Science > Jansky Lectureship

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.

YearLecturer

2024

Ken Kellermann

NRAO
Discovering the Radio Universe

2023

Paul Vanden Bout

NRAO
Space Molecules to Solar Systems: Millimeter Astronomy at NRAO - Some Personal Remembrances

2022

Francoise Combes

Paris Observatory
Symbiosis between Black Holes and Galaxies

2021

Luis F. Rodriguez

National University of Mexico
Jets from Stars in the Making

2020

Martha P. Haynes

Cornell University
70 Years of Studying Hydrogen with Radio Telescopes: From Dark Matter to the Dark Ages

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