Rittenhouse Lectures

The Rittenhouse Lecture is an endowed distinguished speaker series with a long tradition of inviting world class scholars to share their groundbreaking research with the Penn community. It is named in honor of “America's First Astronomer” and Philadelphia native David Rittenhouse and sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy.

 

A selection of past lectures include:

2019-2020

Lars Hernquist

 

2018-2017

George Efstathiou

The Planck Legacy: Inflation and the Origin of Structure in the Universe

 

2017-2018 

Daniel Holz (Enrico Fermi Institute and Kavli Institute for Cosmology, U of Chicago) hosted by Bhuvnesh Jain

 

2016-2017

Dr. Scott Bolton, Southwest Research Institute

 

2015-2016

Adam Riess (JHU/STScI) Hosted by Adam Lidz

Expansion Of The Universe Seen By Hubble

 

2014-2015

Dr. Natalia Batahla (NASA)

Towards A Reliable Determination Of Eta-earth With Kepler

 

2013-2014

Scott Tremaine, Institute for Advanced Study

 

2012-2013

Scott Ransom, National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)

 

2011-2012

Richard Ellis (Caltech)

 

2010-2011

David Charbonneau

 

2007 - 2008

Mike Brown, spring 2008.



2002-2003 

Claude Canizares (MIT)



2001-2002 

Saul Perlmutter



1999-2000
Geoffrey Marcy


1998-1999

Wendy Freedman



1997-1998

Roger Blandford

Upcoming Rittenhouse Lectures

There are no scheduled upcoming events in this category.

Past Rittenhouse Lectures



Rittenhouse Lecture: "Galaxy evolution and cosmology via the 21 cm line of atomic hydrogen"

Martha Haynes (Cornell University)
- See Zoom link below

The 21 cm line of atomic hydrogen (HI) provides a powerful probe of the cool-to-warm interstellar gas in galaxies. Virtually all star-forming galaxies contain a cool neutral component…



Rittenhouse Lecture: "Exoplanets and the Search for Biosignature Gases"

Sara Seager (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
-

Cloud recording of talk: 

https://upenn.zoom.…