2012 February 1: Discover the Universe - astronomy training program for educators
The Discover the Universe / A la decouverte de l’univers program has been funded by NSERC PromoScience. The program aims to empower schoolteachers and informal educators (youth group leaders, First Nations elders, park interpreters) in poor or geographically isolated communities to teach astronomy to their youth. This program will use interactive web technology to give these educators the knowledge, tools, and confidence that they need to teach astronomy. Our program builds on a pilot French-language course for park interpreters and is a continuing legacy of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy. As the program’s PI I am looking forward to the impact that we will have over the next three years.
2012 March 21: Colloquium at McMaster
A colloquium visit to McMaster. I talked about how very faint z~2 galaxies grow their masses. An excellent trip with lots of good interactions, plus a dose of pleasant nostalgia visiting my undergraduate alma mater.
2012 March 19: A bump up
Today I got a letter from SMU’s President saying that he approves my promotion to the rank of professor. Between that, tenure (this January), and my increasing absent-mindedness and decreasing attention span, I am now well on my way to Smith-dom. All in all, a pretty satisfying year. (Drawing thanks to www.phdcomics.com).
2012 May 1: Going to Japan for my sabbatical
I am awarded the JSPS Invitational Visiting Fellowship and will be spending a large part of my sabbatical year at Tohoku University in Sendai visiting Toru Yamada to work on the WISH space telescope project and other tasty science morsels. I also plan to spend some time at Kyoto University, re-stoking ties with my collaborator Kouji Ohta and his team. Really looking forward to all the fun times and great science.
2012 June 25: IAP conference
I am in Paris for a week to attend the Stellar Populations across Cosmic Times conference at the IAP. Am giving a talk on the growth of galaxy masses at z~2. You can see the slides for my talk by clicking here.
2012 September 28: SEDfit paper accepted
The paper on SEDfit - my spectral energy distribution fitting software - is accepted for publication by PASP. SEDfit is arguably the original SED-fitting software that started the trend, back in 1998 with Sawicki & Yee (1998), for estimating stellar masses and other key parameters for studies of high-redshift galaxies. Given the number of students and colleagues that have used, and continue to use, SEDfit, I felt it a good idea to write up a description of it as a dedicated paper. And so this is it. It will come out in the November issue of PASP, but in the meantime you can get it here.
2013 January 14: Anneya defends her MSc thesis!
Anneya successfully defends her MSc thesis, entitled “Blue BX Galaxies Breaking Bad”, in which she investigates the dust properties of these z~2 objects, finding that many of them have interstellar dust that’s different than most people have been assuming thus far. Congratulations, Anneya! Next step: PhD!
2013 February 19: Seminar at Tohoku University
Today I gave a seminar at the Astronomical Institute of Tohoku University. I am spending my sabbatical at Tohoku University, so this was the shortest trip I ever had to do to present a colloquium: in simply involved walking down the hall! I talked about galaxies at redshift z~2, showing results from my recent work as well those from a forthcoming paper led by Liz. I also showed some very preliminary results from work I am doing currently on galaxy quenching. These generated considerable interest and I am really looking forward to discussion that I will have with several Tohoku colleagues over the next weeks and months on this topic.
2013 March 7-8: Visit to IPMU
I spend a couple of days and give a seminar at the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Kashiwa near Tokyo. Good discussions about wide-field imaging projects and other things.
2013 March 29: Bobby wins an NSERC PGS-D Scholarship
Group member and PhD student Bobby Sorba wins an NSERC PGS-D Scholarship. Bobby’s scholarship-winning research project is entitled “Galaxy Stellar Mass Estimation Through Pixel-by-Pixel Fitting”. Well done Bobby!
2013 May 8: CFHT Users’ Meeting
Liz and I attend the CFHT Users’ Meeting in Campbell River, B.C. (photo shows the view from the conference venue). Liz gives a talk on our recently-submitted paper on the numbers of passive and star-forming galaxies at redshift z~2. Liz’s talk went very well and was well received. Good job, Liz!
