Scientific Sense ®

The cosmological legacy of Planck, design, data, results and insights, Calibration of ALMA Using Planck Observations, and Can CMB Surveys Help the AGN Community? Prof. Bruce Partridge is an emeritus professor of Astronomy at Haverford college. He has served as Education Officer of the American Astronomical Society; president of Commission on Cosmology, International Astronomical Union; and President, Astronomical Society of the Pacific. His research interests include cosmology, galaxy formation, the cosmic microwave background and radio astronomy.

Vitamin A: its many roles—from vision and synaptic plasticity to infant mortality Prof. John Dowling is Research Professor of Neurosciences at Harvard. His interests include the wiring, physiology, pharmacology and genetics of the retina, as well as the effects of vitamin A and photoreceptors on vision.

Extended halo of metal-poor stars in Andromeda, Dwarf galaxies, Star migration, Surface brightness fluctuations and understanding dark matter by studying satellite galaxies. Prof. Raja GuhaThakurta is a Professor and Department Chair of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of California Santa Cruz. His research focuses on galaxies: their dark matter content, cannibalism history, and chemical enrichment as revealed by spectroscopy of their resolved stellar populations. He uses the Hubble Space Telescope and Keck telescope for his research.

Exoplanets: the history, exploration techniques and demographics. Habitable and free floating planets, and is there anybody out there? Prof. Scott Gaudi is a Professor of Astronomy at Ohio State University. His research focuses on developing and applying ways of searching for planets around other stars, and he has been involved with the discovery of nearly two dozen extrasolar planets to date.

Making lasting memories: Remembering the significant, Consolidating Memories, and Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory Prof. James McGaugh is Emeritus Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at University of California, Irvine. He is also fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory

Gravitational Waves, Black hole mergers, Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and upcoming space based LISA project. Prof Daniel Holz is a professor of Physics, Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. His research focuses on general relativity in the context of astrophysics and cosmology. He is a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration, and was part of the team that announced the first detection of gravitational waves in early 2016 and the first multi-messenger detection of a binary neutron star in 2017.

Liking, Wanting, and the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction,  A Liking Versus Wanting Perspective on Emotion and the Brain, and The central amygdala recruits mesocorticolimbic circuitry for pursuit of reward or pain Prof. Kent Berridge is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan.  His research aims for answers to questions such as:   What causes addiction?  How are pleasure and desire generated in the brain?    And how does fear relate to desire in the brain?

Reducing black holes into a fundamental particle, An Effective Field Theory of Quantum Mechanical Black Hole Horizons, Virtual Hawking Radiation, Gravity waves, and LIGO Prof. Ira Rothstein is a professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University. He is interested in diverse topics in elementary particle physics, gravity wave physics, astrophysics/cosmology, and QCD. In the realm of high energy physics, he uses the data from the LHC to explain the origin of mass and the nature of dark matter.

21st Century Literacy for Succeeding in College and Beyond, Teaching the Nature of Science using Pseudoscience, The accountability of and on the social media. Prof. Doug Duncan is an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences of the University of Colorado, and former Director of Fiske Planetarium, Before that he was a Carnegie Fellow; on the staff of the Hubble Space Telescope; and held a joint appointment between the Adler Planetarium and the University of Chicago.

Habitable Zones, Remote life-detection criteria, habitable zone boundaries, and the frequency of Earth-like planets around M and late K stars, and  Abiotic Oxygen Levels on Planets: Possible False Positive For Life? Prof. James Kasting is a Professor at Penn State University, where he holds joint appointments in the Departments of Geosciences and in Meteorology and Atmospheric Science. His research focuses on the evolution of planetary atmospheres and climates and on the question of whether life might exist on planets around other stars. In 2018, he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. His book, How to Find a Habitable Planet (Princeton University Press), was published in 2010.