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

Time for a new research project: monitoring light pollution/sky quality in St. John’s, Newfoundland, as part of a new project to support Dark Sky Preservation across the province. #DarkSkies

Observing the Sun in front of the @memorialu.bsky.social clock tower today in St. John’s #yyt. The Sun is sneaky quiet today. #Solar #Physics #Astronomy @memorialuscience.bsky.social

CSPC, in partnership with Canada's Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer, is pleased to announce the delegates for the 2025 Science Meets Parliament Federal program! Meet the #SciParl2025 cohort: sciencepolicy.ca/programs/sci... #CdnSci #CdnInnovation

Fun with sunspots today at @memorialu.bsky.social @memorialuscience.bsky.social #sunspots #astronomy

It was a good day in St. John’s to look at sunspots with my Physics 3150 class in St. John’s. #nlwx @memorialuscience.bsky.social @memorialu.bsky.social

I’m excited and honored to be selected to participate in this year’s Science meets parliament organized by the CSPC @sciencepolicy.ca. #SciParl2025 #ScienceMeetsParliament

Trump is turning international students against the US, but Canada is completely missing the opportunity because we’ve decided to blame immigrants, and specifically international students, for social problems to distract from capitalist profiteering. We need to lift this cap.

elbows down

It’s weird receiving multiple emails from a random person with Astronomy notes copied from various websites with the final email telling me that I “should mellow out”. Dear sir, I’d be happy to mellow out if you’d just add some context of why you’re wasting my time.

“universities must stop treating Indigenous Knowledge as supplementary to ‘real knowledge’—this perpetuates white supremacy in science.”

Canada urges Palestine to reject terrorism, instead focus on selling weapons to other countries, or allow mining companies to wreak havoc on other nations

Here are my thoughts about the impact of closure of Office of Public Engagement in Memorial's St. John's campus We lose so much without this office's programs and staff 1/ #NewfoundlandAndLabrador #PublicEngagement #BudgetCuts www.saltwire.com/newfoundland...

"They want to do billion dollar projects sidestepping all types of regulations and they can't even get a two day event done properly" - Grand Chief Cody Diabo Canada needs to step up and enact TRUE nation-to-nation relationships, ones that acknowledge FNIM sovereignty. www.cbc.ca/news/indigen...

Honestly, this is one of the most important things we’ve ever written. Please take a moment to read and share.

On my way home after a productive and interesting conference IAUS399 “Indigenous Astronomy in the Space Age” www.archaeoastronomy.org/iaus399. Lots of good discussion about Archaeoastronomy, ethnoastronomy, decolonizing astronomy and more.

Thank you Sam for your kind words.

ALL CAPS THIS IS CATASTROPHIC FOR SPACE SCIENCE AND ASTROPHYSICS ... GLOBALLY CATASTROPHIC, NOT JUST FOR AMERICANS 🔭🧪 www.politico.com/news/2025/07...

Very excited to be travelling to Australia to participate in the IAU Symposium “Indigenous Astronomy in the Space Age” www.archaeoastronomy.org/iaus399. This should be an amazing learning experience

One bright spot in a week of shit. May the Schwartz be with you.

It’s scary to think we might return to a time where we have to worry about growing holes in the ozone layer.

I’m so proud to be a part of this new publication in Nature www.nature.com/articles/d41... where we discuss the need to be more inclusive of Indigenous communities and support underrepresented nations in the human future in space

A beautiful day in St. John’s to observe the Sun at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador to celebrate the end of term.

Today is my first talk at Université de Moncton despite the rain and snow

I first used the arXiv as a teen in East L.A., well before I had access to an academic library. It is an extraordinary contribution to science. www.wired.com/story/inside...

I’ve been reflecting about this a lot recently. More so, if I were 18 again would I even be able to go to university? My family had financial troubles and I almost didn’t get to go to university then. Now I’m pretty sure i wouldn’t be able to except for maybe @memorialu.bsky.social but why would i?