Monday
Patrick Shober – Paris Obersavtory
The Case of the Missing Meteorites
Patrick Shober is a planetary scientist who investigates small solar-system bodies—from asteroids and comets to the spectacular fireballs their debris creates in Earth’s atmosphere. He earned his PhD at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, where he worked with the Desert Fireball Network to trace meteor paths and recover fresh meteorites. Recently starting a fellowship at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, his research combines orbital dynamics, lab analysis, and field recovery to better understand our solar system.
Tuesday
Antonin Affholder – University of Arizona
Could There Be Life on Titan?
Antonin Affholder obtained his PhD from the École Normale Supérieure, in Paris, France, working on developing models of ecosystems on other worlds to assess their habitability and to research biosignatures. He then moved to Tucson to become a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Arizona, focusing on microbial ecosystems degrading soil organic matter.
Wednesday
Catherine Talbot – Florida Institute of Technology
Hormones and Social Behavior For Those With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Catherine F. Talbot is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Florida Tech. After receiving her B.S. in Biology at Florida State University, Dr. Talbot completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences at Georgia State University. Throughout her academic career, her overarching research goal has been to study the ultimate (evolutionary) and proximate (behavioral, biological, and developmental) mechanisms underlying sociality. Her graduate research focused on face recognition and social knowledge in nonhuman primates and was supported by the National Science Foundation, American Psychological Association, as well as a number of internal awards.
Thursday
Megan Dillon – North Carolina State University
The Dogs of Chornobyl
Megan is a recent PhD graduate from the Genetics program at North Carolina State University. Her dissertation work focused on the free-breeding dogs that live around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The project has caught the attention of many around the world and resulted in four publications since 2023, the newest of which describes the group’s analysis into mutation and is available through PLoS One (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0315244).
Friday
Matthew Spencer – Harvey Mudd College
Drones for Wildfire Detection and Suppression
Matthew Spencer (Member, IEEE) received B.S. and M.Eng. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2015. He is currently an Associate Professor of engineering with the Harvey Mudd College. His engineering interests include high-speed communication circuits, instrument interfaces to “weird physics,” microelectromechanical systems, and engineering education. His work has won a variety of awards, most recently the best-in-division paper from the electrical and computer engineering division of the American Society for Engineering Education annual conference in 2022.
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