Keynote Speaker

Dr. Bobrowsky

Dr. Matthew Bobrowsky has been involved in science education for over 20 years. He serves on the science advisory committee for his local school district and has been awarded a number of grants for K-12 professional development in science. He has received numerous teaching awards, including the University of Maryland Board of Regents' Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence.

Dr. Bobrowsky is currently employed in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. In that capacity, he teaches physics, carries out research, and is the director of the Physics Department's Lecture-Demonstration Facility — a collection of over 1,400 physics demonstrations.

Previously, Dr. Bobrowsky was an astronomer at the (Hubble) Space Telescope Science Institute, working as a science content specialist for the Origins Education Forum — a NASA educational group concerned with the origin of galaxies, stars, planets, and life. He was responsible for collecting and researching scientific information related to NASA's Origins missions and presenting it in a form appropriate to various educational and public audiences. Dr. Bobrowsky wrote a variety of educational material (e.g., K-12 science activities and lessons) and prepared presentations for countless educational workshops (including at WVSTA).

Dr. Bobrowsky has lectured at the Adler Planetarium, the Newark Museum Planetarium, observatory open houses (including the Space Telescope Science Institute’s "Open Night"), and for various public and school groups. He is also a Shapley Lecturer for the American Astronomical Society. Dr. Bobrowsky delivers after-dinner speeches and keynote addresses for a variety of occasions.

In his astronomical research, Dr. Bobrowsky has made astronomical observations with many telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope. His specialty is the study of planetary nebulae — clouds of gas expanding outward from aging stars — and he discovered several that had never before been seen. (You can see one of them here: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011006.html )

Dr. Bobrowsky lectures widely on the process of science, the Hubble Space Telescope, science vs. pseudoscience, why intelligent design is not science, and dealing with students who are skeptical of the age of the earth, the age of the universe, and biological evolution. His most popular lecture is "How Big, How Far" — a fascinating portrayal of the sizes and distances of planets, stars, and galaxies. New for this year, 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, he has a special presentation in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first use of the telescope, "Telescopes: Giant Eyes on Earth and in Space."