Dr. Meredith MacGregor to Speak as Featured Guest for the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association’s Science Speaker Series

Kelly Bernatzky • June 23, 2021

On June 30 at 7pm, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) is hosting a live lecture presented by Dr. Meredith MacGregor. Her talk, “What’s the Space Weather Like on Proxima Centauri?” is part of our FREE Science Speaker Series and will be held via Zoom.


Stars (including our Sun) are active, periodically releasing bursts of high energy radiation called flares. These flares can destroy molecules in the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets and potentially even erode those atmospheres entirely. In order to understand whether any of our nearest neighbors are in fact habitable, we need to determine how frequent and how powerful these flares are. Dr. MacGregor will present recent discoveries from multi-wavelength observing campaigns, including the largest flare ever detected from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us that also hosts a potentially habitable planet. These new results are changing how we think about space weather and the potential for life on other planets — come learn how to be an astronomical meteorologist!


Dr. Meredith MacGregor is an assistant professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research group uses multi-wavelength astronomical observations to explore the formation and habitability of planetary systems. Her work has been widely covered in the popular press including Scientific American, Science News, and National Geographic. She is a Scialog Fellow, the Co-Chair of the NASA Infrared Science Interest Group, and the Associate Director of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA). Dr. MacGregor is an alumna of the Maria Mitchell Observatory (MMO) National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) program. She later was a NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth & Planets Laboratory in Washington, D.C. after completing her Ph.D. in Astrophysics at Harvard University in 2017. 


To register for this event, please follow the link below:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nwdu6SHbQfGjgiZP7orLHQ

 

For the full Science Speaker Series schedule, please visit our website here:

https://www.mariamitchell.org/science-speaker-series

 

This series is generously presented by our lead sponsor, Bank of America, and additional sponsors, Cape Air, Cisco Brewers, and White Elephant Resorts. 


The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.

For Immediate Release

June 23 2021

Contact: Kelly Bernatzky, MMA Development Associate

kbernatzky@mariamitchell.org

Recent Posts

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 7, 2025
July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: July 2025

July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
Show More