The Astronomer and the Witch: Kepler’s Mother

Professor Ulinka Rublack FBA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulinka_Rublack https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/people/professor-ulinka-rublack-fba https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/professor-ulinka-rublack In 1615 Katharina Kepler, illiterate mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler, was accused of being a witch. At that time in Germany, there was a witch ‘craze’. Over half of the c.50,000 executions in Europe for witchcraft between 1500 and 1700 took place in Germany. During the next […]

Caroline Herschel: Discoverer of Comets

Dr Sheila Kanani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Kanani Sheila Pearson (née Kanani), commonly known as Sheila Kanani is a British astronomer and the Education, Outreach and Diversity Officer at the Royal Astronomical Society. https://twitter.com/SaturnSheila?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://ras.ac.uk/user/education-outreach/sheila-kanani https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sheila-kanani-b9942a1/?originalSubdomain=uk Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848) was the first woman professional astronomer, and by the time of her death she had been awarded the Royal […]

Countdown to Launch

Dr Olivia Jones https://www.roe.ac.uk/~ojones/ 2021 is an exciting year for astronomy, with the launch of the highly anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). Webb, NASA’s and ESA’s flagship mission, will revolutionise astronomy. It will be the largest and most powerful telescope launched into space, and it has strong Scottish connections with one of the key […]

Maths vs. Covid-19

Professor Julia Gog OBE https://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/professor-julia-gog-obe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Gog Julia is the David N. Moore Fellow in Mathematics, Director of Studies in Mathematics at Queen’s College, Cambridge and Professor of Mathematical Biology in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. She is also a member of the Cambridge Immunology Network and the Cambridge Infectious […]

Cosmic Vision: Space-Quakes

Professor Katherine Blundell OBE https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/blundell https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/people/professor-katherine-blundell/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Blundell Katherine was appointed Gresham Professor of Astronomy in 2019. She is a Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University and a Research Fellow at St John’s College. Before this she was one of the Royal Society’s University Research Fellows, a Research Fellow of the 1851 Royal Commission, and a […]

Investing in Nature

Professor Jacqueline McGlade https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/igp/professor-jacqueline-mcglade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_McGlade Professor Jacqueline McGlade is the Frank Jackson Foundation Professor of the Environment at Gresham College. She is also a Professor of Resilience and Sustainable Development at University College London and Professor at the Maasai Mara University in Kenya. On leave from her role at UCL, Professor McGlade was Director of […]

CloudCatcher – How to Help Catch Clouds From Space

Dr Caroline Cox https://www.ralspace.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/Caroline-Cox.aspx https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/caroline-cox/cloudcatcher/about/team Clouds are beautiful. Seen from Earth, they provide a constantly changing backdrop to the sky. Seen from space, they are spectacular formations. However, clouds can be problematic for many Earth Observation missions interested in making observations of the atmosphere or land below them. Dr Cox discussed the process of identifying […]

Light and Dark. A Story of the Cosmos

Dr Marika Asgari https://www.roe.ac.uk/~ma/ https://www.roe.ac.uk/ifa/people/ma.html Light is the main observable in cosmology, but most of what we “see” with this light is how the dark universe behaves. Dr Asgari explored how the light from millions of distant galaxies are used to shed light on the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Active Galactic Nuclei and Tidal Disruption Events

Philip Short https://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/people/philip-short https://twitter.com/philshort17?lang=en A tale of hungry black holes and unfortunate stars. At the centre of every galaxy lies a supermassive black hole. Some of these black holes are in an ‘active’ state, pulling in a steady stream of material from the surrounding area. While in this state these black holes have a significant […]

Where do Mathematical Symbols Come From?

Professor Sarah Hart https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8004985/sarah-hart https://twitter.com/sarahlovesmaths?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_B._Hart https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-hart-99879899/?originalSubdomain=uk Sarah Hart is the first woman Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, and was appointed in 2020. She is Professor of Mathematics and Head of Mathematics and Statistics at Birkbeck, University of London. She studied at Oxford and Manchester, gaining her PhD in 2000. Postdoctoral research and teaching […]