Renowned Astrophysicist and Nobel Prize Winner to Discuss ‘Understanding the Universe from Deep Underground’ on Nov. 7, 2025
Renowned Astrophysicist and Nobel Prize Winner to Discuss ‘Understanding the Universe from Deep Underground’ Nov. 7
The Alabama A&M University Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics will host Nobel Laureate Dr. Arthur B. McDonald, Gray Chair Emeritus Professor in Particle Astrophysics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, as the distinguished speaker for the 25th Putcha Venkateswarlu Memorial Lecture.
The event will take place Friday, Nov. 7, at 3:00 p.m. in Dawson Auditorium, Cooperative Extension Building, followed by a reception in the Clyde Foster Multipurpose Room in the College of Business and Public Affairs. This event is sponsored by AAMU Physics, the College of Agricultural, Life and Natural Sciences (CALNS), Redstone Federal Credit Union (RFCU), North Alabama Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Mrs. Anjana Arora and Dr. Mulk Arora, BASF Corporation, and The Sharlene and Phil Coker Foundation.
The Putcha Venkateswarlu Memorial Lecture series, now in its 25th year, honors the memory of Dr. Putcha Venkateswarlu, a longtime AAMU physics professor whose vision for scientific excellence continues to inspire generations of scholars.
McDonald, an internationally celebrated physicist, shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics with Dr. Takaaki Kajita “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass.” His groundbreaking research fundamentally altered the world’s understanding of subatomic particles and the forces that govern the universe.
A native of Canada, McDonald earned his M.Sc. in Physics from Dalhousie University and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). His distinguished academic career includes appointments at AECL Chalk River Laboratories, Princeton University, and Queen’s University, where he served as the Director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) – the site of his Nobel-winning research.
McDonald’s extraordinary contributions to science have earned him 15 honorary degrees and numerous prestigious awards, including the T.W. Bonner Prize from the American Physical Society, the Gerard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, the Killam Prize in Natural Sciences, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (shared with the SNO Collaboration). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) and the Royal Society of Canada, among several other scientific bodies.
Even in retirement, McDonald continues his pursuit of discovery through ongoing research on neutrinos and dark matter, exploring questions that reach to the very edge of human understanding.
This event, free and open to the public, offers a rare opportunity to engage with one of the foremost particle astrophysicists of our time and gain insights into the future of scientific discovery.