Friday, March 27, 2026

New and exciting activities in the
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences

Recent News From McDonnell Center Fellows

2026 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures

Andrea Ghez, Nobel Laureate and professor at UCLA, visited WashU this week as part of the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture Series. She delivered a scientific colloquium, Our Galactic Center: A Unique Laboratory for the Physics & Astrophysics of Black Holes, on Wednesday, followed by a public lecture, From the Possibility to the Certainty of a Supermassive Black Hole, on Thursday.

Both events drew full audiences. The colloquium offered a detailed look at the observations and methods that revealed the black hole at the center of our galaxy, while the public lecture shared that discovery with a broader audience, highlighting both the science and the decades-long effort behind it.

 David Fike elected to AAAS

David Fike, a member of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, is among eleven WashU faculty members are among the nearly 500 new fellows selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the most distinct honors in the scientific community. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. 

 Andrea Ghez colloquium featured in Student Life

Our recent McDonnell Distinguished Lecture colloquium featuring Andrea Ghez was covered by Student Life, WashU’s student newspaper.

The article highlights Ghez’s pioneering work, recognized with the Nobel Prize in Physics, and her visit to WashU as part of the lecture series.

McDonnell Center Fellows in the News

What to do if you find a meteorite (don’t touch it!)
Randy Korotev | WJW TV

Recent Publications by McDonnell Center Fellows

Baştürk, Ö., Esmer, E. M., et al. (2026). A detailed study of the physical and orbital characteristics, and eclipse timing variations of the Post Common Envelope Binary DD CrB. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 547(2). 

Stretching Tesserae on Venus 

EEPS Brown Bag
Julia Alvarez Lozano
Universidad Complutense Madrid
TODAY, Friday, March 27
11:30am, Rudolph 301

Untangling the nuclear physics and astrophysics of heavy element creation

Physics Colloquium
Rebecca Surman
University of Notre Dame
Wednesday, April 1
3:00pm, Compton 340

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission: An Eye in the Sky for Earth’s Water

EEPS Colloquium
Tamlin Pavelsky
University of North Carolina
Thursday, April 2
11:30am, Rudolph 301

Resolving AGN Feedback in Galaxy Clusters with XRISM and Chandra

Astrophysics & Space Sciences Seminar
Hannah McCall
University of Chicago
Friday, April 3
9:00am, Compton 241

Sulfur Isotope Geochemistry of the Chukchi Shelf Sediments in the Western Arctic Ocean Since the Last Deglaciation

EEPS Brown Bag
Jonghan Moon
WashU
Friday, April 3
11:30am, Rudolph 301

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Interim Director: William McKinnon
Associate Director: Michael Nowak
Assistant to the Director: Vickie Gee
Communications Specialist: Alison Verbeck

Compiled and edited by Alison Verbeck. Please send any contributions to alison@wustl.edu.

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