We were delighted to have the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys host the Transient and Variable Universe conference last week! Watch this space for future conference announcements!

Prof. Gautham Narayan and the SCIMMA team (NCSAatIllinois,Las Cumbres Observatory, Penn State, Cornell University and UCSB) have received a $3.5M grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop the next-gen communications and computational infrastructure for time-domain & MMA! #NSFfunded

Prof. Joaquin Vieira and his group have used NASA Webb Telescope to detect complex organic molecules in SPT0418-47 - 12 billion lightyears away. Read the news story here (which links to the nature article)!

news.illinois.edu/view/6367/9383…

Astronomy Illinois grad student, Melanie Archipley, does cool work. Very literally. Some pictures from her time at the South Pole working with Prof. Joaquin Vieira's group as a Center for AstroPhysical Surveys fellow.

Congratulations to Dr. Colin Burke, who defended his Ph.D. thesis on the 'Optical variability of intermediate-mass black holes as a probe of black hole accretion and growth.' Colin's work with Prof. Xin Liu and will begin as a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale this Fall.

🚨 Last day to register for this conference!

Congratulations to Drs. Ada Ertel, Alex Gagliano, Sreevani Jarugula, Jesse Miller and Samantha Thrush - our May 2023 Doctors from AstroIllinois University of Illinois! More pictures on Facebook or Instagram!

We're co-sponsoring a conference in June that brings together members of the astronomy community working on transient and variable science across all wavelengths to drive conversations on upcoming surveys and much more. ⏰Register by May 19!

Details here: publish.illinois.edu/transient-vari…

Please help us congratulate CAPS Graduate Fellow Alex Gagliano on his next adventure in Cambridge, MA. During his time with our Center, he developed GHOST. A database of more than 16,000 exploding stars and their host galaxies.

Read about Alex's journey: go.ncsa.illinois.edu/news-050323

New Paper Day! arxiv.org/abs/2304.10419 I'm especially happy to see this one out in the world both scientifically (an idea I've been trying to implement for a long time) and because it involves contributions from my new research group at UIUC!

Congratulations to David Vizgan on his U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!

Read about the first data release from the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE). Led by grad Patrick Aleo working w/ Prof. Gautham Narayan & the Center for Astrophysical Surveys at NCSAatIllinois, this is a major cross-institutional project witg ~2000 SNe
ncsa.illinois.edu/caps-ncsa-pres…

The deadline for Boom! has been extended to July 9th - if you did delay, still a chance to get an abstract in! We look forward to seeing everyone (virtually or in person) at the University of Illinois in July!

Thank you to everyone who made our inaugural conference a success! We look forward to many more. Photo credit - J -

Congratulations to grad student, Alex Gagliano, who won #ResearchLive at University of Illinois! Watch his winning talk in the link below:
youtube.com/watch?v=YNo9rL…

.Astronomy on Tap CU is back in-person Sep 23rd, 7 PM, at the amphitheater outside the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Join Prof. Leslie Looney to hear about all the ways space can kill you and grad student, Chris Tandoi to learn about space weather! CU There!

T-minus 2 days till Liftoff!

LAS first-year and transfer students, join us on the Main Quad between 1:30-4 p.m. on Friday to kick off your amazing journey at UIUC.

More info at bit.ly/3iY5KtIR.

We’ll see you there!

Astronomy graduate student Colin Burke and Prof. Yue Shen led this study featured in this edition of Science Magazine about the optical variability time scale of black hole accretion disks!