Video From The 2023 Robert Hofstadter Memorial Lecture: Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell - “Tick, tick, tick pulsating star, how we wonder what you are.”

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
University of Oxford

Evening Public Lecture (7:30 PM on Thursday, May 11, 2023)
Location: William R. Hewlett Teaching Center, room 201 (370 Jane Stanford Way)

The Physics Department is excited to announce that our distinguished speaker is Prof. Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Prof. Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist. She was responsible for the discovery of pulsars while a radio astronomy graduate student in Cambridge and has subsequently worked in gamma ray, X-ray, infrared and millimetre wavelength astronomy. Her discovery of pulsars as a graduate student opened up a new branch of astrophysics – work recognized by the award of a Nobel Prize to her supervisor. She currently holds a Professorial Fellowship in Mansfield College, University of Oxford, and is a Visiting Academic in the University's Department of Physics.

Prof. Bell Burnell was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Astronomy and Promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was awarded the Michael Faraday Prize (2010) and a Royal Medal (2015) by the Royal Society and holds major awards from French, Spanish and USA bodies. A member of 7 Academies worldwide, she was the first female President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (as well as of the Institute of Physics).

Prof. Bell Burnell attended the University of Glasgow where she received a bachelor’s degree (1965) in Physics. She proceeded to the University of Cambridge, where she was awarded a doctorate (1969) in radio astronomy. Prof. Bell Burnell’s Applied Physics/Physics colloquium, held on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, is followed by the public Hofstadter lecture on Thursday, May 11, 2023. Please join us for these fascinating lectures. For more information contact ethomas1 [at] stanford.edu (ethomas1[at]stanford[dot]edu).