The Brinson Lecture is held every year to present cutting-edge science in an event that is free and open to the public. These lectures are made possible by a generous gift from the Brinson Foundation to the University of Chicago. Speakers in this prominent series include Kip Thorne, Saul Perlmutter, John Mather, pioneering exoplanet scientist Sara Seager, and Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal.
| May 19, 2026 |
Roger Blandford, "The Extreme Universe" (view lecture) |
| May 14, 2025 |
Saul Perlmutter, "What we Learn When we Learn that the Universe is Accelerating" (view recorded lecture) |
| May 28, 2024 |
Gerry Gilmore, "The Dynamic Milky Way - Seeing Our Galaxy Evolve" (view recorded lecture) |
| May 11, 2023 |
Jane Rigby, "Era of the Webb Telescope" (view recorded lecture) |
| May 17, 2022 |
Carlos Frenk, "How our universe was made: All from nothing" (view recorded lecture) |
| April 9, 2019 |
Sara Seager, "Exoplanets and the Search for Habitable Worlds" |
| May 17, 2018 |
Richard Ellis, "Let There Be Light: The Observational Quest for the First Galaxies" |
| April 25, 2017 |
Nergis Mavalvala, "The Warped Universe: the one hundred year quest to discover Einstein's gravitational waves" |
| February 9, 2016 |
Francis Halzen, "Ice Fishing for Neutrinos" |
| November 5, 2014 |
Victoria M. Kaspi, "Neutron Stars, a Cosmic Gift" |
| October 15, 2013 |
Andrea M. Ghez, "The Monster at the Heart of the Milky Way" |
| October 2, 2012 |
David Charbonneau, "The Fast Track to Find an Inhabited Exoplanet" |
| November 1, 2011 |
John Mather, Nobel laureate, "History of the universe in a nutshell: from the Big Bang to life and the end of time" |
| April 11, 2011 |
Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, "From Big Bang to Biospheres" (listen to recorded lecture) |
| October 21, 2009 |
Kip Thorne, California Institute of Technology, "The Warped Side of the Universe: From the Big Bang to Black Holes" |
| October 2, 2008 |
Wendy Freedman, "Astronomy in the New Millennium: New Windows on the Cosmos" |