Kim A. Venn is a professor of physics and astronomy at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

, Canada, and director of the university's Astronomy Research Centre. She researches the chemo-dynamical analysis of stars in the galaxy and its nearby dwarf satellites.

Early life and Career

Venn was born and raised in

Toronto, Canada Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, receiving her BSc from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

in Physics & Astronomy in 1987. She then received her PhD in

Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1994 working with Christopher Sneden and

David L. Lambert David L. Lambert is a British-American astronomer, who does research on stellar atmospheres, the chemical composition of stars, and the chemical evolution of the universe. Born in Ashford, Kent, England, Lambert received his PhD in 1965 from the U ...

on the evolution of massive stars, and pursued postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics/Universitäts-Sternwarte_München working with Rolf-Peter Kudritzki on the properties of massive stars in the

Magellanic Clouds The Magellanic Clouds (''Magellanic system'' or ''Nubeculae Magellani'') are two irregular dwarf galaxies in the southern celestial hemisphere. Orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, these satellite galaxies are members of the Local Group. Because bo ...

and other

Local Group The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way. It has a total diameter of roughly , and a total mass of the order of . It consists of two collections of galaxies in a "dumbbell" shape: the Milky Way and its satellites form ...

dwarf irregular galaxies An irregular galaxy is a galaxy that does not have a distinct regular shape, unlike a spiral or an elliptical galaxy. Irregular galaxies do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence, and they are often chaotic in appearance, ...

. She held a Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in Physics & Astronomy at

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

from 1996 to 2004, then moved to the

as a

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

(Tier II) in Exploration and Understanding of Space and Professor of Physics & Astronomy. She has served on numerous science advisory, time allocation, and funding committees, including the

Thirty Meter Telescope The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a planned extremely large telescope (ELT) that has become controversial due to its location on Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaiʻi. The TMT would become the largest visible-light telescope on Mauna Kea. S ...

Board of Governors as a representative for Canada (2018-2022). In 2017, she led a team of Canadian researchers in developing a

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada, CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering rese ...

CREATE training program in New Technologies for Canadian Observatories, a program to help prepare students for leadership positions in Canadian astronomy and high-tech industry.

Research

Venn is a specialist in observational

stellar spectroscopy Astronomical spectroscopy is the study of astronomy using the techniques of spectroscopy to measure the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, ultraviolet, X-ray, infrared and radio waves that radiate from stars and othe ...

, and the chemo-dynamical analysis of stars in the Galaxy and its nearby dwarf satellites. She also has an interest in new astronomical techniques, ranging from new instruments for multi object spectroscopy or adaptive optics, to new data analysis methods, such as machine learning applications for spectroscopic surveys. In her work, Venn has used data from the largest ground-based telescopes, including the

Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2 m acro ...

, the

Magellan Telescopes The Magellan Telescopes are a pair of optical telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The two telescopes are named after the astronomer Walter Baade and the philanthropist Landon T. Clay. First light for the telescopes was on ...

, the Subaru Telescope, the

Gemini Observatory The Gemini Observatory is an astronomical observatory consisting of two 8.1-metre (26.6 ft) telescopes, Gemini North and Gemini South, which are located at two separate sites in Hawaii and Chile, respectively. The twin Gemini telescopes prov ...

, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, as well as space-based telescopes such as the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

and the ESO

Gaia mission ''Gaia'' is a space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 2013 and expected to operate until 2025. The spacecraft is designed for astrometry: measuring the positions, distances and motions of stars with unprecedented preci ...

Recognition and awards

Venn won the

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

(PECASE, 2000), and the UVic Reach Award for Excellence in Research Partnerships (2018) with Prof. Colin Bradley, Dr. David Andersen, and Dr. Olivier Lardiere, for their work on the RAVEN MOAO science demonstrator Venn was interviewed on

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

's All Points West (17 October 2019) about her work on the oldest, most metal-poor stars, and on

North By Northwest ''North by Northwest'' is a 1959 American spy thriller film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture ...

(6 February 2022) on her team's discovery of C-19, the remnant of the most metal-poor star cluster yet found. The research was carried out with the Pristine collaboration.

Publications

Venn's most cited and most recent peer-review publications include: * "Stellar Chemical Signatures and Hierarchical Galaxy Formation", appeared in the Astronomical Journal, 2004 * "The Pristine survey IV: approaching the Galactic metallicity floor with the discovery of an ultra-metal-poor star" appeared in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2018 * "The Pristine survey - IX. CFHT ESPaDOnS spectroscopic analysis of 115 bright metal-poor candidate stars", appeared in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2020 * "A stellar stream remnant of a globular cluster below the metallicity floor", appeared in Nature, 2022

Affiliations

Venn is an active member of CASCA (

Canadian Astronomical Society The Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA; french: link=yes, La Société Canadienne d'Astronomie) is a Canadian society of professional astronomers, founded in 1971 and incorporated in 1983. The society is devoted to the promotion and advanceme ...

), currently serving on the CASCA/ACURA TMT Advisory Committee, and formerly on the Mid-Term Review of the Long Range Plan (2015), and as Chair of the Awards committee (2007-2011). She is currently the Chair of the ACURA (Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy) Board, and she is a member of the

IAU The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach ...

References

External links

* External Webpage: {{DEFAULTSORT:Venn, Kim Living people 20th-century Canadian astronomers 21st-century Canadian astronomers University of Toronto alumni University of Texas alumni Macalester College 21st-century Canadian women scientists 20th-century Canadian women scientists Women space scientists Women astronomers Year of birth missing (living people) Canadian women physicists