Cosmic Realms Con is honored to announce Professor Emmanuel Fonseca, a renowned radio astronomer from West Virginia University, as a featured guest speaker!

Professor Fonseca's work focuses on unraveling the mysteries of the universe by studying extreme astrophysical objects. His primary research investigates radio pulsars—rapidly rotating neutron stars—and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which are brilliant, mysterious millisecond flashes of unknown origin. His work uses these phenomena as unique laboratories to study fundamental physics, space plasma, and cosmology.

A key contributor to the groundbreaking Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope, Professor Fonseca helped build the hardware and software for its pulsar and FRB instruments, which he continues to maintain and use for leading scientific discovery. His research also utilizes the world's premier radio observatories, including the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. Furthermore, he is a long-term member of the NANOGrav collaboration, which uses a galaxy-wide array of pulsars to search for low-frequency gravitational waves generated by supermassive black holes.

Prior to joining WVU, Professor Fonseca held a postdoctoral position at McGill University and earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of British Columbia. He earned dual undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from Pennsylvania State University.

Professor Fonseca's presentation will offer attendees a captivating look into the cutting edge of astronomical discovery, making the cosmos accessible to fans of all levels. He recently spoke at the 2025 SARA and Radio Jove Eastern Conference in Green Bank, West Virginia.