Friday, April 25, 2025

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

2025 McDonnell Distinguished Lecture Series

Priyamvada Natarajan presented the McDonnell Distinguished Lectures this week with the colloquium, New Insights into the Formation of the First Black Holes, on Wednesday, and the public lecture, Unveiling the Invisible Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope, on Thursday. Videos should be available soon.

Recent News from McDonnell Center Fellows

Jolliff's Final Class

On Thursday, April 24, Brad Jolliff taught his final class, receiving a warm send-off from his students and colleagues. The class focused on Pre-Solar Grains, a topic in which alumnus Pierre Haenecour, an expert in the field, participated via Zoom.

EEPS Undergraduate Research Symposium

The Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences held its undergraduate research symposium yesterday afternoon. The event was well-attended, providing an excellent opportunity for students, including those working with MCSS fellows, to showcase their work.

MCSS 50th Anniversary Symposium
May 20-22

In May 2025, the Center will be celebrating fifty years of playing a key role at Washington University through endowed professorships, acquisition of sophisticated instrumentation, support of faculty involvement in space science missions, supporting postdoctoral and graduate student fellowships and undergraduate  interns, seeding innovative research, administering visiting scientist programs, and fostering wide-reaching collaborations.

Join us as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and look ahead to new opportunities to advance knowledge of our Solar System and our universe.

Recent Publications by McDonnell Center Fellows

Acharyya, A., Buckley, J. H., Errando, M., et al. (2025). VERITAS and multiwavelength observations of the Blazar B3 2247+381 in response to an IceCube neutrino alert. The Astrophysical Journal, 982(2), 80. 

Yuan, Y., Flynn, E. D., Catalano, J. G. et al. (2025). Advancing Selenium(VI) removal by iron Electrocoagulation: Roles of water chemistry and operating conditions. ACS ES&T Engineering. 

Seeing the Universe with Lights, Waves, Particles, and Fridges

Astronomy on Tap

A New Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy
Bhupal Dev, WashU

 Experimental Hard X-Ray Astrophysics:
Or, Sending Fridges , Semiconductors, and Superconductors (Halfway) to Space
Ephraim Gau, WashU

Tonight, Friday, April 25
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Urban Chestnut

CMB Limits on Decaying Dark Matter: Going Beyond the Ionization Threshold

Physics Theory Seminar
Wenzer Qin, New York University
Center for Cosmology & Particle Physics
Thursday, May 1
4:00pm, Compton 241

Rock of Ages: Timing of Key Events
in the Moon’s Geologic Past

Retirement Lecture
Bradley Jolliff
Director, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Scott Rudolph Professor of
Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences
Tuesday, May 6
4:30pm, Clark-Fox Forum, Hillman Hall

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Director: Brad Jolliff
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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