April – May – June

It has been an extraordinary season of recognition for CITA faculty and fellows, who have been honoured with some of the most prestigious awards and distinctions in the world of physics and astronomy. We are immensely proud to share their remarkable achievements with you.

This all comes from the exciting science happening every day. In the bulletin below, you’ll see our key contributions to the latest Atacama Cosmology Telescope data release, our work developing incredible new simulations of the interstellar medium, and our new insights into what happens when black holes and neutron stars merge.

Of course, science like this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We’ve been busy hosting workshops, welcoming our new class of Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows, and strengthening our partnerships with colleagues around the world.

Awards and Honours

• Professor J. Richard Bond Wins Prestigious 2025 Shaw Prize in Astronomy
  (May 27) CITA proudly announces that Professor J. Richard Bond has been awarded the 2025 Shaw Prize in Astronomy, sharing the prize with Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge. They are recognised for pioneering research that has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the universe. Read more: Richard Bond Awarded Prestigious 2025 Shaw Prize
• Professor Norman Murray Celebrated with an Unprecedented String of Prestigious Honours
  Professor Norman Murray has received a record number of distinctions in 2025. His recent honours include Fellow of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, election as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and recognition as a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Read more: Professor Norman Murray’s Prestigious Honours
• CITA Fellow Akshara Viswanathan Wins 2025 Gruber Fellowship
  (June 4) CITA Fellow Akshara Viswanathan is one of three winners of the 2025 Gruber Fellowship Award, a prestigious honour for promising young cosmologists. Read more: Akshara Viswanathan Wins 2025 Gruber Fellowship
• CITA Fellow Samuel Hadden Receives 2025 Vera Rubin Early Career Award
  (June 3) CITA Fellow Samuel Hadden is the recipient of the 2025 Vera Rubin Early Career Award from the AAS Division on Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) for his leading work on the term-by-term analysis of planetary dynamics. Read more: Samuel Hadden 2025 Rubin Prize Winner
• CITA Fellow Janosz Dewberry Awarded Tremaine Postdoctoral Fellowship
  (May 9) CITA Fellow Janosz Dewberry has been awarded the 2025 Vincent and Beatrice Tremaine Postdoctoral Fellowship for his expertise in the pulsations of stars and planets and his sophisticated code for calculating pulsation modes in rotating bodies. Read more: Janosz Dewberry Receives Tremaine Postdoctoral Fellowship
• CITA Fellow Claire Ye Wins Jeffrey L. Bishop Fellowship
  (May 9) CITA Fellow Claire Ye is the winner of the 2023-25 Jeffrey L. Bishop Fellowship, recognizing her expertise in simulating dense star clusters with Cluster Monte Carlo (CMC) codes. Read more: Claire Ye Recipient of the Jeffrey L. Bishop Fellowship

Research and Publication Highlights

• CITA Contributes to Major Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release (DR6)
  (March 18) The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration presented its sixth data release, DR6. The new data, observing 40% of the microwave sky, achieves five times the angular resolution and three times the depth in polarization as the Planck satellite. The international collaboration includes U of T astrophysicists J. Richard Bond (CITA), Adam Hincks (DADDAA), and Renée Hložek (Dunlap). Read more: Science News Coverage
• Professor J. Richard Bond Discusses Quantum Cosmology on ‘Into the Impossible’ Podcast
  (April 15) Professor J. Richard Bond was a featured guest on Brian Keating’s podcast ‘Into the Impossible’ (Ep. 487), where he discussed topics such as dark matter, dark energy, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and quantum cosmology. Listen here: YouTube Link
• Postdoctoral Fellow James Beattie Leads Unprecedented Simulation of Interstellar Magnetism
  (May 13) James Beattie, a postdoctoral fellow at CITA and Princeton University, is the lead author of a new paper in Nature Astronomy detailing a state-of-the-art computer simulation developed to study magnetism and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM). Read more: Artsci News Coverage
• CITA Researcher Co-Authors Study on Electromagnetic Signals from Mergers
  (May 14) New research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters explores the conditions under which a black hole consuming a neutron star produces an observable electromagnetic signal. The work by Yoonsoo Kim, Elias Most, Bart Ripperda (CITA), and Andrei M. Beloborodov was featured in the AAS Nova. Read more: AAS Nova Feature

Workshops and Collaborations

• Director Strengthens International Partnership in Tokyo
  (May 8) CITA Director Shantanu Basu visited the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at The University of Tokyo to strengthen the relationship between the two institutes and discuss possibilities for future collaboration.
• CITA Co-Organizes “Cosmology from Lyman-Break Galaxies” Workshop
  (May 7-9) CITA and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics co-organized the “Cosmology from Lyman-Break Galaxies (LBGs)” workshop. Main organizers included Renée Hložek, Biprateep Dey, Tanveer Karim, and John Franklin Crenshaw.
• CITA Welcomes Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows
  (May 5) The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program commenced, with a new cohort of passionate astrophysicists beginning summer research projects under the guidance of CITA faculty and Postdoctoral Fellows.
• CITA Fellow Biprateep Dey Organizes Academic Job Interview Workshop
  (April 23) CITA Postdoctoral Fellows organized and chaired a two-part panel discussion series on academic job interview preparation, providing valuable career development for junior researchers.
• Professor Amir Levinson from Tel Aviv University is visiting CITA
  (March 3 – July 31) Professor Amir Levinson from Tel Aviv University is one of the seven Primary Investigators of the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Electrodynamics of Compact Sources. He has been at CITA for the past five months to work with the Plasma-Astro Group and other members of the SCEECS Collaboration at CITA including Professor Chris Thompson (PI), Prof. Bart Ripperda (CI), Fellows James Beattie, Gibwa Musoke and graduate student Michael Grehan. Find a recording of Prof. Levinson’s seminar: Recent Presentations