Physicist Aomawa Shields to Speak at Grinnell

Grinnell College is excited to welcome Aomawa Shields, an astronomer and astrobiologist at the University of California, Irvine, to give two talks on campus. Shields will host a physics seminar in which she will discuss her research on planet habitability and a lecture in which she will share excerpts from Life on Other Planets, her memoir published this summer.

Aomawa Shields, Ph.D., is an astronomer, astrobiologist, classically trained actor, the Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, and writer. She was named a 2015 TED Fellow and is the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award, NASA Habitable Worlds and Exoplanets Research Program grants, among others. She is the founder and director of Rising Stargirls, a program dedicated to encouraging girls of all colors and backgrounds to learn about, explore and discover the universe using theater, writing and visual art. Her new memoir, Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe, was published by Viking in July 2023. She is the proud mother of 5 ½ year old rising stargirl Garland-Rose, who she and husband Steven have deemed the most extraordinary lifeform in their universe.

The Climates of Other Worlds: Searching for the Next Habitable Planet Physics Seminar

11:55 a.m. on Oct. 11 in Noyce Science Center, Room 1023

The discovery of numerous relatively close planets orbiting low-mass stars signals a major planetary population that may be the primary environment explored in the search for life beyond the Solar System. Many factors and processes can affect planetary climate and habitability, and their effects must be understood to accurately determine a planet's habitability potential.

Shields will describe the methods used by her research group to quantify the effects on planetary climate of a range of factors currently unconstrained by observations. She will share recent results from this work using a hierarchy of computer models, and discuss the implications of these results for planetary habitability and the identification of those planets most capable of supporting life.

Life on Other Planets: Finding My Place in the Universe Squire Lecture

11 a.m. on Oct. 12 in Humanities and Social Studies Center Auditorium 

Sharing excerpts from her memoir, Life on Other Planets, Shields will speak about how she found her place in the universe. She talks about her struggle to fit in as a Black woman in astronomy, her nontraditional career path, and how discovering what she wants and needs was essential for thriving in both her personal and professional life.