Department of Astronomy

After a 50-year absence, NASA is aiming to go back to the moon.

The space agency has dubbed its newest lunar program “Artemis,” after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, with three flights planned to the moon: an initial unmanned flight, currently scheduled to launch on Saturday; a manned flight with four astronauts in orbit around the moon, launching no earlier than 2024; and then the final flight, in which two members of the crew will land on the moon’s surface, tentatively in 2025.

French Academy (Académie Française) has recently announced that the University of Virginia’s Astronomy Professor Trinh Xuan Thuan was the laureate of the Grand Prix de la Francophonie. Read more...

Nitya Kallivayalil receives All-University Teaching Award for 2022.

Associate professor of astronomy Nitya Kallivayalil’s nominator wrote that she “does not place her roles of teaching, mentoring, and efforts towards diversity and equity in different silos.” She has developed a long-term collaboration with Spelman College’s Physics Department, enabled by an NSF/CAREER grant, with the goal of encouraging future STEM leaders from under-represented groups. Spelman students have come to UVA for each of the past five summers to do research with Kallivayalil.  

Theo O’Neill wants to understand how stars are formed. They will now pursue their research as recently named a Goldwater Scholar. Goldwater Scholarships are awarded through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Defense Education Programs and the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Read more...

Ilse Cleeves, astronomy, University of Virginia, is among 24 outstanding teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics, and astronomy named recipients of Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s 2022 Cottrell Scholar Awards. Each award is $100,000.    

Recipients are chosen through a rigorous peer-review process of applications from a wide variety of public and private research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions in the United States and Canada. Their award proposals incorporate both research and science education.