, followed by an introduction of the speaker given by Dean of Science Charmaine Dean.
Peter Jedicke’s smartphone photo of the moon (afocal photograph with 25cm refracting telescope). This photo shows an area near Mare Tranquillitatis (right of the three distinct craters) , where Apollo 11 landed.
It was a magnificent clear still night for planetary observing, and Venus, Jupiter, as well as the rising Saturn turned up for the party. Moons of both Jupiter and Saturn were observed.
Our Earth’s own moon was also observed in the 25cm. refractor for most of the evening. Peter Jedicke showed what modern technology can achieve by taking photos of the moon and Saturn through his smartphone.
Saturn as seen in an afocal projection photograph on 25cm refractor with Peter Jedicke’s Samsung S4 smartphone.
Volunteers were Professor Stan Metchev, Professor Paul Wiegert , RASC members Peter Jedicke, Bob Duff, Steve Gauthier, Dale Armstrong, Tricia Colvin, Mark Tovey, Roman Dubinski, graduate student Emily McCullough, and RASC and P&A staff member Henry Leparskas.
The 32nd Science Olympics were held at Western on May 21, 2015. Almost 1000 high school students and teachers from over 30 Ontario schools from as far away as Timmins participated.
Organizers were Prof. Emeritus Patrick Whippey, his daughter Caroline, as well as their hard working committee.
Some of the events were held in the Physics and Astronomy building, where an enthusiastic group of student volunteers (shown above in photo) managed the Astronomy Triathlon event.
Olga Lobacheva (centre in photo) gave a PhD dissertation public presentation on Tuesday, May 19, 2015, at 1pm.
The title of Olga’s talk was “Ion beam modification of strontium titanate and highly oriented pyrolytic graphite“.
After the talk, Olga successfully defended the dissertation.
Olga was co-supervised by Dr. T.K. Sham of the Department of Chemistry (right in photo) and Dr. Lyudmila Goncharova of the Department of Physics and Astronomy (left in photo).
The Science Olympics will be on campus this Thursday, May 21, 2015, and is once again based out of the North Campus building, where there will be activities going on all day.
The Physics and Astronomy building will also host the following events (see full timetable here) ;
Date: Thursday 21 May 2015
Pentathlon Nine Events for Grade Nine Students:
Chemical Capers PAB Atrium ground floor 9:10 am – 9:40 am
Winners of the ping pong tournament Pubuditha Abeyasinghe (left) and Scott Jones (right) with co-organizer Cameron Hopkins (centre)
The first departmental ping pong tournament, which will certainly become a regular event, was held on May 14, 2015.
Single knockout elimination play took place during the morning and early afternoon. Semi-finals were played later in the afternoon.
The 1st floor atrium of the Physics and Astronomy building proved to be a beautiful venue in which to hold this event. Spectators casually came and went throughout the day. The second and third floor walkways and lounge areas were popular viewing spots.
Finalists in the ‘Fun’ division were Pubuditha Abeyasinghe and Daniel Martire, with Pubuditha coming out the winner.
In the ‘Comp’ division, Scott Jones beat out Shantanu Basu in an exciting final.
This event was an initiative of the Physics Graduate Student Council, co-organized by Neil Bhatt, Mark Baker, and Cameron Hopkins.
Dr. Anahi Granada (photo: Paul Mayne, Western News)
Astronomer Dr. Anahi Granada could have chosen any place in the world to exercise her Advanced Mobility Postdoc, funded by the Swiss National Science Academy.
After winning this award in late 2014, Anahi chose London because of the strong group at Western that is involved in her area of research. She will spend the next 18 months working with Dr. Carol Jones and Dr. Aaron Sigut studying the effects of a star’s rotation on its evolutionary path.
Almost 50 department members, family, and friends joined the annual Mothers Day Walk in Gibbons Park on Sunday, May 10, 2015.
This is an annual walk which promotes awareness of, and raises funds, for the breast cancer research.
On this day, the intrepid walkers sent all of their positive energy, thoughts, and best wishes to colleague and friend Clara Buma, who is at this time undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
Ram Valluri placed Clara’s name in the prize draw, and she turned out to be the winner. Congratulations Clara !
