Dr Ray Jayawardhana, Dean of Science and Professor of Physics & Astronomy at York University, Canada
Selby Travelling Fellowships are awarded to distinguished overseas scientists to visit Australia for public lecture/seminar tours and to visit scientific centres in Australia. Fellows are expected to increase public awareness of science and scientific issues and accordingly will be outstanding lecturers to the general lay public.
Move over Higgs — it's neutrino time. The incredibly small bits of matter we call neutrinos may hold the secret to why antimatter is so rare, how mighty stars explode as supernovae, what the universe was like just seconds after the big bang, and even the inner workings of our own planet. Take a thrilling journey into the shadowy world of these elusive particles, as astronomer and author Ray Jayawardhana recounts a captivating detective story with a colourful cast of characters and awesome cosmic implications.
Dr Jayawardhana is a renowned astrophysicist, award-winning science writer, a popular speaker and a frequent commentator for the media. A graduate of Yale and Harvard, he uses world’s largest telescopes to explore planetary origins and diversity. Co-author of 110+ scientific papers, his findings have made headlines worldwide, including in The Economist, Washington Post, New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald and BBC. He has received numerous accolades such as the Guggenheim Fellowship, Steacie Prize and Rutherford Medal.
Ray’s writing has appeared in The Economist, New York Times, Boston Globe, Scientific American, and elsewhere. His book Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System (2011) was the basis of The Planet Hunters on CBC television. His latest book Neutrino Hunters: The Thrilling Chase for a Ghostly Particle to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe (2013) won the CSWA Science in Society Award.
His research interests and contributions span a wide range of topics, including extrasolar planets, brown dwarfs, and star formation. Key research accomplishments of his group include: discovery of a spatially-resolved disk around the young star HR 4796A with evidence of a large inner hole, possibly carved out by planet formation processes; establishing that young brown dwarfs harbor accretion disks, similar to their stellar counterparts, thus they are likely to share a common formation mechanism; discovery of a spatially-resolved edge-on disk in a quadruple star system with adaptive optics; direct imaging of an extrasolar planet around a normal star for the first time, along with extensive spectroscopy, now confirmed with proper motion; discovery of the most variable cool brown dwarf; measuring thermal emission from several extrasolar hot Jupiters; characterizing the atmosphere of a super-Earth; and measuring the phase curves of the largest sample of Kepler exoplanets.
Please note this talk is part of a multi venue tour. See below for dates and venues near you:
, Dean of Science and Professor of Physics & Astronomy at York University, Canada
Selby Travelling Fellowships are awarded to distinguished overseas scientists to visit Australia for public lecture/seminar tours and to visit scientific centres in Australia. Fellows are expected to increase public awareness of science and scientific issues and accordingly will be outstanding lecturers to the general lay public.
Move over Higgs — it's neutrino time. The incredibly small bits of matter we call neutrinos may hold the secret to why antimatter is so rare, how mighty stars explode as supernovae, what the universe was like just seconds after the big bang, and even the inner workings of our own planet. Take a thrilling journey into the shadowy world of these elusive particles, as astronomer and author Ray Jayawardhana recounts a captivating detective story with a colourful cast of characters and awesome cosmic implications.
Dr Jayawardhana is a renowned astrophysicist, award-winning science writer, a popular speaker and a frequent commentator for the media. A graduate of Yale and Harvard, he uses world’s largest telescopes to explore planetary origins and diversity. Co-author of 110+ scientific papers, his findings have made headlines worldwide, including in The Economist, Washington Post, New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald and BBC. He has received numerous accolades such as the Guggenheim Fellowship, Steacie Prize and Rutherford Medal.
Ray’s writing has appeared in The Economist, New York Times, Boston Globe, Scientific American, and elsewhere. His book Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System (2011) was the basis of The Planet Hunters on CBC television. His latest book Neutrino Hunters: The Thrilling Chase for a Ghostly Particle to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe (2013) won the CSWA Science in Society Award.
His research interests and contributions span a wide range of topics, including extrasolar planets, brown dwarfs, and star formation. Key research accomplishments of his group include: discovery of a spatially-resolved disk around the young star HR 4796A with evidence of a large inner hole, possibly carved out by planet formation processes; establishing that young brown dwarfs harbor accretion disks, similar to their stellar counterparts, thus they are likely to share a common formation mechanism; discovery of a spatially-resolved edge-on disk in a quadruple star system with adaptive optics; direct imaging of an extrasolar planet around a normal star for the first time, along with extensive spectroscopy, now confirmed with proper motion; discovery of the most variable cool brown dwarf; measuring thermal emission from several extrasolar hot Jupiters; characterizing the atmosphere of a super-Earth; and measuring the phase curves of the largest sample of Kepler exoplanets.
Please note this talk is part of a multi venue tour. See below for dates and venues near you:
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
