Distinguished astronomer R. Bruce Partridge to speak at Bates College

Astronomer R. Bruce Partridge visits Bates College to give a lecture titled Photographing the Big Bang at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 10, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Avenue.

The lecture is open to the public at no cost. Partridge is presented by the Department of Physics and Astronomy in a visit supported by the Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectureships Endowment Fund and the American Astronomical Society. For more information, please call 207-786-6325.

Partridge is the Bettye and Howard Marshall Professor of Natural Sciences at Haverford College, Haverford, Pa. His research focuses on cosmic microwave background radiation, galaxy formation, radio astronomy and cosmology. He is the author of some 150 articles and the book 3K: The Cosmic Microwave Background (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and contributed to the book Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium (National Academy Press, 2001).

At Haverford, Partridge teaches physics and astronomy courses at the advanced and survey levels, reflecting a strong interest in teaching technical subjects to non-specialists.

Originally from Hawaii, Partridge received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his doctorate from Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received Fulbright Scholarships to study in Uruguay and Norway in the 1970s and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1988 and 1989.

Partridge was an instructor at Oxford and Princeton before going to Haverford as an assistant professor in 1970. He has since also served as dean of the college and provost there. He received the Christian and Mary Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and was named Marshall Professor of the Natural Sciences in 1982.

Partridge gives his lecture during a four-day visit to Bates.

The Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectureships in Astronomy, sponsored by the American Astronomical Society, celebrate the achievements of Harlow Shapley, whose research disproved the theory that our sun has a central position in the Milky Way. Shapley was a renowned public lecturer and educator, and a lifelong member of the American Astronomical Society.