iREx at the CASCA 2023 Annual Meeting

From June 12 to 16, 2023, the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA) held its annual meeting in Penticton, B.C., hosted by the University of British Columbia. The theme of this year’s conference was “The Broad Spectrum of Canadian Astronomy”. CASCA 2023 marks the first in-person edition of this conference since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many iREx members were in attendance and contributed to the conference’s activities through talks, posters, workshops, and town halls.

The conference kicked off with a Graduate Student Committee Workshop and Teachers’ Workshop which both took place on June 12. Heidi White and Nathalie Ouellette were facilitators during the Teachers’ Workshop at Okanagan College, where 24 local teachers had the opportunity to learn about current astronomy topics and try out educational activities they could adapt for their own classrooms. During the session on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), teachers got to build their own paper model of the JWST. The teachers also took part in an activity from the “Exoplanets in the Classroom” suite of resources.

Many iREx members gave talks at the CASCA 2023 annual meeting. (Credit: N. Ouellette)

Over the three days of the main conference, many iREx members gave great talks about their exciting research:

• Addressing Systematics in the Traceback Age of the Beta Pictoris Moving Group (Dominic Couture)
• First Light of the Near-Infrared Planet Searcher (Frédérique Baron)
• Probing the Carbon Budget and Formation History of the Ultra-Puffy Exoplanet WASP-127 b (Stefan Pelletier)
• Awesome SOSS: Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-96 b with NIRISS/SOSS (Michael Radica)
• JWST Reconnaissance Transmission Spectroscopy of the Earth-Sized Exoplanets TRAPPIST-1 b and g (Olivia Lim)

iREx Ph.D. student, Stefan Pelletier, was awarded the Best Student Talk at the CASCA 2023 Meeting. (Credit: N. Ouellette)

iREx Ph.D. student, Stefan Pelletier, was awarded the Best Student Talk as judged by the CASCA Board. Congratulations, Stefan!

Many iREx members presented posters at the CASCA 2023 annual meeting. (Credit: N. Ouellette)

Four iREx members created posters that could be viewed during several poster sessions throughout the conference:

• Characterizing Young, Puffy Planets Detected via Transit (Amalia Karalis)
• RV detection of TRAPPIST-1 b with SPIRou (Alexandrine L’Heureux)
• The Canadian Microsatellite POET Mission (Jason Rowe)
• Exoplanets in the Classroom – Resources for Educators, by Educators (Heidi White)

René Doyon, Loïc Albert, and Nathalie Ouellette also led the JWST Townhall on June 15 to inform that Canadian astronomical community of the latest developments on the JWST Mission as well as resources available to the community to get support for future telescope time proposal submissions, data analysis, and results promotion.

To cap the conference, CASCA attendees were treated with a site visit of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory a short bus ride away from Penticton on June 16. There, they had the opportunity to see and learn more about many important radio telescopes, including the CHIME telescope.

Thank you to all CASCA participants, and especially to the CASCA 2023 Local and Scientific Organizing Committees for their fantastic work! iREx members hope to see you in Toronto in 2024 when CASCA will be jointly hosted by the University of Toronto and York University.