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Astrophysics Seminar Series

Astrophysics seminars take place at 13:15 UK time on a Wednesday (occasionally on other days) in 8W 3.14 (occasionally in other rooms).

Seminars 2025/26

The seminars are open to anyone from the university, students are encouraged to attend. This page will be updated as more speakers are confirmed.

Next Seminar: March 18th

Dr. Nikhil Sarin (University of Cambridge)

Towards transient modelling and inference at scale

Advances in time-domain instrumentation is revolutionising the night sky, and we are rapidly accumulating observations for a range of transients across the electromagnetic spectrum. These advances are beginning to stress both our models, and our frameworks that we rely on to interpret such observations. In this talk, I will discuss new modelling tools and inference approaches to tackle the flood of data and draw robust conclusions despite known and unknown systematics. I will focus specifically on light curve modelling of Type Ia Supernovae, interaction-powered transients such as super-luminous supernovae, and supernovae and kilonovae with significant afterglow contamination.

Semester 1

Date Room Speaker Institution Title
8 October 2025 8 West 3.14 Dr. Andrew Young University of Bristol X-raying Black Hole Accretion Flows
29 October 2025 8 West 3.14 Zoe Le Conte University of Durham The evolution of barred galaxies in the last 12 billion years
12 November 2025 8 West 3.14 Dr Lisa Kelsey University of Cambridge Candles in Context: How Galaxies Shape Supernova Cosmology
3 December 2025 8 West 3.22 Dr. Gavin Lamb Liverpool John Moores University Wyrd Engines
10 December 2025 8 West 3.14 Dr. Chiaki Kobayashi University of Hertfordshire Cosmic chemical enrichment in the era of JWST

Semester 2

Date Room Speaker Institution Title
11 February 2026 8 West 3.14 Dr. Soheb Mandhai University of Manchester Evolving binary systems harmoniously with OCARINA
18 March 2026 8 West 3.13 Dr. Nikhil Sarin University of Cambridge Towards transient modelling and inference at scale
15 April 2026 8 West 3.14 Dr. Sophie Koudmani University of Hertfordshire TBC
29 April 2026 8 West 3.22 Dr. Samantha Oates University of Lancaster TBC
6 May 2026 8 West 3.14 Dr. Poshak Ghandi University of Southampton TBC

Previous Astrophysics Seminars

Please find below a link to our previous Astrophysics seminars from 2015.


Contact Us

If you have any questions about the Astrophysics Seminar Series, please contact Dr Hendrik van Eerten and Dr Anne Inkenhaag.