Laura Lopez
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ohdearz.bsky.social
Laura Lopez
@ohdearz.bsky.social
Professor of astronomy 🔭 at Ohio State. Co-chair of @aascsma.bsky.social. Alum of UCSC and MIT. She/her 🇲🇽
It is deliberately open ended as to what "controversial" includes (actual bill screenshot below), e.g. evolution? climate? Big Bang? spherical Earth? age of the Earth? Biogenesis? Personally, I teach "Life in the Universe", and all these topics are part of that class.
February 15, 2026 at 3:29 PM
Here were the 15 projects/missions told to pause, including the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Habitable Worlds Observatory, and astrophysics probe missions, contrary to the budget passed by Congress. 🔭
February 14, 2026 at 3:13 AM
Finally, since the astronomy prizes offered by ASU were funded by Epstein, so Lawrence Krauss consulted him for input on who should win these awards! Personal note: I applied for this award (not knowing any of these things at the time), and I am SO glad I did not make that shortlist!
February 10, 2026 at 4:04 PM
Some scientists contacted Epstein directly to ask for funding, e.g. this message from Prof. Antony Valentini from Clemson.
February 10, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Many e-mails listed people they thought were smart, "out of the box" thinkers who might be open to meeting face to face. One example shown here included Risa Wechsler, David Helfand, and Bob Kirschner. (Note that people listed did not agree to attend, it was a possible list of invitees).
February 10, 2026 at 3:51 PM
Avi Loeb joined meetings with Epstein. Separately, Shing-Tung Yau forwarded e-mails from Avi asking for funding for the Black Hole Initiative, seeing if Epstein or his colleagues would front $20M to start the initiative.
February 10, 2026 at 3:46 PM
They flagged Alyssa Goodman as "someone... to chat more with" because of "amazing data visualization and research in astronomy".
February 10, 2026 at 3:42 PM
I don't think it was! Here's my pic! I'm confused why people say it was him?
February 9, 2026 at 2:02 AM
I took a pic of the boy. It isn't Liam!
February 9, 2026 at 1:51 AM
Screenshot of an acknowledgement in a paper on today's arxiv: "OpenAI's ChatGBT has been used to draft portions of this manuscript".
February 2, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Holy molts! OSU astronomy just got an alarming e-mail from our AI expert, Yuan-Sen Ting, talking about how AI has gone Westworld in the last two days. 😳
January 31, 2026 at 11:39 PM
Great piece by Savaria Parrish (VA Tech): "Viewed together, the current attack on science is not simply a policy dispute or a funding challenge. It is a restructuring of access to scientific careers that is already reshaping who is able to enter the field." www.spacetosucceed.org/blog/the-att...
December 12, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Honored to receive the 2026 American Physical Society Edward A. Bouchet Award!

To see how the DEI ban in Ohio influences our university, please see the OSU announcement of the award (left) vs the actual APS citation for the award (right).
November 13, 2025 at 8:59 PM
So much astronomical excellence in this picture from @astrosociety.org gala! 🔭 L to R: Kate Daniel (Arizona prof), Angela Twum, @astrolatinaa.bsky.social, Alejandra Rosselli-Calderon (UCSC grads), @katycosmiq.bsky.social (CSUSB prof), @capricephillips.bsky.social (Sagan Fellow at UCSC), and me.
November 10, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Had a great time at the @sacnas.bsky.social conference last week! Many Ohio State folks (see pic, including @astrojennifer.bsky.social, @denisemondragon.bsky.social, and me) attended despite restrictions. Congrats to @denisemondragon.bsky.social on winning best grad poster presentation!
November 7, 2025 at 9:17 PM
I gave a presentation at @sacnas.bsky.social on "archival astrophysics" in a session "Astronomy on the Cheap", showing tips on pursuing research using only archival data. Here are my slides, which include examples of different public archives & how to use them! 🔭 drive.google.com/file/d/1mw42...
November 1, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.
October 19, 2025 at 6:18 PM
OSU limiting participation in SACNAS is heartbreaking. I have attended SACNAS since 2003 as an undergrad, & it was the first scientific space where I felt welcome. I always bring students (pic is OSU participants at 2022 SACNAS), & now it is in our city & OSU doesn't want us to go? So disappointing.
October 14, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Here is the email from the provost reversing the decision & saying we can attend if presenting research. However, we still cannot recruit or attend without research benefit. Also many students did have registration cancelled (or missed registration deadlines) when OSU was prohibiting attendance.
October 14, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Here is a screenshot of the email from the provost.
October 14, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Valuable info about the Physics Nobel Prize today from Prof. Joseph Barranco at SFSU on Martinis and Devoret being a grad student and postdoc in Clarke's lab at UC Berkeley & Clark and Devoret being immigrants. "California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen." ⚛️
October 7, 2025 at 5:53 PM
It seems several universities, potentially all 45 who participated in the PhD Project (www.ed.gov/about/news/p...) , were pressured to sign a "resolution agreement" that they will not participate in anything that MAY be exclusionary by race. Here's the text of the agreement from U Kentucky.
October 4, 2025 at 2:23 PM
OSU PhD student Sebastian Lopez led 2 papers on arXiv today, including one on the hot & warm gas in the NGC 1266 AGN-driven outflow! It uses Chandra data that Katey Alatalo and I proposed for as grad students; grad students can do great science together without advisors! 😀 arxiv.org/abs/2510.01321
October 3, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Here's the complete quote from a new advisor on the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices, Prof. Catherine Stein from Case Western.
September 18, 2025 at 2:22 PM
NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoc Fellowship apps are OPEN! 🔭 However, app only appears on research.gov if your role "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"! Click "Proposals", "Prepare and Submit Proposals", then "Prepare New". If you do not see NSF 22-621, change role to "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"!
September 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM