Molly Peeples visit

Molly Peeples from Space Telescope Science Institute / Johns Hopkins visited us for a week as part of the Role models in physics program supported by the US Embassy in Prague. She gave a talk on
“Exploring the Universe with Space Telescopes and Supercomputers” and a second talk about “The Universe at Low Density: How Cosmic Gas Flows Build Galaxies”. She talked with students.

Thomas Janka visit

Thomas Janka (MPA Garching) visited to give the department colloquium on core-collapse supernova explosions with a sequel science coffee discussion on kicks, fallback, and nucleosynthesis. He also talked with members of the department. Great to have him visit!

Panel discussion on the next 10 years of astronomy in Czechia

I participated in an event organized to honor 100 years of IAU. I argued that joining SDSS-V would be a good idea to complement existing efforts in photometry and spectroscopy of variable stars, and survey involvement like ASAS-SN and LSST. I also suggested that we should form “International research school in astronomy in Prague/Czech Republic” to attract great PhD students. I learned later that others have proposed similar idea in the past. On a related note, I advocated for establishing “Kepler Postdoctoral Fellowship” to bring excellent early career scientists.

Nadia Zakamska visit

Nadia Zakamska (Johns Hopkins) visited our group and the department this week, giving talks on supermassive black holes and exoplanets. She met with students and postdocs and we also discussed some exciting stellar science. The visit was organized with the help of Role Models in Physics small grant from the US Embassy in Prague.