Colloquia and Events

Physics and Astronomy Colloquia

Colloquia are at 3:30 – 4:45 p.m. Pacific time, in-person, on-campus in SEIC 210. Colloquia are not streamed online. Prof. Oscar Macías is the Colloquium Organizer for Fall 2026.

Fall 2026 Colloquia

DateSpeaker and Title
08/24/2026No colloquium - First day of instruction
08/31/2026SF State Physics & Astronomy Faculty Mini-talks I
Professors Cool, Macías, Barranco
09/07/2026No colloquium - Labor Day holiday
09/14/2026SF State Physics & Astronomy Faculty Mini-talks II
Professors Xu, Man, Gonzales, Brewer, Sakari
09/21/2026Dr. Wes Bethel (Professor of Computer Science, SF State U)
"Quantum Computing: Principles, Performance, and Pathways"
09/28/2026Barkotel F. Zemenu (Graduate Student, Stanford U)
"The Search for Axion Dark Matter"
10/05/2026Dr. Joseph Long (Flatiron Research Fellow, Flatiron Center for Computational Astrophysics)
"Direct Imaging with Next Generation Telescopes and Post Processing"
10/12/2026Dr. Kate Storey-Fisher (Postdoc, Stanford KIPAC)
"Large-Scale Structure Cosmology with the Quaia Quasar Catalog"
10/19/2026Dr. Tiger Lu (Flatiron Research Fellow, Flatiron Center for Computational Astrophysics)
"Dynamical Origins of the Galaxy's Strangest Planetary Systems"
10/26/2026Mike Leung (SF State B.S. Physics Alumnus and Software Engineer at Google)
"Alternative Career Paths for Physics Majors in Tech and Finance"
11/02/2026No colloquium.
11/09/2026Dr. Anthony Ciavarella (Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
"QCD on Quantum Computers: Why and How?"
11/16/2026Dr. Jose Acacio de Barros (Professor, SFSU Department of Philosophy)
Topic in Quantum Mechanics Foundations
11/23/2026No colloquium - Thanksgiving week-long holiday
11/30/2026Prof. Joe Barranco and PHYS/ASTR REU students
"What are REU programs? How can I apply?"
12/07/2026Dr. Joe Ryan Smith (Assoc. Prof., CSUEB)
Topic in Quantum Computing & Quantum Information Science

Spring 2026 Colloquia

 
DateSpeaker and Title
02/02/2026No colloquium.
02/9/2026No colloquium.
02/16/2026Dr. Ani Chiti (Postdoc, Stanford U.)
"Signatures of the First Stars and Galaxies in the Local Group"
02/23/2026No colloquium.
03/02/2026Dr. Sarah Moran (NASA Sagan Fellow, Space Telescope Science Institute)
"On Mineralogy in Substellar Clouds of Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs"
03/09/2026Dr. Chris Gordon (Senior Lecturer., U. Canterbury)
"Probing the nature of dark matter using super massive black holes"
03/16/2026Dr. Lynn Cominsky (Prof., Sonoma State University.)
"Gravitational Waves: The Discovery that won the 2017 Nobel prize in Physics"
03/23/2026No colloquium (Spring Break)
03/30/2026Dr. Luan Ghezzi (Asst. Prof., Observatório do Valongo, UFRJ)
"The connections between the chemical abundances of stars and their exoplanetary systems"
04/06/2026Erin Huntzinger (Ph.D. Candidate, U.C. Davis)
"The Ghosts of Stars: The Heaviest Elements Found in Nature and Where They Are Born"
04/13/2026Dr. Anne Metevier (Director of Lick Observatory College Partnerships)
"Expanding Education Programs through Lick Observatory and UC Observatories"
04/20/2026Maureen Savage (Technical Laboratory Manager, U.C. Santa Cruz Observatories)
"Science Instrument and Observatory Development - A perspective"
04/27/2026No colloquium.
05/04/2026Dr. Junze Zhou (Research Scientist, LBNL)
"Nanoimprinted Scanning Probe for Enhanced Spectroscopies and Nanoimaging on 2D Excitons and Plexcitons"
05/11/2026Dr. Xiangdong Zhu (Prof., U.C. Davis)
"Let There Be light - Materials studies using linear optics that exploits various symmetries"