In cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Cleveland Astronomical Society, along with the support of the Arthur S. Holden Sr. Endowment, the Department of Astronomy sponsors the 2013-14 Frontiers of Astronomy Lecture Series. Caleb Scharf, director of astrobiology at Columbia University, will give the final presentation of the year Thursday, April 17, at 8 p.m. in the Murch Auditorium of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. His talk is titled “The Copernicus Complex.” Light refreshments will be served.
Scharf has an international reputation as a research astrophysicist and as a lecturer to college and public audiences. Scharf is also the author and co-author of more than 100 scientific research articles in astronomy and astrophysics. His work and writing has been featured in publications such as New Scientist, Scientific American, WIRED, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Aeon, Nautilus Magazine, Science News, Cosmos Magazine, Physics Today, and National Geographic, as well as online at sites like Space.com and Physorg.com. His textbook for undergraduate and graduate students, Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology, won the 2011 Chambliss Prize of the American Astronomical Society, and Gravity’s Engines, his new popular science book was one of New Scientist’s “10 books to read in 2012” and was the basis of the BBC/Science Channel documentary, Swallowed by a Black Hole.
For more information on the lecture series, visit astronomy.case.edu/frontiers.shtml.