Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand

RASNZ Lecture Trust

Beatrice Hill Tinsley in 1977

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 who may be contacted by email at lecturetrust@rasnz.org.nz.

Beatrice Hill Tinsley 2023 Lecture tour

The RASNZ Lecture Trust is pleased to announce that the 2023 BHT lecturer is Professor Ryan Ridden. 

Ryan is an astrophysicist at the University of Canterbury. He studies some of the largest explosions in the Universe that are caused by exploding stars, colliding stars, and hungry black holes. To study these extreme objects, he uses space telescopes like TESS, and the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as some of the largest telescopes on Earth.  

Ryan grew up in Christchurch and got his start in astronomy during secondary school, helping the Canterbury Astronomical Society with their public nights. After completing an Honours degree in Mathematical Physics at the University of Canterbury in 2015, he obtained a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics at the Australian National University. During his PhD, he discovered several new cataclysmic variable stars. In 2019, he began a postdoc at the Space Telescope Science Institute, where he built data analysis tools for space telescopes. In 2021 Ryan returned to the University Canterbury and is now leading a research group with the support of a Marsden Fast Start Grant, and a Rutherford Postdoctoral Fellowship. Alongside his research Ryan has given numerous public talks, helped build the Young Stars outreach programme, and produced educational videos on YouTube. 

Ryan will be presenting his work in a lecture titled Cosmic cataclysms: A dynamic and changing Universe. 

The RASNZ Lecture Trust are delighted and excited to have Ryan as this year's BHT lecturer, he will no doubt be entertaining and educational to all ages and backgrounds. 

Affiliated Societies are invited to host Professor Ridden during the lecture series which will be occurring for 3 weeks after July 1st, expressions of interest should be sent to the lecture trust secretary at LectureTrust@rasnz.org.nz at the earliest opportunity before April 15th. 

Societies who host the BHT lecturer will be required to provide suitable accommodation for 1 or 2 nights as needed, as well as suitable hospitality perhaps in the form of a formal dinner or wine and cheese evening as appropriate.  The Lecture trust will be providing transport both international and domestic.

If you are interested in hosting Professor Ryan, please contact RASNZ Lecture Trust Secretary, Simon Lowther on SimonLowther@outlook.co.nz 

The 2021 Beatrice Hill Tinsley 2021 Lecturer is Dr Heloise Stevence

The RASNZ Lecture Trust are delighted and excited to have Heloise as this years BHT lecturer. She is an energetic, enthusiastic, educational and entertaining speaker well able to reach out to audiences of all ages and levels. Heloise gave excellent presentations at the RASNZ Conference earlier this year and was an obvious choice to swoop in and save the day when Covid-19 scuppered Professor Harvey-Smith's tour. Dr Heloise Stevence enthusiastically accepted the invitation to give the 2021 tour.

The Lecture Tour will take place beginning in the middle of October and will span three weeks. Tour details will be posted here as they come to hand.

Dr Stevence gave the following brief biographical background:Originally born and raised in France, I moved to the UK to study Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield. After working as a support astronomer at the Isaac Newton Group in La Palma for a year, I obtained my Masters of Physics in 2015. I subsequently started a PhD studying the 3D shape of Core Collapse Supernovae, and earned my title in Spring 2019. In July of that year, I 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.

I also started my public outreach work during my doctorate studies, in early 2016, and I have not stopped since.

2019, Babak Tafreshi, photojournalist and science communicator, founder and director of The World At Night program.

Babak gave ten lectures entitled The World at Night: bridging science, art and culture by connecting the Earth & sky in photography.

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2018, Dr. Paul Groot, professor of astronomy at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Dr. Groot gave ten lectures entitled "Dawn of gravitational wave astronomy" giving a little backgound steller evolution to set the scene, then describing the various black hole and neutron star memrgers that have been detected by the LIGO and Virgo gravity wave detectors.

2017, Dr. Natalie Batalha, astrophysicist at NASA Ames Research Center and the Mission Scientist for NASA's Kepler Mission

Dr. Batalha gave seven lectures entitled "A Planet for Goldilocks: The Search for Evidence of Life Beyond Earth" discussing the evidence for life beyond Earth using data from the Kepler Mission.

2016, Dr. Michael Person, Research Astronomer in MIT's Planetary Astronomy Laboratory, and Director of MIT's George R. Wallace Astrophysical Observatory.

He gave nine lectures entitled "The Science of Pluto" discussing the history of Pluto science starting with the discovery of Pluto, through the discovery and characterization of its atmosphere and moons, to provide context to the discoveries of 2015. Focusing on his own experiences aboard the SOFIA aircraft, and the New Horizons flyby, he discussed the explosion of Pluto knowledge during 2015/2016, and its context in our understanding of the outer solar system..

2015, Prof. Gerry Gilmore, Professor of Experimental Philosophy at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University, UK.  His main focus is near-field cosmology. This is the use of precision studies of kinematics, dynamics, stellar populations, chemical abundances, ... for the oldest systems in the local universe to deduce the fundamental properties of structure formation and the nature of dark matter in the early Universe.He gave five lectures, entitled either "Gaia: mapping the Milky Way from Space", or "Astronomy, Cosmology and the Big Questions in Nature ".

2014, Prof. Tamara Davis, physics honours and post graduate coursework coordinator at the School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, is a cosmologist interested in investigating new fundamental physics such as the properties of dark energy, dark matter and the mass of the neutrino.She gave ten lectures; four of which were to school students, entitled either "The Dark Side", or "Cosmological Confusion".  

2013, Dr. Karen Masters is an Astronomy researcher at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, UK.  She’s the Project Scientist for Galaxy Zoo, and also involved in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (especially MaNGA).  She’s also a member of the Dark Energy Survey and Euclid.  She gave five lectures entitled "A Zoo of Galaxies".​​​​​​​

2012, Prof. Clive Ruggles, Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the University of Leicester, UK.He gave four lectures entitled "Ancient Astronomies - Ancient Worlds".