Colloquium Series
Colloquia are held on Thursday afternoons at 4:10pm
Spring 2025
Fall 2024
Past Colloquium
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
11-Jan | Kelly Chipps | Oakridge National Labratory | Nuclear Astrophysics in the Next Decade: Understanding the R Process | Host: J Velkovska |
25-Jan | Pavel Kovtun | University of Victoria | Extreme fluids: From field theory to hydrodynamics and back | Host: J-F Paquet |
1-Feb | Bharat Ratra | Kansas State | Spatial Curvature, Dark Energy Dynamics, Neither, or Both | Host: R Scherrer |
8-Feb | Clifford M Will | University of Florida | Francis G. Slack Lecture In Physics The Renaissance of General Relativity |
Host: R Scherrer |
15-Feb | Jess Mclver | University of British Colombia | New discoveries with gravitational-wave astrophysics | Hosts: S Taylor / K Jani |
22-Feb | Dale Kocevski | Colby College | Insights into Early SMBH Growth from JWST | Hosts: S Taylor / K Jani |
29-Feb | Christine Aidala | University of Michigan | Spin-Momentum Correlations, Aharonov-Bohm, and Color Entanglement in Quantum Chromodynamics | Host: R Kunnawalkam Elayavalli |
7-Mar | Paul Romatschke | University of Colorado Boulder | Life on an Endless Hill: Making Sense of Up-Side-Down Potentials in Quantum Mechanics and High Energy Physics | Host: J-F Paquet |
28-Mar | Matt Strassler | Harvard University | Exploring The Foundations of our Quantum Cosmos | Host: A Lupsasca |
4-Apr | Jesse Spencer-Smith | Vanderbilt University | Science and the Frontier of AI | Host: S Taylor |
11-Apr | Jenny Greene | Princeton University | Stumbling over (red) accreting black holes with JWST | Host: K Jani |
18-Apr | Julian Sonner | University of Geneva | The chaotic inner workings of quantum black holes | Host: A Lupsasca |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
31-Aug | John Jumper | Google Deep Mind Technology | Highly Accurate Protein Structure Prediction and Its Applications | Host: S. Hutson |
7-Sep | Heinrich Paes | TU-Dortmund | The One - How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: T. Kephart |
14-Sep | Stephen Taylor | Vanderbilt University | The Dawn of Galaxy-Scale Gravitational Wave Astronomy | Host: A. Lupsasca |
21-Sep | Alex Maloney | McGill University | Quantum Information Theory, Black Holes, and Space-time | Host: A. Lupsasca |
28-Sep | Roger Blandford | Stanford University | Jets, Disks and Winds from Spinning Black Holes: Nature or Nurture? | Host: A. Lupsasca |
5-Oct | Szabolcs Marka | Columbia University | Why we do what we do, with passion? Synergies in Science from Cataclysmic Cosmic Explosions to a Better Earth | Host: K. Jani |
12-Oct | David Kaiser | MIT | Secret Clocks: The U.S. Military, Einstein's Relativity, and the Global Positioning System | Host: A. Lupsasca |
26-Oct | Vedika Khemani | Stanford University | Quantum Matter Out of Equilibrium | Host: A. Lupsasca |
2-Nov | Karen Kasza | Columbia University | Stress management: cell packings and tissue flows in developing embryos | Host: S. Hutson |
14-Nov | Carl Wieman | Emeritus, Stanford University | Foreman Lecture: Taking a scientific approach to science education | Host: J. W16-ikswo |
16-Nov | Ken Regan | Fraught Issues in Detecting Chess Cheating Via a Statistical Model | Host: R. Scherrer | |
30-Nov | Sokrates Pantelides | Vanderbilt University | A journey on the nanoscale with a combination of theory and microscopy | Host: S. Hutson |
7-Dec | Peter Steinberg | Brookhaven National Laboratory | Collisions with light at the LHC: photon-photon and photonuclear physics with ATLAS | Host: J-F Paquet |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium title | Notes |
12-Jan | Jorge Noronha | U. Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Relativistic Fluid Dynamics: From Particle Colliders to Neutron Star Mergers | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: J.-F. Paquet |
19-Jan | Sam Gralla | U. Arizona | Alice's adventures with bombs, Bobs, and black holes | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: A. Lupsasca |
26-Jan | Kimberly Boddy | U. Texas, Austin | Opportunities for Dark Matter Searches in Cosmology | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: R. Scherrer |
2-Feb | Chris Monahan | William & Mary | Pictures of a proton: quarks, gluons and hadrons from first principles | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: R. Kunnawalkam Elayavalli |
9-Feb | Veronica Dexheimer | Kent State University | Exotic matter in neutron stars | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: J. Velkovska |
23-Feb | Duncan Lorimer | West Virginia University | Making Sense of the Census -- The Cosmological Population of Fast Radio Bursts | Host: S. Hutson |
2-Mar | Bill Press | U. Texas, Austin | Science in the White House | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: R. Scherrer |
9-Mar | James Dent | Sam Houston State University | Gravitational Waves and Physics Beyond the Standard Model | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: T. Kephart |
23-Mar | Andrew Strominger | Harvard University | Black Holes: The Most Mysterious Objects in the Universe | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: A. Lupsasca |
30-Mar | Edgar Shaghoulian | U. California, Santa Cruz | Black holes, cosmology, and quantum entanglement | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: A. Lupsasca |
6-Apr | Travis Humble | Oak Ridge National Lab | Discovery and Innovation in Quantum Science and Technology | Co-sponsored by Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering Host: S. Hutson |
13-Apr | Charles Gale | McGill University | Light from the little bang: Photons from strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: J.-F. Paquet |
20-Apr | Mark Trodden | U. Pennsylvania | Gravity in the Age of Precision Cosmology | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: R. Scherrer |
27-Apr | Frans Pretorius | Princeton University | Open Questions on the Dynamics of Black Holes | Co-sponsored by VandyGRAF Host: M. Disconzi |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium title | Notes |
01- Sept | Ashok Goel | Georgia Tech | Using AI for Transforming Adult Learning and Online Education | Guy and Rebecca Forman Lecture Host: S. Hutson |
15-Sept | Josh Caldwell | Vanderbilt University | Strong Coupling and Extreme Anisotropy in Infrared Polaritonic Media | Host: N. Tolk |
22-Sept | Leo Stein | University of Mississippi | Gravitational waves from black hole mergers: The big picture and subtle details | Host: A. Lupsasca |
29-Sept | Charles Gammie | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Portrait of a Black Hole | Host: A. Lupsasca Co-hosted by VandyGRAF |
06-Oct | Monica Pate | New York University | Celestial Holography | Alice Clair Kimbler Hankla Lecture Hosts: S. Hutson and A. Lupsasca |
20-Oct | Shane Larson | Northwestern University | The Landscape of Multi-messenger Astronomy in the Lisa Era | Host: S. Taylor |
03-Nov | Randy Knight | California Polytechnic State University | What do we know about the teaching and learning of physics? | Host: S. Hutson |
10-Nov | Robert Pisarski | Brookhaven National Laboratory | Golden Ages in nuclear collisions: past, present, and future | Co-hosted by VandyGRAF and the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy |
01-Dec | Michael Johnson | Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. For Astrophysics | Black Hole Shadows and Photon Rings: Experimental Relativity with Radio Interferometry | Co-hosted by VandyGRAF and the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy |
08-Dec | Ronald E. Mickens | Clark Atlanta University | 2022 Wendell G. Holladay Lecture in Physics: Pitfalls, Perils, and Other Dangers for the Numerical Integration of Differential Equations |
Host: The Department of Physics and Astronomy |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
27-Jan | Karan Jani | Vanderbilt University | Finding Black Holes That Should Not Exist: From Earth, Space and Moon | Host: R. Scherrer |
3-Feb | Austin Baty | Rice University | Trillion Degree Matter: Probing the Emergence of the Quark-Gluon Plasma | Host: J. Velkovska |
10-Feb | James Mulligan | University of California, Berkelely | The quark-gluon plasma: emergent behaviors of the strong nuclear force | Host: J. Velkovska |
17-Feb | Jing Wang | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Tasting the Hot Quark Soup with Heavy Quarks | Host: J. Velkovska |
21-Feb | Raghav Kunnawalkam Elayavalli | Yale University | Unravelling the space-time evolution of quarks and gluons | Host: J. Velkovska |
24-Feb | Yi Chen | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Quarks, gluons, plasma, and exciting phenomena in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion colliders | Host: J. Velkovska |
3-Mar | John W. Conklin | University of Florida | Gravity as an Observable: Tracking Climate Change and the Nature of our Universe | Host: K. Holley-Bockelmann |
24-Mar | Joseph Hamilton | Vanderbilt University | 64 Years in Physics at Vanderbilt, The Road Less Traveled | Host: S. Hutson |
31-Mar | Mallory Molina | Ford Postdoctoral Fellow at Montana State University | The Origins and Growth of Black Holes | Hosts: J. Runnoe and S. Hutson |
7-Apr | Marina Kounkel | Vanderbilt University | Dynamical zoo of star formation | Host: S. Hutson |
14-Apr | Saul Teukolsky | Cornell University | Testing the No-Hair Theorem and the Area Theorem with LIGO | Host: R. Scherrer |
21-Apr | Leigh Orf | Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Studies, University of Wisconsin | Simulation and Visualization of the World's Most Powerful Thunderstorms | Host: A. Dodson |
28-Apr | Josh Caldwell | Vanderbilt University | Host: N. Tolk |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
9-Sep | Karin Oberg | Center for Astrophysics | Harvard-Smithsonian | The Chemistry of Planet Formation | Host: R. Sherrer |
16-Sep | Julia Kregenow | Penn State University | Guy and Rebecca Forman Lecture: Connecting with your Students: Meet them Where They Are | Host: S. Hutson |
23-Sep | William R. Holmes | Vanderbilt University | Modeling intra-cellular insulin dynamics in pancreatic Beta cells | Host: S. Hutson |
30-Sep | Katie Mack | North Carolina State University | Alice Clair Hankla Lecture: Dark Matter: A Cosmological Perspective | Host: S. Hutson |
7-Oct | Alfredo Gurrola | Vanderbilt University | Unprecedented searches for new particles at the Large Hadron Collide | Host: S. Hutson |
14-Oct | Zeljko Ivezic | University of Washington | The Greatest Movie of All Time | Host: J. Runnoe |
21-Oct | Jorge Moreno | Pomona College | Host: J. Runnoe | |
28-Oct | Tanmay Vachaspati | Arizona State University | Is the Universe magnetized? | Host: R. Sherrer |
4-Nov | Albert-Laszlo Barabási | Northeastern University | High Energy Physics and Cosmology | Host: S. Hutson |
11-Nov | Lam Hui | Columbia University | High Energy Physics and Cosmology | Host: R. Sherrer |
18-Nov | Ricardo Ruiz | LBL | Host: R. Haglund | |
2-Dec | Mike Brotherton | University of Wyoming | Host: J. Runnoe |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
28-Jan | Andreas Berlind | Vanderbilt University | Astrophysics and Data Science | Host: S. Hutson |
4-Feb | Chung-Pei Ma | University of California, Berkeley | Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Galaxies | Host: S. Taylor |
11-Feb | Laurie E. McNeil | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | No less than success: Pedagogy and curriculum in thriving physics departments, Guy and Rebecca Forman Lecture | Host: S. Hutson |
18-Feb | Neil Abernethy | University of Washington | Epidemic models of COVID-19: Uses and abuses during the pandemic | Host: S. Hutson |
25-Feb | Kerri Phillips and Sylvie DeLaHunt | Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory | Breaking Down Barriers to Diversity and Inclusion in STEM | Host: S. Starko |
4-Mar | Alpha A. Lee | University of Cambridge, U.K. | From soft matter to hypothesis testing: Using machine learning to discover hidden structures in molecules and materials | Host:S. Hutson |
11-Mar | Yusuke Toyama | Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore | Mechanical wave propagation in a tissue upon cell death | Host:S. Hutson |
18-Mar | Simon Elliot Wall | Aarhus University, Denmark | Lighting up Quantum Materials | Host: R. Haglund |
25-Mar | Martin Rees | Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University, U.K. | Real and Counterfactual Universes, Francis G. Slack Lecture | Host:S. Hutson |
8-Apr | TN Governor Phil Bredesen | Physics in the world of business and politics | Host:S. Hutson | |
15-Apr | Paul Lasky | Monash University, Australia, and OzGrav Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery | The future of gravitational-wave astronomy | Host: S. Taylor |
22-Apr | Ole Molvig | Vanderbilt University | AI Einstein: experiments at the intersection of the humanities, science, and emergent technology | Host: N. Tolk |
29-Apr | Reka Albert | Pennsylvannia State University | Network-based dynamic modeling of biological systems: toward understanding and control | Hosts: K. Varga and S. Hutson |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
3-Sep | M. Shane Hutson | Vanderbilt, Professor and Chair, Department of Physics and Astronomy | State of the Physics and Astronomy Department | |
10-Sep | Richard Haight | IBM TJ Watson Research Center | An Overview of Quantum Computing at IBM: IBM-Q from Fundamentals to Practice | Host: L. Feldman |
17-Sep | Frank von Hippel | Princeton University. Co-Directory of Program on Science and Global Security | Nuclear Threat Reduction | Host: S. Hutson |
24-Sep | Jason Dexter | JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder. | Imaging Black Holes: Beyond the shadow | Host: J. Runnoe |
8-Oct | David Smith | Vanderbilt University, Department of Radiology | Alternative Pathways in Physics: My Journey from Astrophysics to Astrobiology to Medical Imaging and AI | Host: J. Gore |
15-Oct | Joseph Simon | University of Colorado, Boulder. Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences | Merging Galaxies and Supermassive Black Hole Binaries: Multi-Messenger Astrophysics with Pulsar Timing Arrays | Host: S.T. Taylor |
22-Oct | Julie Hogan | Bethel University | CMS Prticle Flow: the LEGO tutorial and searches for new massive quark | Hosts: S. Starko and R. Scherrer |
29-Oct | Aviva Rothman | Department of History, Case Western University | Johannes Kepler on Perspective and Harmony | Host: R Haglund |
5-Nov | Dr. Jacklyn M. Gates | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Modern Day Alchemy: Making and Investigating the Heaviest Elements on Earth. Alice Clair Hankla Lecture | Host: J. Hamilton |
3-Dec | Alberto Sesana | Dipartimento di Fisica G.Occhialini,Università di Milano, Bicocca, Italy | Massive Black Hole Binaries in the era of Multimessenger Astronomy | Host: S.T. Taylor |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
16-Jan | Jessica Watkins | Vanderbilt University, Dept. of Teaching and Learning, Peabody College | Problematizing as a Scientific Endeavor: The Importance of Students Identifying, Articulating, and Motivating Problems | Host: S. Hutson |
23-Jan | Juan Carlos Idrobo | Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences | Honey, I Shrunk the Synchrotron, and the Result is an Electron Microscope: Sensing Magnetic Ordering, Electric Fields and Isotopes at the Atomic and Nanometer Level | Host: S. Pantelides |
30-Jan | Barry Barish | Caltech | Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves, Francis G. Slack Lecture | Host: S. Hutson |
06-Feb | Zina Cinker | National Graphene Association | From Hard Science to Next-Generation Tech: "The Graphene Story" | Host: N. Tolk |
10-Feb | Michael Murrell | Yale University | Broken Time Reversal Symmetry and the Efficiency of Biological Machines | Host: S. Hutson |
13-Feb | Tamara Bogdanovic | Georgia Tech | Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in the era of Multi-messenger Astrophysics | Host: J. Runnoe |
20-Feb | Thomas Ullrich | Brookhaven National Laboratory | The Glue that Binds us - Probing Gluonic Matter with the World's First Electron-ion Collider | Host: V. Greene |
27-Feb | Nina Balke | Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences | A Nanoscale View on Electromechanical Phenomena | Host: S. Pantelides |
Date | Speaker | Affiliation | Colloquium Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
29-Aug | Carlos Silva | Georgia Institute of Technology | Exciton Polarons in Two-dimensional Organic-inorganic Hybrid Perovskites | Host: R. Haglund |
12-Sep | Scott Gaudi | Ohio State University | The Demographics of Exoplanets with WFIRST | Host: R. Scherrer |
19-Sep | Gerald Gabrielse | Trustees Professor and Director of the Center for Fundamental Physics at Northwestern University | Tabletop Searches for New Physics: A Tale of Two Electron Dipole Moments, the Francis G. Slack Lecture | Host: N. Tolk |
23-Sep | David Brin | Astrophysicist and Novelist | Our Place in the Cosmos and Is Anyone Out There | Host: R. Scherrer |
26-Sep | Les Johnson | NASA | Perspectives at 50: Space Science and Exploration Past, Present, and Future | Host: N. Tolk |
17-Oct | Calen Henderson | IPAC-Caltech | Exoplanet Demographics from Kepler to WFIRST, the Wendell Holladay Lecture | Host: S. Jacklin |
31-Oct | Shriram Ramanathan | Purdue University | Quantum Materials for Brain and Biological Sciences | Host: R. Haglund |
7-Nov | Prem Kumar | Northwestern University | Quantum Engineering: A Transdisciplinary Vision | Host: S. Weiss |
14-Nov | Deborah Berebichez | Independent data scientist, TV host, educator and entrepreneur | Outrageous Acts of Thinking | Host: S. Hutson |
18-Nov | Michael Tremmel | Yale University | Dynamic duos: Supermassive Black Hole Pairs in Galaxy Mergers | Host: K. Holley-Bockelmann |
21-Nov | Andrew Mugler | Purdue University | Physics of Collective Cell Sensing | Host: W. Holmes |
5-Dec | Thomas Weiler | Vanderbilt University | Host: S. Hutson |