Our First Friday, March 6, 2026, 7pm General Meeting, and 730pm speaker, Dr. Rosaly M. C. Lopes talk is titled: "Where the Hot Stuff Is: Volcanoes Beyond Earth".  Space missions that have revealed amazing details about these planetary processes that, due to her intimate knowledge, she will be able to pass on to us.  Dr. Lopes is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She obtained a Ph.D. in planetary science from University College London, UK. She has written and coauthored many papers and books concerning planetary volcanism.
 
Senior Research Scientist - Jet Propulsion Laboratory


Upcoming "First Fridays": 
-April 3, 2026 Dr. Matt Malkan, UCLA
"James Webb ST--The Astronomy Revolution is Now"
-May 1, 2026 Dr. Abigail Fraeman, JPL
"Rocky Inner Planets + NASA Curiosity Rover"
-June 5, 2026 - SBAU Potluck
-July 3, 2026 Dr. Gerardo Aldana
"Ancient Mayan Astronomy"
-August 7, 2026 Dr. Howard Hui
"BICEP Microwave Telescope at South Pole"

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Past Meetings 2026

First Friday, February 6, 2026, speaker was UCSB Physics graduate student Joaquin Becerra Espinoza finding "Dark Matter Under the Gravitational Lens". He showed how gravitational lensing—the bending of light by massive objects—provides a unique, purely gravitational way to study dark matter. His work has centered on "caustic-crossing" events in giant arcs.  Click to see his talk



First Friday, January 2, 2026, our speaker was UCSB Professor of Physics, Crystal Martin, presenting Cosmic Dawn: When Galaxies Were Young .  She covered the JWST observations that are teaching us about star formation in young galaxies and the subsequent ionization of the universe. PhD from U of Arizona 1996, and UCSB faculty member for 23 years, she heads the Galaxy Evolution Group, studing galaxy assembly and cosmic reionization. Recorded talk on our Youtube channel: Martin: Cosmic Dawn Youtube video


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Past Meetings 2025

First Friday, December 5, 2025, elections, and member's night speakers:  Professional musician, David Grossman, "What Does Space Sound Like?" explored how sound and music help us process the emotions we feel when engaging with the universe. David introduced the emerging scientific discipline of sonification—the process of translating data into sound.  
Matt Hall "Building an Astro Camera" gave a brief overview of the early SBAU years and his experience with astrophotography, culminating with the construction of a 4"x5" film camera using a Korean-War-era spy lens. Hall graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography with a degree in industrial/scientific photography in 1986. Recorded presentations: https://youtu.be/XpI-cJ8CfcU 

sbnature.org - two-cosmic-talks

First Friday, November 7, 2025 General Meeting and presentation speaker was Dr. Phil Korngut, Caltech Instrument Scientist and his talk is on SPHEREx: NASA’s New 3D Cosmos-Mapping Machine mission.  He is part of the Observational Cosmology group at Caltech in Pasadena, CA as well as an affiliate of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He obtained his doctorate in physics in 2011 from UPENN.  Click on his photo for a June, 2025 SphereX PowerPoint. Meeting recording: 20251107 SBAU 1st Fri meet Phil Korngut SphereX

Phil Korngut, Ph.D. - Experimental Astrophysicist at Caltech

First Friday, October 3, 2025 General Meeting and talk by the extraordinary UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, and Goleta native, Alex Filippenko, titled "Black Holes, Supernovae, and the Runaway Universe" subtitled "My Life in Astrophysics Inspired by the Santa Barbara Astronomy Club" .  He fondly remembers attending many SBAC monthly meetings and star parties. An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and one of the world's most highly cited astrophysicists. He studies exploding stars, black holes, galaxies, and the expansion of the Universe. Voted the “Best Professor” on campus a record 9 times, in 2006 he was named the National Professor of the Year. He has produced 5 video courses, coauthored an award-winning astronomy textbook, and appears in more than 120 TV documentaries. Alex received a Bachelor of Arts in physics from UCSB in 1979 and his Ph.D. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1984.  He enjoys world travel and experiencing total solar eclipses (20, so far).  Click: Recording of talk!

ALEXEI V. FILIPPENKO — CURRICULUM VITAE

First Friday, September 5, 2025 was a talk by Ish Kaul, UCSB PhD candidate, titled: "Galactic Atmospheres & Galactic Rain" about the gas and dust that engulfs such systems, the CGM, circumgalactic medium, the key to understanding how galaxies form and evolve.  Undergraduate degree Princeton University,  working on galaxy simulations and plasma physics, even presenting last year at the Harvard ITC, Institute for Theory and Computation.  Find a video recording of his talk here.

Google Scholar, Ish Kaul

First Friday, August 1, 2025 was Stephen Kane, professor of astronomy and planetary astrophysics at the University of California, Riverside who specializes in exoplanetary science. His talk was titled "How to Build a Habitable World".  Ph.D. from the University of Tasmania with a thesis focusing on gravitational microlensing.  In 2017, Kane moved his research team to the University of California, Riverside where he joined their astrobiology initiative funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute.  Find a video recording of his talk here.

https://www.stephenkane.net/

***Second Thursday*** July 10, 2025, was a talk by Martin Cacan, titled "Adventures of the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter" flying across Mars overcoming Martian challenges, this talk highlighted some of the difficulties and excitements - of its three year long mission.  Martin is a Santa Barbara native and now Guidance and Control Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Labratory and was Chief Pilot assisting in over 50 flights. Martin specializes in modeling dynamic systems and state estimation, contributing to NASA missions like Ingenuity, Psyche, NISAR, and Mars Chopper.  He has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech.


First Friday, June 6, 2025, was our Members Only annual SBAU Potluck (click - invite sheet) at the Broder Facility (across the Mission Creek bridge) at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.  See this link for photos.


First Friday, May 2, 2025 was a talk by Katy Rodriguez Wimberly, Ph.D. titled "Ultra–faint Dwarf Galaxies: Their Evolutionary Histories, Galactic Correlations, and Upcoming Discoveries!"  She is an Assistant Professor at CSU San Bernardino, with expertise in Near-Field Cosmology and galaxy evolution.  Katy is Director of Mentorship for the Cal–Bridge Program, a CSU-UC STEM scholarship program, and on the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Board of Directors. Talk posted on our Youtube channel.

https://mkrodriguezwimberly.github.io/

First Friday, April 4, 2025 was a talk by Joseph Farah, of LCO and UCSB: "The Black Hole Explorer and the Edge of the Universe" with an update on Saggitarius A*, the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.  The BHEX will be a space observatory connecting to the Event Horizon Telescope to create a virtual telescope three times larger than the Earth. See talk: https://youtu.be/ukWHUcprunQ?si=va16iMrjeFk3rO6l at the SBAU YouTube channel.

https://josephfarah.co/

First Friday, March 7, 2025 was a talk by Dr. Jeff Bennett “Beyond UFOs: the Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life and its Astonishing Implications for our Future”.  Jeff holds a B.A. in Biophysics from Univ. of Calif. San Diego and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Univ. of Colorado, Boulder. He specializes in mathematics and science education, writing for and speaking to wide range of audiences.  See his talk at our Youtube channel.

Click his image for his website!

First Friday, February 7, 2025 was a talk by UCSB Postdoc Chami Amarasinghe, PhD, University of Michigan, on the Underground search for Dark Matter in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This experiment, known as LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), aims to directly detect dark matter by observing its rare interactions with xenon atoms.  See his talk on our Youtube Channel.


First Friday, January 3, 2025, talk was Dr. Damian Christian of Cal State Northridge, discussing exoplanet research  techniques and discoveries.  PhD from the University of Maryland and postdoctoral research fellow at Queen's University Belfast, with the good fortune to search for exoplanets with the SuperWASP project (Wide Angle Search for Planets).  Click here to see his talk.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Damian-Christian
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Past Meetings 2024

First Friday, December 6, 2024, was December Members meeting w/ 2025 Officers Approval and the General Meeting with two excellent talks by SBAU Members:  Farshad Barman, Ph.D., with "Simulations of Near Stars Orbiting Sagittarius A*" and Sean Kelley, Ph.D., SBCC professor, on "Wondrous White Dwarfs".

click on images for more details; clickk here for video of meeting

First Friday, November 1, 2024, was a talk by Jennifer Ito, Ph.D. Westmont College, Asst. Prof of Physics on "Characterization & Deployment of the PolarBear - 2b Receiver to Measure the Cosmic Background Polarization" about radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert in Chile used to test the Big Bang Theory. 
Recorded Zoom: Youtube Jen Ito


First Friday, October 4, 2024, speaker was Liam Brennan, UCSB Ph.D. candidate.  He provided a dynamic exploration of particle physics for the groundbreaking work of the LDMX (Light Dark Matter Experiment) and the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at CERN.  Recorded: SBAU Youtube: LIam Brennan talk

Some of his research

First Friday, September 6, 2024,  speaker Dr. Joe Masiero, research scientist at the IPAC research organization at Caltech, and the Deputy PI of the NEOWISE mission.  His talk was "Hunting for hazardous asteroids using infrared light"

See talk: Youtube-Hunting for hazardous asteroids
also see his "Tale of Asteroid Families"

First Friday August 2, 2024 talk by Nikolaus Volgenau, Ph.D., Las Cumbres Observatory Operations Scientist regarding "Ethanol in the Ether"  describing how simple molecules - including alcohol - form inside dark interstellar clouds, and how astronomers detect them.  His research has been in star formation.

recorded at our Youtube SB AstroUnit Channel

First Friday, July 5, 2024, was an SBAU Potluck at the Museum Broder facility (across the bridge). 
The evening was filled with good conversation, and tasty food. Event flyer: events/July Potluck 2024 Rev4.pdf


Our "Second Friday"* meeting, June 14, 2024, 7pm,  was a presentation by  our SBAU Outreach Coordinator, Chuck McPartlin. The talk was titled "Lunatic Express - an 8 billion MPH tour of moons".  Chuck has been with our club since 1988 and is a winner of the Las Cumbres Outreach Award (2012) from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. His shows are always informative and entertaining. See the recording: https://youtu.be/tPv579erqhI?si=3CNwER8GPTvpfyJr 


Our "First Friday" May 3, 2024 was Dr. Larry Martinez, on "Ensuring Outer Space Sustainability:  Space Debris and International Conflict". Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the California State University at Long Beach (joined 1988) (Ph.D. in Political Science, UCSB 1984). He also serves as a representative of the International Institute of Space Law at meetings of the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.  Recorded: https://youtu.be/72_cp5g4XQE?si=qVHQk5hN3UtkPu1t
 
https://www.larrymartinez.space/

Our "Second Friday!!!" April 12, 2024 speaker was Dr. David Kary, Citrus College, on "The Race to Find Life in the Universe".  Comparing the different ways astronomers have of looking for alien life.  Past Director of Astronomy Programs at our SBMNH and taught at UCSB.  Ph.D. in astrophysics from State University of New York at Stony Brook, where his research included how solar systems form.
Recording: https://youtu.be/9cKF48fvSfQ?si=q-y_fqPdGeTwXhSB

Astronomy-professor-wins-award

Our March 1, 2024 "First Friday" meeting was a remote presentation by "SkyMan" Bob Berman with the title "Where is the Universe".  Bob's book "Zoom" that received a NY Times rave review.

Recording of Bob's March presentation

Our First Friday, February 2, 2024 was a presentation by Tim Thompson, Mt. Wilson Trustee and docent since 1981, on the History of the Mt. Wilson Observatory.  Tim, Air Force vet, with a Physics, M.S. from CSU-LA, worked at JPL for 27 years in radioastronomy and Spitzer infrared.  He is also a tournament chess player! Recorded:
https://youtube/TimThompson-MtWilson


Our First Friday January 5, 2024 was a presentation via Zoom by Dr. Mario Motta, MD with the topic "Russel Porter, the founding of Stellafane 100 years ago, and the birth of amatuer astronomy and telescope making" and his subsequent recruitment to help design and build the 200 inch Hale telescope.  See the recording here: https://youtube/Mario-Motta-Stellafane-Porter

https://stellafane.org/

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MANY MORE YouTube "SBAstroUnit" meeting videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU0r4RxzoyT_pwNcfN5aJsA/videos



Listing of some of our past speakers since 2008