Department Highlights Archive

May 2009

Congratulations to Dr. Catherine Lovekin on being awarded the 2009 Plaskett Medal for the most outstanding doctoral thesis in astronomy granted by a Canadian university! Catherine received her PhD from the Astronomy Department at SMU in 2008 and is currently a postdoc at Observatoire de Paris.

September 2008

The International Year of Astronomy opening ceremony will be held in Paris at the UNESCO headquarters in January 2009.   Here's your chance to go!

            Submission deadline: 5pm on Wednesday, October 8, 2008

How it works: Each participating country (including Canada) is sending two undergraduate students to the ceremony.  These will be expenses-paid trips.  In Canada, the two students to go will be selected on the basis of a short (1 page) essay competition.  Each university, including Saint Mary's gets to nominate one candidate to the Canada-level competition.  We will chose that SMU candidate on the basis of your submissions.

Requirements:
     you must be a SMU student
     you must be between 18 and 21 years old this October
     you must be engaged in astronomy - this means astronomy majors of course, but also any undergrads taking or interested in astronomy

Application process:
     write one page essay
     complete the application form
     submit both by email to the Department of Astronomy secretary (ewaters@crux.smu.ca) by 5pm on Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Your essay:
     must be on the topic of astronomy and its contribution to one of: science, poetry, art, music, film, animation, the web
     must be one page long, using 12pt Times New Roman font, with 2.5cm margins all around
     must be submitted electronically, as a MS Word, pdf, or rtf document.

The application form:
     can be found at:     http://www.astronomie2009.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=59
     must be submitted in electronic format along with your essay    

You can find out more about the International Year of Astronomy here:
     http://www.astronomy2009.org/
     http://www.astronomie2009.ca/

August 2008

Saint Mary's Astronomy and Physics professor Adam Sarty has been awarded the 2008 Canadian Association of Physicists Medal for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Sarty was honoured "for inspiring his students to love learning physics, successfully implementing innovative teaching technologies and sharing the beauty of the discipline, through his dedication to physics education."

March, 2007

On Thursday, March 15, Professor Adam Sarty gave a presentation to the SMU Philosophy Society entitled: "A Modern Physicist's View of Reality: Space, Time, and the Probabilistic Universe".

February, 2007

Undergraduate physics student, Nathan Deg, presented a talk at the Winter Nuclear Physics Conference (February 2007). Nathan has been invited to study astronomy at the Vatican Observatory this summer (Chronical Herald Article).