SIfA Seminars
Upcoming Seminars
If you wish to give a talk or presentation please email the seminar admins at sifa.seminar@gmail.com or contact Dougal Dobie and Kyriakos Tapinou directly. Seminars are 45mins with time for questions afterwards. Speakers are encouraged to cater to a varied audience, reflecting the broad interests of the Institute. Seminars take place in the physics building (A28) lecture theatre five (LT5).
Please go to “previous seminars” below to watch the recordings.
| Date | Time | Location | Speaker | Speaker Location | Topic | Recording |
| 07/02/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Thavisha Dharmawardena | Flatiron (Simons Foundation) | The 3D structure of the Milky Way and its molecular clouds | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PaIKvp4fAsJePDy2ak_bV-lv0Wwp6O1V/view?usp=sharing |
| 14/02/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Peter Tuthill | University of Sydney | Getting to know the neighbours: Earth analogues in Alpha Centauri with the TOLIMAN space telescope | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KdTHZ00NnNwFQpvFvTn3TttK0vq_6F_H/view?usp=sharing |
| 21/02/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Benjamin Pope | Macquarie University | Modelling Cosmic Radiation Events in the Tree-ring Radiocarbon Record | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UPZAiUklZeK_Q5hUqdxxu37Duotam4yl/view?usp=sharing |
| 28/02/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | ||||
| 07/03/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | ||||
| 14/03/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | ||||
| 21/03/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | ||||
| 28/03/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Andrew Zic | CSIRO | Nanohertz gravitational-wave astronomy with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array — to the third data release and beyond | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-BkvaaGBGDGBLsYmCEN0aUnOXta5r9O/view?usp=sharing |
| 04/04/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Dr Nichole Barry | UNSW | Pursuing the Faint 21-cm Signal of the Epoch of Reionisation | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ygMBXz5Vb52iN-OTxWiUAlRmpCvA82MP/view?usp=sharing |
| 11/04/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Courtney Crawford | University of Sydney | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mphUeNCzlw9ZoJnypmM7uLnqrRVbojQy/view?usp=sharing | |
| 18/04/2025 | 11:00 | Easter | ||||
| 25/04/2025 | 11:00 | ANZAC Day | ||||
| 02/05/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Connor Bottrell |
Mini mergers with major consequences in a cold dark matter universe |
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10yDXIVojrdrZpd0tygM18kxfdlIb4mvv/view?usp=drive_link | |
| 09/05/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Ryan White | How strange geometry reveals some of the nastiest stellar interactions in the Galaxy | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DPVD1fl0LYi8KhEsK-XWZdKiIJg1MFoy/view?usp=drive_link | |
| 16/05/2025 | 11:00 | Hannah Schunker | The role of convection during magnetic active region emergence on the Sun | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LLs1heWKDcpNd1o_eNzdMSTT-MTQfHIn/view?usp=drive_link | ||
| 23/05/2025 | 11:00 | Mark Cheung | Testing the Physics of Solar and Stellar Flares with Extreme UV Observations and Radiative MHD Simulations | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1odquRndga4fIKTtRdwZm2OksM0VZddMT/view?usp=drive_link | ||
| 30/05/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Amit Seta | Varying collisionality in particle-in-cell, multiphase ISM or radio data analysis | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VQLgpL3AnY5OkX_ehsNkt41RfYj1rhv-/view?usp=drive_link | |
| 06/06/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | HDR Symposium | |||
| 13/06/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT5 | Aldo Mura | Alpha-rich dSph galaxy stellar streams | ||
| 27/06/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT2 (424) | Dinshaw Balsara |
Heliospheric Interaction with the Local Interstellar Medium with Anisotropic MHD |
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| 25/07/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT2 (424) | Orsola De Marco | Macquarie University | Stellar Evolution | |
| 01/08/2025 | 11:00 | A28 LT2 (424) | Joss Bland-Hawthorn | University of Sydney | The emergence of disc galaxies in the early Universe | |
| 08/08/2025 | Ciaran O’Hare | University of Sydney | ||||
| 15/08/2025 | Paul Lasky | Monash University | ||||
| 22/08/2025 | Rowina Nathan | Monash University | ||||
| 29/08/2025 | Rebecca Connoly | Space legislation | ||||
| 05/09/2025 | Iris de Ruiter | University of Sydney | ||||
| 12/09/2025 | ||||||
| 19/09/2025 | Emma Carli | Swinburne University of Technology |
Previous Seminars
2024
| Date | Time | Speaker | Speaker Location | Topic |
| 16 Feb 2024 | 11:00 | Roberto Sonia | University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences | X-ray search for IMBHs in near by galaxies |
| 23 Feb 2024 | 11:00 | Dan Ballard | University of Portsmouth | Cosmology with strong gravitational lensing |
| 1 Mar 2024 | 11:00 | Martin Rey | Oxford | Faint dwarf galaxies |
| 8 Mar 2024 | 11:00 | Qinghui Sun | Tsinghua University | Exploring Stellar Physics and Star-Planet Interaction through the Lens of stellar Chemical Abundance |
| 15 Mar 2024 | 11:00 | Vincent Van Eylen | UCL | Understanding planets through their host stars |
| 22 Mar 2024 | 11:00 | Tony Rodriguez | California Institute of Technology | |
| 29 Mar 2024 | public holiday – no seminar | |||
| 5 Apr 2024 | MID-SEMESTER BREAK | |||
| 12 Apr 2024 | 11:00 | Janet Machol | Colorado Boulder | 49 years of GOES solar Irradiance Measurements |
| 19 Apr 2024 | ||||
| 26 Apr 2024 | Honours talks | |||
| 3 May 2024 | ||||
| 10 May 2024 | ||||
| 17 May 2024 | ||||
| 24 May 2024 |
| Date | Time | Speaker | Speaker Location | Topic |
| 5 Aug 2024 | 15:00 | Evgeny Romashets | Lamar University |
CMEs and Solar wind
|
| 9 Aug 2024 | 11:00 | Mary Putman | Columbia University | Galaxy evolution |
| 16 Aug 2024 | 11:00 | Fan Liu | ||
| 23 Aug 2024 | 11:00 | Dinshaw.S.Balsara | University of Notre Dame | Beyond MHD |
| 30 Aug 2024 | 11:00 | Will Handley | Cambridge | Nested sampling |
| 6 Sep 2024 | 11:00 | Sven Buder | ANU | |
| 13 Sep 2024 | 11:00 | Keith Bannister | CSIRO |
Radio transients / FRBs
|
| 20 Sep 2024 | 11:00 | Tom Evans-Soma | University of Newcastle | Exoplanets |
| 27 Sep 2024 | Honours talks | |||
| 4 Oct 2024 | MIDSEM BREAK | |||
| 11 Oct 2024 | 11:00 | Yoki Salcedo | University of Pittsburgh |
Observational cosmology
|
| 18 Oct 2024 | 11:00 | Ho Seong Hwang | Seoul National University | Galaxy evolution |
| 25 Oct 2024 | 11:00 | Garrett Levine | Yale University |
Exoplanets and minor planets
|
| 1 Nov 2024 | 11:00 | Megha Sharma |
2023
| Date | Time | Speaker | Speaker Location | Topic |
| 10 Feb 2023 | 11:00 | Connor Bottrell | University of Tokyo | Connecting the observable to the non-observable at a crossroads of observational and computational galaxy astronomy |
| 3 Mar 2023 | 11:00 | Steve Finkelstein | U Texas | Pushing into the First 500 Million Years after the Big Bang with JWST [Watch] |
| 10 Mar 2023 | 11:00 | Nick Pingel | Wisconsin | Characterizing the Multiphase Interstellar Medium in the Milky Way and Beyond |
| 17 Mar 2023 | 11:00 | Alfred Castro-Ginard | Leiden | Mapping the Milky Way with the stars (un)seen by Gaia |
| 24 Mar 2023 | 11:00 | Ciaran O’Hare | USYD | Dark Matter in the Milky Way |
| 31 Mar 2023 | 11:00 | Douglas Scott | UBC | Standard Cosmological Model |
| 21 Apr 2023 | 11:00 | Richard Lane Reade | UBO | TBD |
| 28 Apr 2023 | Honours talks | |||
| 5 May 2023 | 11:00 | Ashley Ruiter | ADFA | TBD |
| 12 May 2023 | 11:00 | Ben Montet | UNSW | TBD |
| 19 May 2023 | 11:00 | Jimi Green | SKAO | TBD |
| 26 May 2023 | SSP Talks | |||
| 18 Aug 2023 | 11:00 | Naomi McClure-G | U Sydney | GASKAP |
| 25 Aug 2023 | 11:00 | Ellen Sirks | U Sydney | SuperBIT |
| 1 Sep 2023 | 11:00 | Rebecca Connolly | U Sydney | Space Law |
| 8 Sep 2023 | 11:00 | Tamara Davis | U Sydney | Cosmology |
| 15 Sep 2023 | 11:00 | Jessie Christiansen | Caltech | Expolanets |
| 22 Sep 2023 | 11:00 | Rhea-Silvia Remus | U Sydney | Cosmo Simulations |
| 29 Sep 2023 |
MID-SEMESTER BREAK
|
|||
| 6 Oct 2023 | Honours talks | |||
| 13 Oct 2023 | 11:00 | Kareem El-Badry | Caltech/Harvard | Binaries |
| 20 Oct 2023 | Krzysztof Bolejko | UTAS | Cosmology | |
| 27 Oct 2023 | 11:00 | Tabetha Boyajian | LSU | TBD |
| 3 Nov 2023 | SSP Talks |
2022
| Date | Time | Speaker | Title |
| 04/03/22 | 11am | Geoffrey Vasil | What rotation means for the inside stars |
| 11/03/22 | 11am | Sandy Faber |
The Earth Futures Institute at UCSC and UCR: Attempting to Wake the Sleeping Giant [Watch]
|
| 18/03/22 | 11am | Roger Blandford |
Black Holes – Nature or Nurture?
|
| 25/03/22 | 11am | Tara Murphy |
First results from the ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients Survey (VAST)
|
| 01/04/22 | 11am | Jay Lockman |
Neutral Gas Entrained in the Milky Way’s Nuclear Wind
|
| 08/04/22 | 10am | Karen Masters |
Spiral Arms in Galaxies
|
| 22/04/22 | 4pm | Angus Wright |
Tomographic Cosmic Shear and the Challenges of Stage-IV Calibration
|
| 29/04/22 | 4pm | Chervin Laporte |
The Milky Way as a galaxy formation and dark matter laboratory [Watch]
|
| 06/05/22 | 11am | Richard Ellis | The Quest for Cosmic Dawn: When Did Galaxies First Emerge from Darkness? [Watch] |
| 13/05/22 | 11am | Chung-Pei Ma | Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Galaxies |
| 12/08/22 | 11am | Di Li | Bridging the centuries: Arecibo to CRAFTS |
| 19/08/22 | 11am | Nikki Nielsen | Resolving the structures and physical conditions in the circumgalactic medium |
| 26/08/22 | 11am | Yuan-Sen Ting | On modelling complex systems in astronomy |
| 02/09/22 | 11am | Emma Ryan-Weber | The photons that ionized the Universe |
| 09/09/22 | 11am | David Spergel | Machine Learning and Cosmology |
| 16/09/22 | 11am | Claudia Lagos | The role of environment in quenching galaxies in galaxy formation simulations |
| 23/09/22 | 11am | Enrique Vázquez-Semadeni | Formation and evolution of molecular clouds, and implications on their star formation activity |
| 14/10/22 | 11am | Sabine Bellstedt | Pixels to Properties: Using multiwavelength redshift surveys to study cosmic star formation |
| 21/10/22 | 11am | Elene D’Onghia | The Magellanic Corona |
| 28/10/22 | 11am | Natascha M. Forster Schreiber | Star-forming galaxies at cosmic noon |
| 08/12/22 | 11am | Francesca Frakgoudi | Barred galaxies in ΛCDM: Uncovering the formation history and dark matter content of Milky Way-type galaxies |
2021
| Date | Time | Speaker | Title |
| 12/02/21 | 11am | Hannah Schunker | Closing the solar cycle: emerging active regions |
| 16/04/21 | 4pm | Frank Eisenhauer | A New Era of Interferometry with GRAVITY |
| 30/04/21 | 11am | Danny Horta | Unraveling the nature and origin of the Galactic stellar halo with Galactic surveys |
| 28/05/21 | 11am | Marcin Sokolowski | A High-Speed All-Sky Monitor for Fast Radio Bursts and Technosignatures |
| 10/09/21 | 11am | Cath Trott | The Search for Hydrogen: detecting the Epoch of Reionisation through the 21cm line. |
| 19/09/21 | 11am | Joss Bland-Hawthorn | Galactic seismology – waves that cross the Milky Way |
| 24/09/21 | 15pm | Anthony Brown | The Gaia Mission and science highlights from the Gaia data releases |
| 08/10/21 | 11am | Olivier Guyon | Direct Imaging of Nearby Habitable Exoplanets and Search for Exolife |
| 15/10/21 | 11am | Katie Mack | Dark Matter, First Light |
| 22/10/21 | 16pm | Vasily Belokurov | The transformation of the Milky Way |
| 29/10/21 | 11am | John Mather | Opening the Infrared Treasure Chest with JWST [Watch] [Listen to] |
| 12/11/21 | 11am | Jan Eldridge | New insights into black hole ecology |
| 19/11/21 | 11am | Jeff Cooke | The Australian-led Keck Wide-Field Imager |
| 26/11/21 | 16pm | Joe Silk | Recent Advances in Cosmology |
2020
| Date | Time | Speaker | Title |
| 31/1/20 | 11am | Sukyoung Yi | The origin and fate of the discs of spiral galaxies from numerical simulations |
| 21/2/20 | 11am | Taichi Uyama | High-contrast (direct) imaging of young exoplanets |
| 26/2/20 | 12pm (LG17) | Suzie Ramsay | Status of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope and its Instrumentation |
2019
| Date | Time | Speaker | Title |
| 25/1/19 | 11am | Lucia Armillotta | Metal mixing during star cluster formation |
| 1/2/19 | 11am | Andrew Hopkins | Measuring the stellar initial mass function |
| 8/2/19 | 11am | Matthew Baring | A Multiwavelength Perspective on Acceleration and Radiation in Extragalactic Jets |
| 15/2/19 | 11am | Toshi Futamase | Possibe constraits on neutrino mass and dark energy from the lensing dispersion of the magnitude-redshift relation of Type Ia supernovae |
| 1/3/19 | 11am | Chris Tinney | VELOCE |
| 8/3/19 | 11am | Ahmed Elagali | Studies of Interacting Galaxies & the Environmental Effects on Their Evolution |
| 15/3/19 | 11am | Kate Rowlands | Caught in the act: using post starburst galaxies to chart galaxy transformationv |
| 22/3/19 | 11am | Jo Dawson | Shining Light on the Dark ISM |
| 29/3/19 | 11am | Robert Jedicke | Super catastrophic asteroid disruption |
| 5/4/19 | 11am | Maria Cunningham | Radio Astronomy in the Era of Large surveys: Interpreting the results of large, multi-molecular-line datasets of the molecular ISM |
| 9/4/19 | 11am | Nicholas Martin | Mining and mapping the first generations of stars with the Pristine CaH&K survey |
| 12/4/19 | 11am | Amelia Fraser-McKelvie | The complicated lives of disk galaxies: lessons from IFS |
| 3/5/19 | 11am | Nichole Barry | The Future of EoR Structure Limits |
| 10/5/19 | 11am | Nell Byler | Ultraviolet spectral diagnostics for star forming galaxies at high redshift |
| 16/5/19 | 2pm | Kim Venn | Data Analysis and Machine Learning in Astrophysical Stellar Spectroscopic Surveys |
| 17/5/19 | 11am | Mahavir Sharma | Cosmic Reionization and its fossils in the Milky Way |
| 31/5/19 | 11am | Aman Khalid, Hillary Davis | Special Studies Project student talks |
| 7/6/19 | 11am | Peter Cottrell | Interpreting stellar spectra or “The life of a spectroscopist” |
| 28/6/19 | 11am | Dane Kleiner | MeerKAT early science of the Fornax galaxy Cluster |
| 5/7/19 | 11am | Guillaume Drouart | The GLEAMing of the first supermassive black holes |
| 26/7/19 | 11am | Daniel Cotton | A New Age of Stellar Polarimetry |
| 29/7/19 | 2pm | Alan McConnachie | The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer |
| 30/8/19 | 1am | Shivani Bhandari | Radio Transients* |
| 6/9/19 | 11am | Phil Taylor | Galaxy Simulations* |
| 13/9/19 | 11am | Shi Dai | Searching for pulsars in radio continuum surveys |
| 27/9/19 | 11am | AAO-USyd SAIL labs students | Instrumentation projects at USyd |
| 4/10/19 | 11am | Rob Sharp | Infrared astronomy and instrumentation innovations |
| 8/10/19 | 4pm | Honours talk | James Crowley |
| 11/10/19 | 11am-12:30pm | Honours talks | Yinuo Han; Tom Rutherford; Geoff Herkes |
| 18/10/19 | 11am | KD Leka | Understanding and Forecasting The Solar Origins of Space Weather |
| 25/10/19 | 11am | Lorenzo Spina | The Milky Way* |
| 7/11/19 | 11am | Magda Anaboldi | Galaxy Clusters |
| 8/11/19 | 11am | Mansi Kasliwal | Gravitational Waves |
| 15/11/19 | 11am | Chiaki Kobayashi | The origin of elements and their evolution in galaxies |
2018
| Date | Speaker | Institution | Title |
| 9 February | Jielai Zhang | University of Toronto | Exploring the low surface brightness Universe with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array |
| 23 February | Connor Bottrell | University of Victoria | Observational Properties of Simulated Galaxies: Computational Cosmology as Seen through a Telescope |
| 2 March | Roland Bacon and Johan Richard | Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon (France) | Science prospects with MUSE at the VLT |
| 9 March | Christopher Usher | Liverpool John Moores University | Using Globular Cluster Stellar Populations to Understand Galaxy Formation |
| 16 March | Elizabeth Stanway | University of Warwick | Understanding Intense Star Formation through Observations and Modelling |
| 23 March | Keith Bannister | CSIRO | Fast Radio Bursts and plasma lenses around hot stars |
| 28 March | Tom Landecker | Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory | Revealing the Galactic Magnetic Field with Radio Polarization |
| 6 April | Michael Hudson | University of Waterloo | Galaxies and Dark Matter Seen Through a Gravitational Lens |
| 13 April | Andy Casey | Monash University | The lithium-rich giant star puzzle |
| 27 Apri | A/Prof. Francois Rigaut & Dr Richard McDermid | ANU & Macquarie | MAVIS: A new MCAO-Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph for the Very Large Telescope |
| 1 May | David Parkinson | Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute | Cosmology with large-area radio continuum surveys |
| 4 May | Sarah Leslie | MPIA | Evolution of star formation and dust properties of galaxies over cosmic time |
| 11 May | Chris Gordon | University of Canterbury | Is the Galactic Bulge Shining in Gamma Rays? |
| 18 May | Joe Callingham | ASTRON | Absorption processes in radio astronomy: Facilitating a unique discovery space |
| 25 May | Rhea-Silvia Rhemus | University Observatory in Munich | Dynamical and kinematical properties of (mostly) early-type galaxies from the Magneticum simulations |
| 29 May | Dr. Alfred Tiley | Durham University | Galaxy Kinematics from Integral Field Spectroscopy of ~1000 z~0.6-2 Star-forming Galaxies |
| 22 June | Leo Alcorn | Texas A&M | The Proto-cluster Environment at z~2: Kinematics, Metallicity, and Merging Groups |
| 13 July | Stuart Ryder | AAO | Binary companions to stripped-envelope supernovae |
| 27 July | Hugo Nowacki and Quentin Noraz | Paris-Sud University | Solar active regions: through different models and behaviours |
| 17 August | Guillermo Blanc | Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science | Next Generation IFU Surveys of Nearby Galaxies: Resolving the Physics that Drive Galaxy Evolution |
| 31 August | Shin-ya NITTA | Tsukuba University of Technology | Magnetic reconnection theory |
| 7 September | Mireia Montes | UNSW | Exploring the fossil record of cluster assembly: the intracluster light. |
| 14 September | Amri Wandel | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem | The prospects for detecting life on exoplanets in the JWST/TESS era |
| 21 September | Professor Swapan K Saha | Formerly at Indian Institute of Astrophysics | Genesis of Optical Interferometry |
| 5 October | Bjoern Malte Schaefer | Heidelberg Uni | (non)Gaussian lensing of a (non)Gaussian cosmic microwave background |
| 12 October | Joss Bland-Hawthorn | University of Sydney | Near Field Cosmology and Astrometry |
| 19 October | Justin Bray | University of Manchester | Toward detecting cosmic rays at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory |
| 26 October | Peter Tuthill | University of Sydney | A twist in the tale: sinuous plume coiled around doomed star may forebode violent end. |
| 30 November | Barnaby Norris and Chris Betters | University of Sydney | Why you should be excited about astrophotonics |
| 4 December | Jean-Luc Starck | Mathematical Challenges of the Euclid Spatial Project | |
| 7 December | Philippa Browning | Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester | Plasma heating and particle acceleration by magnetic reconnection in solar and stellar flares |