Sunspots today, taken with an Unistellar EVscope.

It’s official, I’m being promoted to associate professor starting in September. It’s big accomplishment after such a long bumpy time in academia. #WeAreMUN #DucksOfMUN

NEW: A lot of bad has happened to American science over the last year but nothing comes even close to what’s about to happen if we don’t speak out in opposition to the OMB rule changes and I hope @aaas-socsci.bsky.social @apsphysics.bsky.social and others will launch public campaigns about this. 🧪🔭⚛️

Why is writing so hard? I’ve a bunch of deadlines and I keep procrastinating or just stare at a screen . It’s been a challenge for a while now even though I’m writing a number a fair bit. It just seems to take a lot to get over whatever barrier to do it.

NASA is proposing an ambitious plan to build a permanent base on the Moon but underlying it is resource extraction and colonialism. www.cbc.ca/news/science...

I’m excited to announce that new courses at @memorialu.bsky.social @memorialuscience.bsky.social were approved. They are Science 2155: Indigenous Astronomies and Worldviews and Science 3155: Outer Space and Society. These courses are a big part of building astronomy at MUN.

One of those rare beautiful days in St. John’s NL #yyt where I get to see the ducks of Memorial U and do a little solar imaging with a lot of sunspots. #duckstonomy

Folks, I plan to create an Introduction to Cancer Public Course for free access (using videos, streamlined public meetings/forums, etc.) Topics will span the entire story (from basic biology to advocacy), my 20+ yrs of learnings What do you think? #NewfoundlandAndLabrador #PublicOutreach #Cancer

On #EarthDay we often look at our actions on earth to create solutions. But what about our activities among the stars? 🛰✨ Read more from @astrojipjawej.bsky.social on outer space governance, sustainability, the space industry, ethics and Indigenous ways of knowing. gazette.mun.ca/res.../susta...

Proud supervisor moment with some of the grad students chatting with CBC’s On the Go about the Artemis II return. The students did an amazing job. #Astronomy #WeAreMUN @memorialu.bsky.social @memorialuscience.bsky.social

Just picking up a little reading for the (hopefully) coming Spring in St. John’s. Excited to have Prof. @chanda.blacksky.app new book - one for me and one for my lab. Can’t wait to read this.

It was great to talk about the Artemis II mission with NTV and some of the connections with Newfoundland & Labrador #WeAreMUN

This one gave me goosebumps. Any moment could be the one where a young person starts to see what is possible. Every educator lives for that moment! #WeAreMUN #FundMUN @munfaculty.bsky.social Share yours!

Imagine what the MUN community could deliver if the @govnl.bsky.social and admin funded and supported the mission of the university #WeAreMUN

way to go MUN!! why would anyone not invest in you? Not fund you? Despite the cuts since 2016, the MUN community has been delivering ❤️ #MemorialMatters #WeAreMUN @govnl.bsky.social

#WeAreMUN #WorthFunding @munfaculty.bsky.social

When I was in grade 8 or 9 a professor from the Corner Brook campus organized a math Olympiad event in my town for students. My team did well in the event and it was one of the first times that I knew I could succeed at university and encouraged my path in astronomy. #WeAreMUN

How to participate: - Screenshot this image, fill with your story, and share with #WeAreMUN  - Print a poster (Link in our bio), write your message, post a photo with #WeAreMUN, OR - Just comment on this post and we will share your #WeAreMUN story

Across Memorial, we are seeing the real impacts of ongoing funding cuts. Programs are changing. Jobs are being lost. Teaching and learning conditions are under pressure. The impacts are not abstract. They affect our classrooms, our colleagues, and our students.1/3 #WeAreMUN

This group did SO much with a small amount of funding, leveraging significant knowledge and other assets from the university to serve the public. This is what we lose with funding cuts at MUN. #WeAreMUN

I had such a great experience getting to visit SNOlab earlier this week, an example of an organization doing fantastic science building on the historical measurements of solar neutrinos to the search for dark matter and life science experiments today. #Science #Physics #Astronomy

Congrats to all the assholes who shit on Starfleet Academy, which had the best first season of a Star Trek show in franchise history, white supremacist homophobic Paramount has cancelled the show and you won and now there is no Trek in production Do you feel like winners? You assholes

Contract faculty matter! #WeAreMUN @munfaculty.bsky.social vocm.com/2026/03/17/2...

Faculty have noted that cutting math instructors and increasing class sizes is bad, the instructors have said it’s bad, the dept head said it’s bad and now students are saying it, will the administration and the government @govnl.bsky.social listen? vocm.com/2026/03/20/m...

It took a minute for me to find the words about why the comments in this article are bad. MUN is planning to eliminate a number of contractual faculty and here leadership is subtly blaming them on the way out. #WeAreMUN vocm.com/2026/03/18/2...

MUNFA President Dr. Lisa Moores, VP Internal Dr. Russell Williams, and VP External Dr. Erika Merschrod met with the @nlndp.bsky.social caucus today to discuss the current situation at Memorial, including job losses among Teaching Term Appointments and the future of Memorial University. 1/2

This is my department. I may lose many of my colleagues, who are excellent teachers and have taught almost all of our first year courses for years and years.

Proposed cuts in Mathematics & Statistics would eliminate 7 of 8 teaching positions and reduce first-year course sections students depend on. As the provincial budget approaches, faculty are urging government to reinvest in Memorial. 1/2

How is cutting 7 jobs “contracting with care”? ntv.ca/news/mun-facul… @munfaculty.bsky.social

Four talks in three days done. Lots of fun talking about SETI in 1 talk and why space exploitation is bad in others. Now to relax with a well-earned meal.

About to give my first talk out of 10 (I think) over the next 6 weeks on Space and Indigenous Rights or Indigenizing the search for life in the Galaxy. Should be fun and way too hectic.

Unsurprisingly MUN is not honest about why programs are being cut. The cut was due to a lack of resources not enrolment. themuse.ca/letter-austeri…

I’m so happy to see that two articles I wrote for the IAUS 385: Astronomy and Satellite Constellations is published. These articles are now a couple of years old but I think they continue to be relevant to how we engage with Outer Space exploration and exploitation.

Time for the second attempt to propose new courses at MUN @memorialu.bsky.social @memorialuscience.bsky.social on Indigenous Astronomies and on Outer Space and Society. Hopefully the proposal won’t be thrown out like last time with the reason that they aren’t “sufficient physics”

Currently listening to a seminar on burnout and stress in academia while having multiple textbooks open to write notes for my math methods course and surfing social media. Am I doing this right ?🙄

Astronomy is hard in St. John’s #yyt. Taken today in windy conditions and just above freezing #nlwx with the Unistellar EVscope 2. @memorialuscience.bsky.social.

Can’t wait to read this.

Well, 2026 is starting with a lovely almost full moon over St. John’s #yyt

What a week. Started with Science meets Parliament #SciParl2025 organized by the Canadian Science Policy Centre where I got to meet a group of fantastic scientists from all other Canada. Then meetings MPs and Senators where I got to learn about their work and how they relate with science and policy.

Job - please share widely! Canada Excellence Research Chair in Comparative Democratic Resilience in the Global South. Research focus - grassroots movements, Indigenous sovereignties, and racial justice campaigns contesting and transforming public institutions www.mun.ca/vpacademic/m...

The discussion is ongoing about creating these course with the undergrad head wanting more and more details, explanations and justifications under the guise of having to convince a small group of senior faculty. Just more bad faith academia.

I submitted new course proposals to the Physics Dept at MUN @memorialu.bsky.social @memorialuscience.bsky.social. They are: “Indigenous Astronomy & worldviews” and “Space & Society”. #Academia #Astronomy

Disappointing but not surprising. People here aren’t interested and the best they can do is to make Land Acknowledgments sound like a marginally interesting grocery list.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Cybertrucks are pretty rare in my part of the world, but every time I see one I can only think ‘technomullet’.

Story time; This is a long thread about my experiences with Indigenization in Physics at my university. The tl;dr is that Indigenization only matters if faculty and depts get something for doing nothing. I wrote something over at LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-ph...

Congestion and pollution in Earth orbit is quickly getting worse. We need to be able to quantify how our behaviour will impact the orbital environment in the future...

Foggy day in St. John’s #yyt #nlwx. It makes me wonder that if we know of water worlds and ice giant #exoplanets, does that imply the existence of fog worlds?

Do we really want 250,000 mirrored satellites in Low Earth Orbit? Hasn't the Starlink megaconstellation already done enough damage? 🧪 @mjibrown.bsky.social