IAS Seminar: The Latest on Fast Radio Bursts

What can brief and powerful bursts of radio waves reveal about the universe?

The Institute of Advanced Studies invites you to the lecture by Professor Victoria Kaspi, Physics Department, Director of the Trottier Space Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Professor Kaspi is visiting Tel Aviv University as part of the Lowy Distinguished Guest Professors series 2025–2026 and will deliver a lecture on The Latest on Fast Radio Bursts at Astronomy & Astrophysics Seminar of the TAU's School of Physics and Astronomy. 

Fast Radio Bursts continue to be a puzzling astrophysical mystery. Consisting of brief (typically few millisecond) bursts of radio waves coming from cosmological distances, their origins remain largely unknown. Some FRBs repeat; a key question is whether all do, or whether there are multiple classes of sources.

Professor Kaspi will review the current state of the field, focusing on recent observations from the CHIME radio telescope, the world’s most powerful FRB detector, and its new Outrigger telescopes, now fully operational, enabling a novel method of “synoptic” VLBI. Key questions include whether all FRBs repeat or if there are multiple classes of sources.

When: December 3, 2025 | 11:00 

Where: Shenkar Physics Building, Holcblat Hall (7)

The seminar will be conducted in English and is open to the public.

About the Lecturer:

Victoria Kaspi is a Professor of Physics and Director of the Trottier Space Institute at McGill University, Montreal. A leading figure in astrophysics, she is renowned for her pioneering work on neutron stars, including landmark discoveries about pulsars, magnetars, and, more recently, Fast Radio Bursts through her leadership in the CHIME/FRB project.

A graduate of McGill and Princeton, Prof. Kaspi has held positions at Caltech, JPL, and MIT, and is a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society and the American Physical Society. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society (UK), and the Royal Society of Canada. 

Her contributions have been recognized with many major international honors, including the Shaw Prize in Astronomy, the Albert Einstein World Award of Science, the Royal Society’s Bakerian Medal, and the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal

View the invitation flyer

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