Scott Institute for Energy Innovation

Robert Kirshner seminar

April 24, 2018

12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. ET

Marquis Conference Room, Scott Hall 5201

Please join CMU's Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and the Mellon College of Science for a Seminar by Robert Kirshner, Chief Program Officer for Science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. 

Abstract

After 30 years on the astronomy faculty at Harvard, Robert Kirshner is now the Chief Program Officer for Science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto. Kirshner will describe the Moore Foundation and its approach to philanthropy, which includes about $100 million per year for science. He will describe some of the foundation's interests in data science, quantum materials, marine microbiology, and astronomical instruments, including the Thirty Meter Telescope. Kirshner will also sketch the progress of the Moore Inventors' Program to encourage invention at research institutions.

Bio

Robert Kirshner leads the science program at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which makes over $100 million in grants for basic science each year. An astronomer, he served on the faculty at Harvard for 30 years before moving to the Moore Foundation in 2015. His work using supernovae to trace cosmic expansion was a fundamental contribution to the discovery of cosmic acceleration in 1998. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Kirshner was awarded the National Academy's 2014 Watson Medal and the 2015 Wolf Prize in Physics.

Lunch will be available at 11:45 a.m.

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