May 11, 2009

There has been a lot of email circling about the Phys/Astr Library closure. A website has been setup here if you want to follow the details or add comments: http://faculty.washington.edu/london/pal/index.html

Fall Registration: Registration is upon us for autumn quarter. Please make sure you run a DARS (found on MyUW) to get an up-to-date audit of which classes you still need to complete for your major requirements. I'm happy to answer questions about classes, stop in or send an email.

Astro Lunch: Tuesday at 12:30 in Phys/Astr B356A (aka the reading room), Adi Zolotov (NYU) will give an informal talk on "The Dual Origin of Stellar Halos". Please feel free to bring your lunch.

Astrobiology Seminar: Tuesday at 2:30pm, John Peters (Montana State Univ) will give a talk on "Iron-Sulfur Enzymes: Insights into the origin of life on Earth". The talk will be in Phys/Astr A118.

Astro Colloquium: This Thursday at 4pm in Phys/Astr A102, Amy Mainzer (JPL) will be giving a talk on the "Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)". Join us at 3:45pm in the foyer for coffee, tea and cookies.

Undergraduate Research Symposium: This Friday is the Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at Mary Gates Hall. The symposium is all afternoon and we have lots of students participating. Posters will be up from noon-1 and a different set from 2:30-3:30, check out all of the astronomy research your peers are doing! We have a room of astronomy-related talks going on from 1-2:30pm in MGH 284, Kenza Arraki, James Bushong, Lauren Pope, Whitney Kropat and Joel Leigh.

Page O'Announcements: Another job was posted today and still filled with lots of great campus events. http://pageoannouncements.blogspot.com/

The Astronaut Scholarship Experience: We are pleased to invite you to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Experience presentation by Space Grant scholar Pavan Vaswani. Please look below for the details. We will have snacks, coffee and some other goodies for you.

Speaker: Pavan Vaswani
Title: Breakfast with Buzz Aldrin and on the Launchpad of the Shuttle Endeavor: The Astronaut Scholarship Experience
When: Thursday 5/14 from 3.30-5.00 pm
Where: JHN 117

Pavan's Summary:
I had a chance to attend the Astronaut Scholarship Reception and Technical Conference in beautiful Cape Canaveral, Florida last week. It was an amazing trip -- we had breakfast with Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Al Warden, Scott Carpenter, Laura Shepherd and many others; were able to go ONTO the launchpad of the Space Shuttle Endeavor and see the last time in history two shuttles will be on both launchpads; went to the Orbital Processing Facility to see Discovery being prepared for an upcoming trip; attended a Gala where we dined underneath a Saturn V rocket; talked to Astronauts, Cosmonauts, private aerospace corporation CEOs, space enthusiasts, and others.

Have a great week.