This week at the virtual summer American Astronomical Society meeting I’ll be presenting a plenary talk as part of receiving the 2020 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize! The talk, “Stargazing and Supergiants: Betelgeuse, Dying Stars, and the Observational Future of Stellar Astrophysics”, covers recent research on Betelgeuse’s Great Dimming and uses the science of this fascinating event to highlight current questions in red supergiant astronomy and how our field is evolving with current and future technology. The talk will be on Tuesday June 7th at 5:50PM ET, and you can attend via the AAS virtual meeting portal! (update: you can watch a recording of the plenary here!)

I’ll also be hosting a special Meeting-in-a-Meeting, “An Exploration of Thorne-Zytkow Objects”. At this meeting guest speakers including Kip Thorne, Anna Zytkow, and experts on binary evolution, red supergiants, compact objects, and gravitational waves will discuss the most pressing current questions facing the study of these strange stars. Join us beginning Monday June 7th at 12:00pm ET!