ASX Announces 2011 Symposium Speakers

ASX in 2011. Media savvy.

Since incorporating as a nonprofit in 2003, the community managed Astronomy & Space Exploration Society (ASX) at the University of Toronto has grown into one of the largest space focused organizations in Canada with approximately 2300 members building public events to educate, excite, and inspire students, professionals and the general public on astronomy and space.

Pizza for ISS in 2001. Not media savvy.

They're a knowledgeable group of up and coming experts who bring marketing savvy and social media expertise to an industry long dominated by the dull press releases and boring media advisories that more properly belong to an earlier era.

Lately, ASX members have branched out to share their knowledge with other organizations. ASX past president Farnaz Ghadaki spoke on 'Next Generation Considerations for Commercialization of Space' and 'Space Marketing' at the 2010 Canadian Space Summit while another ASX past president, Tahir Merali was a plenary speaker at the 61st Annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC2010), held in the Czech Republic last October.

But the core focus for the organization has always been the January "Expanding Canada's Frontiers" symposium and the lineup for their 8th annual event, scheduled for Friday, January 28th, 2011 from 7:00-9:00 PM has just been released. The focus for 2011 is on "unraveling the universe" with speakers including:

• Dr. Alexei Vladimir Filippenko, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Filippenko is considered to be one of the worlds most highly sited astrophysicists and has spearheaded efforts to develop robotic telescopes, including the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), which is helping to conduct the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS). He is also a prominent member of both the High-Redshift Supernova Search Team and the Hubble Space Telescope Nuker Team which uses high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy to investigate the structure and dynamics of normal galaxies. His research focuses on supernovae and active galaxies at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths. 

• Dr. Michel Lefebvre, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria who founded the Canadian ATLAS collaboration which contributed to the construction of the ATLAS particle detector that currently study high energy proton-proton collisions in the Large Hadron Collider, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Lefebvre has also served on and chaired the Subatomic Physics Grant Selection Committee of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). His research focuses on high energy particle physics, the development, the origin of mass and quantum field gauge theories. 

• Dr. Gilbert Holder, an associate professor of physics at McGill University. He is also the chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Cosmological Astrophysics and a scholar with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s (CIfAR) Cosmology & Gravity Program. His research focuses on astrophysics and cosmology, studies of the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure in the universe, dark energy, the first stars and massive clusters of galaxies.

Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto.

Inside Convocation Hall.

The event typically draws a large crowd exceeding 1000 and will be held in the ample facilities at Convocation Hall, 31 Kings College Circle on the University of Toronto campus.

The event is free for current U of T students who have registered in advanced (click here for student registeration), $15 dollars CDN until January 6th, 2011 for those of us who are no longer in school (click here for non-student registration) and $20 dollars CDN after January 6th for those of us who are simply a little slow to register.