Yale’s Greg Laughlin named Kavli Lecturer
Astronomy professor Greg Laughlin will deliver the Kavli Foundation Plenary Lecture, “A Color Out of Space: ‘Oumuamua’s Brief and Mysterious Visit to the Solar System,” as a guest lecturer at the 233rd American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Seattle, Washington on Jan. 7.
Each year, the Kavli Foundation and the vice-presidents of the AAS invite a special guest lecturer to begin each semiannual AAS meeting with a presentation showcasing recent research.
The AAS, established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. The mission of the society is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe, which it achieves through publishing, meeting organization, education and outreach, and training and professional development.
Laughlin is renowned for his work on the detection and characterization of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than the Sun. He and his colleagues have explored what the detection of the first confirmed interstellar asteroid reveals about planet formation and have described how we might discover and characterize additional such objects.
