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Renowned astrophysicist Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell to visit Urbana

2/21/2025

Dr. Bell Burnell will receive the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe (ICASU) Lectureship Award and deliver a talk on February 26 at Loomis Laboratory of Physics.

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World-renowned astrophysicist Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell will be visiting the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus Wednesday, February 26 to receive the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe (ICASU) Lectureship Award. She will deliver a talk starting at 4 p.m. in the newly renamed Rosalyn Sussman Yalow Auditorium, 141 Loomis Laboratory of Physics in Urbana.

Dr. Bell Burnell was the first to discover radio pulsars—neutron stars that emit pulses of radio waves—in 1967 as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. She detected the radio pulsar using the Interplanetary Scintillation Array, a radio antenna that she helped construct.

Neutron stars are among the most fascinating predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Although the radius of a neutron star is roughly the size of Urbana-Champaign, its mass is comparable to that of the Sun. Such intense densities tremendously curve space and time, producing some of the most extreme gravitational environments in the universe.

Madeline Stover is a physics doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying atmospheric dynamics applied to forest conservation. She interns as a science writer for Illinois Physics, where she also co-hosts the podcast Emergence along with fellow physics graduate student Mari Cieszynski. When Stover is not doing research or communications, she enjoys hosting her local radio show, singing with her band, and cooking with friends.

Daniel Inafuku graduated from Illinois Physics with a PhD and now works as a science writer. At Illinois, he conducted scientific research in mathematical biology and mathematical physics. In addition to his research interests, Daniel is a science video media creator.

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jamie Hendrickson is a writer and content creator in higher education communications. They earned their M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. In addition to their communications work, they are a published area studies scholar and Russian-to-English translator.

Garrett R. Williams is an Illinois Physics Ph.D. Candidate and science writer. He has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 APS History of Physics Essay Competition and as a finalist in the 2021 AAAS Science and Human Rights Essay Competition. He was also an invited author in the 2021 #BlackinPhysics Week series published by Physics Today and Physics World. 

 

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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This story was published February 21, 2025.