Beatrice Hill Tinsley LECTURES

Beatrice Hill Tinsley was a Professor of Astronomy at Yale University when she died, aged 40, of melanoma in 1981. Until she came on the scene, people believed that galaxies were fixed, immobile and unchanging in the universe. She discovered (among many other things) that galaxies are both changing and interacting with one another. She proved that the universe is still evolving.

Born in England, her family came to New Zealand when she was 5. She was educated first in New Plymouth and then at the University of Canterbury. In 1961 she married Brian Tinsley. In 1963 they travelled to the USA, where they remained

Beatrice was celebrated for her work as a synthesiser, the bringing together of apparently unrelated and individual scraps and strands of knowledge and theory, to help create a whole.

These Beatrice Hill Tinsley Lectures are our way of celebrating the life and work of this extraordinarily appealing and altogether remarkable young woman.

The Beatrice Hill Tinsley Lectures are administered by the RASNZ Lecture Trust.

(The above information is from the RASNZ website)

Hamilton Astronomical Society and the BHT Lectures

The guest lecturer for the BHT lecture series travels around New Zealand to give their lecture, and are hosted by various Astronomical Societies thoughout the country. Most years, Hamilton Astronomical Society has the priviledge to host one of these evenings. Previous BHT guest lecturers in Hamilton have included the following.

In 2024 our guest speaker was Professor Lisa Kaltenegger, the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute for the Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell and Associate Professor in Astronomy. The topic was “Searching for Alien Earths”, and was enjoyed by all who attended, with all ranges of knowledge.

Our 2021 speaker was Dr Heloise Stevance. Heloise was originally from France, and moved to the UK to study Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield. She obtained a PhD studying the 3D shape of Core Collapse Supernovae. In July 2019 she joined the University of Auckland as a Research Fellow to research the evolution of massive stars to better understand how they die and produce Supernovae and Kilonovae.

In 2019, Babak Tafreshi, photojournalist and science communicator, founder and director of The World At Night program was our guest. Babak’s leture included some incredible photography that we will remember as some of the most amazing astronomy and related photographs we have seen.

Watch this space in future years!