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
2018	Roger D. Blandford Stanford University The Radio Harvest
2017	Bernard Fanaroff Square Kilometer Array South Africa Observing the Universe from Africa: Linking Radio Astronomy and Development
2016	Jacqueline van Gorkom Columbia University Gas and Galaxy Evolution
2015	Nick Scoville California Institute of Technology Star and Planet Formation through Cosmic Time
2014	Jill Tarter SETI Institute Are We Alone? Searching for Intelligent Life Beyond Earth
2013	Charles L. Bennett Johns Hopkins University A Tour of the Universe
2012	Mark Reid Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Measuring the Cosmos
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
2010	Reinhard Genzel Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics The Galactic Center Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster
2009	Anthony Readhead California Institute of Technology The Central Engines that Power Active Galaxies
2008	Arthur M. Wolfe University of California, San Diego Finding the Gas that Makes Galaxies
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
2004	Ronald D. Ekers Australia Telescope National Facility Paths to Discovery
2003	Donald C. Backer Radio Astronomy Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley Massive Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Pulsars
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
1999	Frank D. Drake SETI Institute and University of California, Santa Cruz Progress in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
1998	Bernard Burke Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radio Telescopes: Reaching for the Astronomical Frontiers
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
1995	Jocelyn Bell-Burnell Open University, Milton Keynes, UK Tick, Tick, Tick, Pulsating Star, How We Wonder What You Are
1994	Vera C. Rubin Carnegie Institution of Washington What's the Matter in the Universe
1993	David S. Heeschen Former Director, National Radio Astronomy Observatory The Development of Radio Astronomy in the United States
1992	Irwin I. Shapiro Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Reckoning the Size of the Universe Through Gravitational Lenses
1991	Allan R. Sandage The Observatories of Carnegie Institution The Quest for the Curvature of Space
1990	Alan H. Barrett Massachusetts Institute of Technology Molecular Radio Astronomy: The Beginnings
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
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

Jansky Lectureship

Archive Collections of the Jansky Lectureship

Recipients of the Jansky Lectureship

Frank J. Low

Rashid A. Sunyaev

Ronald D. Ekers

Donald C. Backer

Shrinivas (Shri) Kulkarni

William J. (Jack) Welch

V. Radhakrishnan

Frank D. Drake

Bernard Burke

P. James E. Peebles

James M. Moran

Jocelyn Bell-Burnell

Vera C. Rubin

David S. Heeschen

Irwin I. Shapiro

Allan R. Sandage

Alan H. Barrett

Joseph H. Taylor

William A. Fowler

Hendrik van de Hulst

Robert Hanbury Brown

G. R. Burbidge

Robert W. Wilson

Arno Penzias

Philip Morrison

Martin Rees

Martin Schwarzschild

Maarten Schmidt

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

E. Margaret Burbidge

Edward M. Purcell

Grote Reber

Lyman Spitzer, Jr.

J. Paul Wild

Bart J. Bok

Charles H. Townes

Robert H. Dicke

Fred Hoyle

J. S. Shklovsky

J. H. Oort

John G. Bolton