Department of Astronomy
and Steward Observatory

The Guggenheim Foundation has awarded Astronomy/Steward Professor Feryal Özel a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. As the Guggenheim website says "Often characterized as “midcareer” awards, Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Dr ​Özel was the only Astrophysicist awarded in 2016, and one of only fifteen natural scientists.

You can see the UA press release HERE, and the Guggenheim bio HERE. Professor Özel's website is HERE.

The University of Kentucky Board will confer an honorary degree (Honorary Doctor of Science)  upon UA Astronomy/Steward Regents' Professor W. David Arnett. Dave is a native son of Kentucky, so it's probably an exceptional pleasure for him.  Congratulations, Dave!
We quote from the Kentucky press release: 
"Leaders in the areas of astrophysics; military and the law; food chemistry; and service to victims of sexual violence have been selected to receive honorary doctorates from the University of Kentucky at its Commencement ceremonies in May. An honorary degree pays tribute to those whose lives and work exemplify professional, intellectual, or artistic achievement and who have made significant contributions to society, the state and the University of Kentucky. Nominated by the University Joint Committee on Honorary Degrees and approved by the University Senate, the honorary degree recipients approved by the UK Board of Trustees today are: W. David Arnett, who will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science. One of the world's preeminent astrophysicists, Arnett grew up in Ballard County and began his college academic career as a physics major at UK. He went on to earn his doctorate at Yale University and later held academic positions at Rice University, the University of Texas, the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. He currently is Regents' Professor at Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona where he continues to conduct research to bring further clarity to understanding the universe. Highly honored for his work in astrophysics — an area in which he has published more than 400 papers and a renowned scientific book — Arnett also has a physical law named for him. Arnett's Law describes how stars regulate energy transport as they explode..."

Bright transient flares have been observed when stars pass too close to a supermassive black hole, and are disrupted by tidal forces. Recent work by graduate student Decker French, Professor Ann Zabludoff, and Dr. Iair Arcavi shows that these events occur more often during a specific phase of a galaxy's evolution. The host galaxies of these events show little-to-no recent star formation, but evidence of a higher star formation rate in their recent pasts. This study quantifies how unusual the host galaxies are by comparing their properties to galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Galaxy-galaxy mergers may be the source of both these recently declining star formation histories, and the prevalence of tidal disruption events. You can see the AAS Nova article HERE. Below this text you'll find an enlargement of one of Decker's figures, along with an explanation.

Plot of Balmer absorption (which traces star formation in the last Gyr) vs. nebular line emission (which traces current star formation) for SDSS galaxies (grey) and the host galaxies of tidal disruption events (colored points). The host galaxies fall preferentially in the region with little current star formation, but more significant star formation in their recent pasts, which is otherwise sparsely populated by galaxies in the SDSS.