APEX Seminars
The interdisciplinary Astrobiology and Planetary Exploration (APEX) seminars take place during teaching terms 1 and 2, with talks by invited CPS and external speakers on a variety of relevant topics.
The Astrobiology and Planetary Exploration (APEX) seminar series resumes on Friday 30th January 2026. The APEX programme for this term is shown below, but is still being finalised and is subject to change. The latest information will be advertised in advance of each meeting to those on our mailing lists.
The seminars are held on Friday lunchtimes, 1-2 pm, this term at Birkbeck in room MAL 612, located on the 6th floor of the Malet Street campus. There is a hybrid (online and in-person) format for attendees but we warmly encourage in-person attendance to welcome our invited speakers.
If you are not on our regular mailing lists and are interested in attending these seminars, please contact joanna.fabbri AT ucl.ac.uk.
APEX Programme 2025/26 - Term 2
Fridays, 1-2 pm, Birkbeck room MAL 612, 6th floor of the Birkbeck main Malet Street building, and online (unless specified ‘online only’ below)
| Date | Speaker | Talk title |
| 30th January | Maxim Ballmer (UCL) | Mantle Layering, Long-term Evolution and Surface Tectonics on Rocky Planets |
| 6th February | Ian Crawford (Birkbeck) | Constraining the Fermi Paradox: the case for keeping eyes (and minds) open for alien artefacts on the Moon |
| 13th February | Fabiola Antonietta Gerosa (UCL MSSL) | Planet formation across evolutionary stages: new insights into two open questions |
| 20th February | Rafael Rianço Silva (Lisbon / UCL / KCL) | Titan seen by VLT-ESPRESSO: The first search for minor chemical compounds with Ultra-High-Resolution Visible spectra on Titan’s atmosphere |
| 27th February | David Kipping (Columbia) | The Role of Bayesianism and Anthropics in Searches for Life |
| 6th March | Sachin Reddy (NASA JPL) - Remote talk | Searching for habitable worlds: Europa Clipper and the ocean induction experiment |
| 13th March | Jenni French and Yasmin T Davis (Birmingham) | Hunting Tatooine: Searching for Circumbinary Planets in TESS / From eclipsing binaries to exoplanet hosts: improving M Dwarf models through the EBLM project |
| 20th March | Mark Lee (The Open University) | Oxygen isotope analysis of Martian meteorites |
| 27th March | Rayanne Vitali (Exeter) | Earth’s Oxygen Puzzle: How Fire & Plant Feedbacks have Stabilised Atmospheric Oxygen |
| 24th April | Kathleen Benison (West Virginia University) * Location: BCB 402 (Birkbeck Central Building) | Salty Secrets about the Search for Life on Mars |
| TERM END | ||
As these are research talks, a background in planetary science or related fields is useful to get the most out of the APEX seminars, but we welcome attendance from all those who are interested in these topics, especially our undergraduate and postgraduate students.
APEX Seminar Recordings
Recordings of some of our previous APEX seminars can be found at the following link:
APEX speakers wanted
We are always looking for new speakers and stimulating topics in the broad fields of astrobiology and planetary exploration. If you are interested in giving an APEX seminar, we would love to hear from you! Please contact the APEX programme coordinator, Dr Andrew Rushby (Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London).
