Sunday, February 26, 2023
10:00 am EST
WPAC Instrumental Hall
Free admission
2023 MIGF Festival Pass
is available to attend all festival events at a single reduced price: $100 general, $70 senior/FIU faculty, staff, & alumni, $30 student
Dr. James Webb is a world-renowned astrophysicist specializing in the variability of Blazars across the Electro-magnetic spectrum. He has hosted international conferences, edited conference proceedings, guest edited publications on Blazar variability, and published a graduate-level textbook on Extra-Galactic Astrophysics. He specializes in optical observations using large telescopes located around the world and also NASA satellite telescopes in the Gamma-ray, UV and IR region of the spectrum
In addition to these scientific pursuits, Dr. Webb popularizes science, hosting a public lecture series at FIU for 26 years, giving hundreds of public lectures on topics ranging from SETI to gravitational waves. He has given guest lectures across the country and wrote a suite of astronomy songs which he recorded in a professional studio. The resulting CD entitled “Reaching for The Stars” contains his original astronomy songs and he also performs them live at special planetarium concerts around the country.Colin holds a doctorate of the musical arts from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, along with a doctoral cognate in music theory. Prior to that, he completed a master’s degree in percussion performance from Rutgers University, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in both music education and music composition/theory from East Carolina University. Colin has been fortunate to have studied under renowned percussionists including Svet Stoyanov, Joe Petrasek, Matt Strauss, Greg Zuber, Joe Tompkins, Dr. Mike Truesdell, Kyle Zerna, Javier Diaz, Dr. Jonathan Wacker, and Christopher Nappi. Also, Dr. Williams has also studied composition under Dr. Marc Faris and Dr. Ed Jacobs.
Dr. Webb tells his story as follows:
“I grew up the 1960’s and 70’s listening to the great popular music of the time and being inspired by Star Trek, Lost in Space, and of course Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. I earned a PhD in astrophysics and have studied distant proto-galaxies called Quasars and taught college for over 30 years. In my spare time I played guitar and wrote a few songs. I decided I wanted to record my songs, and in 2013 I had the pleasure of impersonating a musician and professionally recorded my songs with the help of an accomplished producer and several studio musicians. I have done concerts of my astronomy songs at science centers and planetariums around the world.”
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