TSI Public Talk: The Mystery and History of Fast Radio Bursts

Prof. Duncan Lorimer (West Virginia University)

Feb 7, 2024 7:00 PM

Location: McConnell Engineering Building room 204
Public Lecture

Join us on February 7th, 2024 to learn about the cosmic mystery and history of fast radio bursts from one of the scientists who discovered them!

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration pulses of cosmological origin that were discovered at West Virginia University in 2007. They show amazing promise as probes of the large-scale structure of the Universe and provide a new window into the population of compact objects at vast distances. Although much of the details as to their origins remain to be discovered, in this talk I will attempt to give an account of their discovery and what we have learned in the past seventeen years.

Meet Our Speaker:

Duncan Lorimer currently holds the rank of Professor of Physics and Astronomy and serves as Associate Dean for External Research Development in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University (WVU). After graduating with a BSc in Astrophysics from the University of Wales in Cardiff in 1990, where he was mentored by Prof. Bernard Schutz, Lorimer got his PhD in 1994 for his contributions to Pulsar Astronomy from the University of Manchester in the UK working under the supervision of Profs. Andrew Lyne, Dick Manchester and Matthew Bailes. Since then he has held positions at the University of Manchester, the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy, Cornell University, University of Manchester, and at WVU. While at WVU, Lorimer has received a Cottrell Scholar Award (2008) from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement and has received both College and University awards for excellence in teaching (2009, 2010) and for research as a Benedum Scholar (2019). Lorimer has been a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society since 1994 and in 2018 was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in recognition of his contributions to our understanding of pulsars, and for the discovery of fast radio bursts. In 2023, he was the co-recipient of the Shaw Prize in Astronomy along with Maura McLaughlin and Matthew Bailes for the discovery of fast radio bursts.

Date: February 7th 2024

Time: 7 pm (doors open 6:50 pm)

Location: McConnell Engineering Building room 204

Youtube Livestream: https://youtube.com/live/5hLKDLNbUU4?feature=share