Brisbane Planetarium Astronomy Seminar

Dr Christiansen grew up just over 20 kilometers from USQ’s Ipswich Campus at Peak Crossing, located in between Ipswich City and Queensland’s Scenic Rim. She attended St Mary’s College in the heart of Ipswich. Dr Christiansen is now based at NASA’s California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She is an astronomer in NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute, and is one of the leading researchers working with NASA’s successful Kepler Space Observatory. To date, she has published 85 papers, which have been cited more than 6,000 times, giving her a SCOPUS H index of 38. Due to her involvement with the Kepler mission, she has been directly involved in the discovery of more than two-thirds of the 3,550 confirmed exoplanets detections to date.

Read more about Dr Christiansen's work.

Annette Lee is an astrophysicist, artist and the Director of the Native Skywatchers research and programming initiative. She has over three decades of experience in education as a teacher, university instructor, teacher educator, program administrator, professional visual artist, and researcher.

Designed by Lee, the Native Skywatchers initiative seeks to remember and revitalize indigenous star and earth knowledge, promoting the native voice as the lead voice.

The overarching goal of Native Skywatchers is to communicate the knowledge that indigenous people traditionally practiced a sustainable way of living and sustainable engineering through a living and participatory relationship with the above and below, sky and earth.

We aim to improve current inequities in education for native young people, to inspire increased cultural pride, and promote community wellness. We hope to inspire all people to have a rekindling or deepening sense of awe and personal relationship to the cosmos.

Currently Annette is an Associate Professor of Astronomy & Physics at St. Cloud State University (SCSU), Director of the SCSU Planetarium, and an Indigenous STEM consultant for Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College. Annette is mixed-race Native American and her communities are Ojibwe and D(L)akota.

Read more about Associate Professor Lee's work.

Associate Professor Annette Lee's visit to USQ is funded as a Gift of the United States Government.