Wladimir Lyra
Associate Professor
New Mexico State University
Department of Astronomy
PO Box 30001, MSC 4500 Las Cruces, NM 88003
wlyra - nospam - nmsu.edu
+1 575-646-1400
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Outreach
I am active in four main outreach activities. These are
- Star News, a monthly column on astronomy at the Las Cruces Sun News, which I started in Dec 2019;
- Astronomy on Tap Las Cruces, a monthly event for outreach in pubs;
- Out in Space, a web-based podcast with interviews with LGBT+ astronomers about their science and about being out in the career;
- Ad Astra Academy, a K12 project that addresses academic apathy among disadvantaged youth.
Finally, We write science for scientists. Therefore, we rely on the popular science media to convey our results to the general public. I am grateful to the interest this media has occasionally shown in my research. Below I also list some of the popular science articles and press releases that I wrote or were written about my work, plus interviews.
- Star News, a monthly column at the local newspaper, the Las Cruces Sun News.
A good way to communicate astronomy with the general public is to convince the local newspaper to print an astronomy column! A few months after relocating to Las Cruces in August 2019, I reached out to the editor of the Las Cruces Sun News, suggesting to start an astronomy column. The monthly column, called Star News for symmetry with the name of the newspaper, has been ongoing since December 2019. The column is published in the print version of the newspaper in the first Sunday of every month (to a readership of 20,000), plus online at the newspaper app, twitter (to 30,000 followers), and also at the astronomy department's website. Here are listed the ones I wrote.
- Jun 2024: Pluto: Planet or not?
- Mar 2024: What’s a lunar calendar?
- Nov 2023: The upcoming mission to Uranus
- Oct 2023: The annular solar eclipse in New Mexico
- Sep 2023: Blue Super Moon? Here's how to better understand the Moon's nicknames
- Oct 2022: Jupiter, the King of the Night
- Jun 2022: How did the Earth come to be?
- Dec 2021: An astronomical Christmas gift: the James Webb Space Telescope
- Jul 2021: Why is NASA going back to Venus?
- Apr 2021: Space oddity: First interstellar visitor is nitrogen ice pancake
- Mar 2021: Here's why the mission to Mars matters
- Dec 2020: A death in the family: Astronomy mourns the loss of Arecibo
- Sep 2020: When black holes collide: Puzzling out the strange light of dead stars
- Aug 2020: Neowise, meteor showers and other comet tales
- Jul 2020: Tidally locked planets: Can life exist under a perpetual midnight sun?
- Mar 2020: Living in a comet: how to build a Dyson treehouse
- Feb 2020: Blow up blow up, giant star...
- Jan 2020: Starliner puts New Mexico front and center for the new space race
- Dec 2019: Zeroing in on an alien ocean.
- Out in Space! podcast launched! With interviews with out LGBT+ astronomers.
This is a project of interviews with LGBT+ astronomers about their science and career trajectories. Its goal is to provide visible role models for the younger LGBT+ astronomers entering the field, and also for us to get to know more LGBT+ astronomers in our community. Hosted by myself, Dr Jodi Berdis (APL), Dr Alex Teachey (Academia Sinica), and Dr Cassandra Hall (University of Georgia).
- Launched Astronomy on Tap Las Cruces.
AoT is a worldwide effort, with over 80 satellites locations around the globe. It is a network of free public outreach events featuring engaging science presentations in pubs, often combined with music, games, and prizes for a fun, interactive atmosphere. The events are held in bars in order to bring science directly to the adult public and to engage a broader adult audience than typical lectures held at academic and cultural institutions.
- Ad Astra Academy! Our webpage.
Trailer:
Full movie:
- Interview with Regina Barber at NPR's Short Wave.
- Story on NMSU News on our new grant (Jan 2024).
- Interview with Stuart Keller for the Las Cruces Community Radio (Jun 2023)
- Public talk at the Astronomical Society of Las Cruces (May 2023).
- Story on Las Cruces Sun News about Kuiper Belt grant.
- Story on Las Cruces Sun News about AB Aurigae b.
- Story on NMSU news about AB Aurigae b.
- Story on Las Cruces bulletin about AB Aurigae b.
- Story on Las Cruces Sun News about NSF and NASA funding.
- Story on Las Cruces Sun News on our covid-19 modeling paper.
- Profile at 500 Queer Scientists.
- Star-gayzing! profile with Rebecca Oppenheimer and Scott Gaudi.
- Profile at the National Stuttering Association (the other NSA).
- Interview with Stuart Keller for the Las Cruces Community Radio (Aug 2020).
- Moderated panel on the
90th anniversary of Pluto's discovery by Clyde Tombaugh.
- Paper submitted! on Social Sciences (!!), about our outreach/education program Ad Astra academy! [soc arXiv]
- Public talk at the Astronomical Society of Las Cruces (Jan 2020).
- Talk at Las Cruces High School (Oct 2019).
- NASA and CSUN press release on simulation of patterns in disks.
- Article in Revista Planetária about Ad Astra (in Portuguese). Artigo na Revista Planetaria.
- Featured on IFLS
- Talk at the CSUN planetarium, supporting the local Astronomy Club. [ppt]
- Story at Scientific American about a recent paper on observations of planet-forming vortices.
- CSUN professors chase the Great American Eclipse.
- Interview for Cosmic Perspective Radio at AstroCon17.
- Talk at AstroCon17 and story on LA Daily News
- Talk at de Toledo High School in Reseda, CA.
- Commentary on Elias 2-27, a very interesting disk
- Another story on CSUN Today, CSUN's local newsletter, on my group and our research.
- Panel about time travel at the West Valley Branch of the LA public library in celebration of the 150th anniversary of H.G. Well's birth.
- Story on CSUN Today, CSUN's local newsleter, on my group and our research.
- Interview for Globo, a major Brazilian news channel. The show is called "Como Será" (in Portuguese).
- Interview and Q&A session for NICS XSEDE's podcast series. Nice write-up and formatting by Scott Gibson.
- More write-ups on Mars Academy, our outreach program in the favelas of Rio. Jornal do Brasil (in Portuguese).
- Interview for National Geographic TV show Strange Truths, episode on asteroid and cometary impacts.
- Live hangout for Science and Astronomy's podcast show, Oct 2015, about working at NASA (in Portuguese).
- Interview for Globo News, a major Brazilian news channel, about the discovery of running liquid water on Mars (in Portuguese), Sept 2015.
- Commentary on the anniversary of Relativity (in Portuguese), Jul 2015.
- Mars Academy poster (in Portuguese).
- Live hangout for Science and Astronomy's podcast show, June 2015, (in Portuguese).
- Write-up on the interview by Science in Movement, June 2015 (in Portuguese).
- Live interview for
Science in Movement show in TV Rede Petrópolis, Brazil, June 2015 (in Portuguese).
- Follow Mars Academy on facebook!
- Live interview for Science and Astronomy's hangout podcast show, May 2015, (in Portuguese).
- Op-ed
Reach for the stars: Favela children to control NASA Mars mission,
for the Toronto-based independent news website The Mark News, Apr 2015.
- Q&A session for Galileu, a major monthly popular science publication in Brazil, Mar 2015 (in Portuguese).
- Write-up on the interview by Science in Movement, Mar 2015 (in Portuguese).
- Live interview for
Science in Movement show in TV Rede Petrópolis, Brazil, Mar 2015 (in Portuguese).
- News story in the Wired, about our outreach project Mars Academy, aiming at bringing Mars science with NASA technology to kids from low income families in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Mar 2015. The story got picked up by:
- Veja, a leading Brazilian weekly newsletter (in Portuguese).
- Le Figaro, leading French newspaper (in French).
- O Globo (The Globe), a leading Rio newspaper (in Portuguese).
- O Globo (The Globe), a leading Rio newspaper (in Portuguese).
- Veja, a leading Brazilian weekly newsletter (in Portuguese).
- Op-ed
Well you say you listen to stars. Astronomy and Brazil joining ESO,
on the occasion of the Brazilian chamber of deputies voting on the project, Mar 2015 (in Portuguese).
- Initiative
Mars Academy for science outreach in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Feb 2015.
- Post by LiHS, the Secular Humanist League of Brazil, on Brazil joining ESO, with commentary from me.
- Commentary on HL Tauri. Popular Astronomy, Nov 2014 (in Swedish).
- Interview for the astronomy
podcasting series at McGill university, Oct 2014.
- Por que Marte não cresceu? (Why didn't Mars grow bigger?, in Portuguese). Consulting in media science article, Igor Zolnerkevic. Jul 2014.
- Discover magazine's very interesting story on
the current debate on exoplanet naming. Quotes from Alan Stern, Bill Borucki, Thierry Montmerle, Eva Plavalova, and myself. Jul 2014.
- Interview
for podcasting show Stuttering is Cool, Aug 2013.
- Proposed exoplanets may be just gas and dust
Nature, press release, Sid Perkins, Jul 2013 - News story on Folha de Sao Paulo about the Nature paper, Salvador Nogueira, (in Portuguese), Jul 2013.
- Proposed exoplanets may be just gas and dust
- Ring around the dust disk
Sky & Telescope, Shari Balouchi, Jul 2013 - Exoplanets in doubt after gaps found in theory
ABC Science, Australia, Stuart Gary, Jul 2013 - Evidence of alien planets? No, It's just gas.
Space.com, Nola Redd, Jul 2013 - Gas, not planets, may be source of rings around stars
Science News, Jessica Shugart, Jul 2013 - Public talk, BIL conference, Long Beach CA, Apr 2013.
- O céu como bandeira (The sky for flag, in Portuguese)
- Using 18000 processors to stir the digital pot
Exoplanet Exploration Newsletter, Jan 2013. - Live radio interview for the Southern California Science Radio, at invitation from the Planetary
Society, in celebration of Carl Sagan's birthday (Nov 2012).
- Black holes might form like planets
Sky & Telescope, Stephen Craft. - Dust rings not smoking gun for planets after all
New Scientist, Maggie McKee, May 2012. - Carl Sagan fellow, class of 2011
- Por que Urano gira de lado? (Why does Uranus spin in its side?, in Portuguese), Igor Zolnerkevic. Consulting on media science article.
- Na rota segura (In Portuguese)
Revista Pesquisa FAPESP, Marcos Pivetta
English translation: On a safe course
-
Planètes: On sait porquoi elles survivent à leur étoiles (In French)
Science et Vie, Roman Ikonicoff
-
Interview for secularist blog Bule Voador (Flying Teapot, in Portuguese).
Interview conducted by Eli Vieira - Simulations justify Earth's existence
Sky & Telescope, Ivan Semeniuk - Why the Sun Never Swallowed the Earth
Time magazine, Michael Lemonick - How
Earth survived a fiery premature death
Slashdot - How
Earth survived its birth
Science Daily, original press-release by Kristen Phillips -
Por que não nomear os exoplanetas?
Jornal do Brasil, Nov 2009 (in Portuguese) - Interview and
report on Fysikaktuellt (in Swedish)
Interview conducted by Ingela Roos
- Uppsalaforskare löser rymdmysterium
(In English and Swedish)
Interview on the Swedish radio Vetenskapsradion - Planeternas turbulenta födelse (In Swedish)
press-release of Ph.D. thesis on forskning.se - Gas giants may be followed by Earth-like planets (In
Danish,
Swedish,
and
Norwegian).
Danish printed version here.
Illustreret Videnskab - Illustrerad Vetenskap - Illustrert Vitenskap (Science Illustrated) - Habitable worlds may hide in gas giants' wake
New Scientist, David Shiga
