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Astronomer to Deliver Fifth Hertha Sponer Lecture Thursday

A Duke alumna who is one of the women scientists leading surprising advances in astronomical research will deliver the Hertha Sponer Presidential Lecture Thursday, named for the first woman on Duke's physics faculty.

Robin Canup, Trinity Class of '90, associate vice president at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., will speak on "The Origin of the Earth-Moon System" at 5:15 p.m. Feb. 20 in the Von Canon Room of the Bryan Center.

Canup's research focuses on the origins of planets and satellites, a lively and fast developing field of astronomy. Her recent research revises the "Giant Impact" theory of the Earth's creation and suggests that instead of being formed separately, the Earth and Moon developed at the same time as a result of a double collision between two large planetary bodies.

A Duke graduate with a bachelor's of science degree in physics, Canup will be the fifth Sponer lecture.  The series was instituted in 2007 to honor Sponer and to highlight prominent women in science, engineering, mathematics and medicine 

Born in 1895 in Germany, Sponer received her doctorate in theoretical physics in 1920 at the University of Gottingen, making her one of the first women in Germany to receive a Ph.D. in physics. She then studied under James Franck, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1925. By 1932 she had nearly two dozen published articles and was on her way to a prominent academic career in Germany. She collaborated with leading scientists such as Edward Teller.

Sponer came to Duke in 1936 as the first full full female professor in the natural sciences.  Although not Jewish, she worked closely with Jewish physicists and came under suspicion in Nazi Germany, where women scientists were regularly removed from their positions. She was one of six scientists who left Nazi Germany before World War II to take positions at Duke.

A short biography of Sponer written by colleague Horst Meyer is posted on the Duke Physics website.