Jansky Lectureship

The Karl G. Jansky Lectureship is an honor established by the trustees of Associated Universities, Inc., to recognize outstanding contributions to the advancement of radio astronomy. First awarded in 1966, it is named in honor of the man who, in 1932, first detected radio waves from a cosmic source. Karl Jansky's discovery of radio waves from the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy started the science of radio astronomy.

The recipient of this award will present the annual Karl G. Jansky Lecture in Charlottesville, Virginia and in Socorro, New Mexico. The public lecture will be astronomical in nature. Professional astronomical symposia in NRAO facilities will be conducted prior to the evening lectures.

More detailed information about the nomination process can be found by viewing the Jansky Lectureship Charter.

Archive Collections of the Jansky Lectureship

The NRAO Archive maintains records, images, and recordings of the annual Jansky Lecture.

Recipients of the Jansky Lectureship

The recipients of the Karl G. Jansky Lectureship, their award year, institutional affiliations, and lecture titles, are listed below.

Year	Lecturer
2024		Ken Kellermann NRAO Discovering the Radio Universe Watch the Lecture Recording
2023		Paul Vanden Bout NRAO Space Molecules to Solar Systems: Millimeter Astronomy at NRAO - Some Personal Remembrances Watch the Lecture Recording
2022		Francoise Combes Paris Observatory Symbiosis between Black Holes and Galaxies Watch the Lecture Recording
2021		Luis F. Rodriguez National University of Mexico Jets from Stars in the Making Watch the Lecture Recording
2020		Martha P. Haynes Cornell University 70 Years of Studying Hydrogen with Radio Telescopes: From Dark Matter to the Dark Ages Watch the Lecture Recording
2019		Anneila Sargent California Institute of Technology Expanding Horizons with Millimeter/Submillimeter Astronomy Watch the Lecture Recording
2018		Roger D. Blandford Stanford University The Radio Harvest Watch the Lecture Recording
2017		Bernard Fanaroff Square Kilometer Array South Africa Observing the Universe from Africa: Linking Radio Astronomy and Development
2016		Jacqueline van Gorkom Columbia UniversityGas and Galaxy Evolution Watch the Lecture Recording
2015		Nick Scoville California Institute of Technology Star and Planet Formation through Cosmic Time Watch the Lecture Recording
2014		Jill Tarter SETI Institute Are We Alone? Searching for Intelligent Life Beyond Earth Watch the Lecture Recording
2013		Charles L. Bennett Johns Hopkins University A Tour of the Universe Watch the Lecture Recording
2012		Mark Reid Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Measuring the Cosmos Watch the Lecture Recording
2011		Sander Weinreb NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology Radio Astronomy from Jansky to the Future: an Engineer's Point of View Watch the Lecture Recording
2010		Reinhard Genzel Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics The Galactic Center Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster Watch the Lecture Recording
2009		Anthony Readhead California Institute of Technology The Central Engines that Power Active Galaxies Watch the Lecture Recording
2008		Arthur M. Wolfe University of California, San Diego Finding the Gas that Makes Galaxies Watch the Lecture Recording
2007		Karl M. Menten Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy Tuning in to the Molecular Universe
2006		Frank J. Low Infrared Laboratories, Inc. How the Spitzer Space Telescope was Designed, Tested and Built
2005		Rashid A. Sunyaev Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, Clusters of Galaxies and Cosmology Watch the Lecture Recording
2004		Ronald D. Ekers Australia Telescope National Facility Paths to Discovery Watch the Lecture Recording
2003		Donald C. Backer Radio Astronomy Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley Massive Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Pulsars Watch the Lecture Recording
2002		Shrinivas (Shri) Kulkarni California Institute of Technology The Brightest Explosions in the Universe
2001		William J. (Jack) Welch University of California at Berkeley Astronomical Arrays of the Future; Astronomy, SETI, and More
2000		V. Radhakrishnan Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India Astronomy's Devices Watch the Lecture Recording
1999		Frank D. Drake SETI Institute and University of California, Santa Cruz Progress in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Watch the Lecture Recording
1998		Bernard Burke Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radio Telescopes: Reaching for the Astronomical Frontiers Watch the Lecture Recording
1997		P. James E. Peebles Princeton University The Big Bang and Our Evolving Universe
1996		James M. Moran Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Brilliant Masers and Mysterious Black Holes Watch the Lecture Recording
1995		Jocelyn Bell-Burnell Open University, Milton Keynes, UK Tick, Tick, Tick, Pulsating Star, How We Wonder What You Are Watch the Lecture Recording
1994		Vera C. Rubin Carnegie Institution of Washington What's the Matter in the Universe Watch the Lecture Recording
1993		David S. Heeschen Former Director, National Radio Astronomy Observatory The Development of Radio Astronomy in the United States Watch the Lecture Recording
1992		Irwin I. Shapiro Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Reckoning the Size of the Universe Through Gravitational Lenses Watch the Lecture Recording
1991		Allan R. Sandage The Observatories of Carnegie Institution The Quest for the Curvature of Space Watch the Lecture Recording
1990		Alan H. Barrett Massachusetts Institute of Technology Molecular Radio Astronomy: The Beginnings Watch the Lecture Recording
1989		Joseph H. Taylor Princeton University (Nobel Prize 1993) Time and the Nature of the Universe
1988		William A. Fowler California Institute of Technology (Nobel Prize 1983) The Age of the Observable Universe
1987		Hendrik van de Hulst University of Leiden, The Netherlands Far from the Stars
1986		Robert Hanbury Brown University of Sydney Stars, Photons, and Uncommon Sense
1985		G. R. Burbidge University of California, San Diego How Strange the Violent Universe?
1984		Robert W. Wilson Bell Laboratories (Nobel Prize 1978) Millimeter Wave Astronomy
1983		Arno Penzias Bell Laboratories (Nobel Prize 1978) The Astronomical Origin of the Earth's Materials
1982		Philip Morrison Massachusetts Institute of Technology The New Waves: Fifty Years of Radio Astronomy
1981		Martin Rees University of Cambridge, England The Next Hundred Billion Years
1980		Martin Schwarzschild Princeton University What Shape Galaxies, Pancakes or Potatoes?
1979		Maarten Schmidt Hale Observatories Quasars as Probes of the Early Universe
1978		Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar University of Chicago (Nobel Prize 1983) General Relativity in Astronomy at Einstein's Centennial
1977		E. Margaret Burbidge University of California, San Diego Galaxies, Quasars, and the Space Telescope
1976		Edward M. Purcell Harvard University (Nobel Prize 1952) A Story of Spinning Particles
1975		Grote Reber CSIRO, Tasmania, Australia Beginning of Radio Astronomy Watch the Lecture Recording
1974		Lyman Spitzer, Jr. Princeton University Observatory A Space Astronomer Looks at the Interstellar Medium
1973		J. Paul Wild CSIRO, Sydney, Australia Exploring the Sun with Radio Waves
1972		Bart J. Bok Steward Observatory Star Birth in the Galaxy
1971		Charles H. Townes University of California, Berkeley (Nobel Prize 1964) Exploring for the Creation
1970		Robert H. Dicke Princeton University Gravitation and the Universe
1969		Fred Hoyle University of Cambridge, England The Relationship of Astronomy and Physics
1968		J. S. Shklovsky Sternberg Astronomical Institute, USSR On the Variability of Cosmic Radio Source Emission
1967		J. H. Oort Leiden Observatory Large-scale Distribution and Motion of Hydrogen in the Galaxy
1966		John G. Bolton Australian National Radio Astronomy Observatory Radio Astronomy: Steppingstones to Quasars