Photo : Dr. Iris Dillmann, Senior Research Scientist at TRIUMF and Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria

When: Thursday, November 23rd

Where: Beban Park Social Centre, Room 3

Please join us for this Stellar presentation!

  Forging Elements inside Stars: Nuclear Astrophysics in a Nutshell

Presented by: Dr. Iris Dillman, Senior Research Scientist at TRIUMF

and

Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria

Brief :

“We are made of star stuff!” This famous sentence from astrophysicist Carl Sagan emphasizes that every atom in our body comes from stellar material and was processed through hundreds of generation of stars since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Nuclear Astrophysicist Iris Dillmann will walk you through the main stellar processes that create all the elements around us and show you how we at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre in Vancouver, are investigating this star stuff to improve our understanding of the origin of our building blocks.

Bio :

Iris Dillmann is a Senior Research Scientist at TRIUMF and Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria. Her multifaceted research interests cover many areas of nuclear physics and astrophysics with focus on the creation of elements heavier than iron in stars. Iris leads the “Exotic Decay Spectroscopy” research group at TRIUMF which carries out experiments at radioactive beam facilities in Japan, Finland, Germany, and also locally at TRIUMF.

Since early childhood Iris is a “lunar-tic” who is fascinated with the moon, planets, stars, and the Space Shuttle. To realize her dream of becoming an astronaut and be the first woman on the moon, she participated in the European Space Agency’s Astronaut Selection Program in 2008. When this did not work out, she focussed on her academic career to investigate the creation of elements in stars.

PhD 2006 University of Basel, Switzerland. Postdoctoral researcher 2007 (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany), 2008-09 (Technical University of Munich, Germany)
Helmholtz Young Investigators Group Leader 2010-15  (GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt and University of Giessen, Germany)
Research Scientist at TRIUMF since 2013. Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria since 2016

Photo: Dr. Iris Dillman working in Japan

*The presentation will begin shortly after 7pm. Please try to arrive before the presentation.

*Free for members. Non-members may attend once for free and then we encourage them to join.

Volunteers to set-up chairs and tables are always welcome.