Aparna Venkatesan

Aparna Venkatesan is an astronomer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of San Francisco, and co-Director of USF's Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellence. She works on studies of the first stars and quasars in the universe, and on numerous cultural astronomy and space policy projects. She also serves as co-Chair of the American Astronomical Society's Committee to Protect Astronomy and the Space Environment (COMPASSE). Dr. Venkatesan has been recognized internationally for her research and leadership, featured widely in the media, and received numerous prizes and awards. She is deeply committed to developing the future workforce of astronomy and STEM, and is active in developing co-created scientific partnerships with Indigenous communities worldwide.

Dr. Venkatesan has worked with nearly two dozen USF undergraduates on award-winning projects, with over half those students going onto STEM careers. In recent years, Dr. Venkatesan has been leading work in dark-sky advocacy and developing protections for darkness and space as an environment for science, sky traditions, diverse ecosystems, language and heritage. She recently created the neologism "noctalgia" with Dr. John Barentine to express “sky grief” for the accelerating loss of the home environment of our shared skies. Noctalgia (sky grief) struck an interdisciplinary chord globally from Fall 2023 onwards, from ongoing international art exhibits commemorating dark skies, dozens of media and podcast mentions, poetry, musical compositions in popular and black metal genres, a new sign created in British Sign Language, listed among 2023’s top new words in numerous year-end listings, and more.

Dr. Venkatesan speaks a few times a month through conference talks, briefings, K-12 school presentations, institutional colloquia, amateur astronomy groups and guest lectures,  recently including: the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, the Indigenous Education Institute, Princeton University, invited space ethics webinar for DARPA (US Department of Defense), invited plenary at the American Astronomical Society 2024 summer meeting, invitation to testify in the Dec. 2023 House Committee on Natural Resources Oversight Hearing on The Mineral Supply Chain and the New Space Race, New Mexico public charter arts high schools as part of a statewide Hyperspace Challenge, guest lectures for Smith College and MIT courses, a series of full-capacity interdisciplinary astronomy-art-storytelling events hosted by the San Francisco Exploratorium, and the United Nations General Assembly Science Summit in 2024.

• Cosmology
• Cultural astronomy
• Dark sky advocacy
• Impacts of satellite constellations
• STEM partnerships with indigenous communities, indigenous knowledge

• Cosmology (First stars and quasars, earliest galaxies, cosmic reionization)
• Space policy and impacts of satellite constellations
• Legal-policy protections for space as an environment
• Cultural astronomy
• Indigenous knowledge

• Co-Director of the Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellence (2022-25)
• Advisor for the 2023-26 NSF-funded project The Cultural Roots of STEM: A Synthesis of Non-Western STEM Learning Paradigms
• Co-Chair of the American Astronomical Society Committee for the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment (AAS COMPASSE; 2022-25)
• Member of the AAS Committee for the Status of Minorities in Astronomy (2015–19), and the AAS Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy (2016–19, co-Chair for 2016–17)
• Chair, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of San Francisco (2014-16)

• MS and PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago
• BA in Astronomy, Cornell University

• Postdoctoral Research Associate and NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Colorado, Boulder

• USF/USF Full-time Faculty Association Distinguished Research Award for outstanding research contributions to an academic discipline (2024)
• USF Post-sabbatical merit award for exceptional productivity in research over sabbatical year (awarded in 2023 for 2019-20)
• Lead USF Faculty Member in 22-institution consortium, The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team (UAT), awarded three 3-year NSF collaborative grants (2021–2024, 2016– 2019 and 2012–2015)
• Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar (2018) and Cottrell College Science Award (2010-13)
• University of San Francisco Awards: Arthur Furst Award (2018), Co-recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Collective Achievement Award for Supporting Women in STEM Fields (2018), Dean's Scholar Award (2013), and Jesuit Foundation Grant (2012)

• Zartner, Venkatesan & Barentine 2025, The Right to the Night: New Legal Advocacy Strategies to Address Terrestrial Light Pollution, ENVIRONS (biannual environmental law and policy journal at the UC Davis School of Law). 

• Translation project co-manager and Introduction co-author for "NIK The Maya Zero: The Mathematics, Culture and Philosophy of Maya Numerals", 2025, Spanish and English editions from Guatemala-based publisher Cholsamaj.

• A. Meza & A. Venkatesan 2024, Improving Accessibility in Astronomy and with the Skies, AstroBeat

• Vidaurri, M. et al. 2024, A call for Indigenous partnership in the return to the Moon, Nature Astronomy, 8, 400-402

• A. Venkatesan & J. C. Barentine 2024, The next chapter of lunar exploration could forever change the moon — and our relationship to it, Op-Ed in Space.com

• A. Venkatesan 2023, Stewardship of space as shared environment and heritage and J. Barentine et al 2023, Aggregate effects of proliferating LEO objects and implications for astronomical data lost in the noise. Featured in a Nature Astronomy collection on Dark Skies; USF Media Release. 

• L. Y. Aaron Yung et al. 2021, Semi-analytic forecasts for JWST - V. AGN luminosity functions and helium reionization at z = 2–7, MNRAS, 508, 2706-2729
• A. Venkatesan et al. 2020, Invited Perspective in Nature Astronomy, The Impact of Satellite Constellations on Space as an Ancestral Global Commons, 4, 1043–1048
• L. Y. Aaron Yung et al. 2020, Semi-analytic forecasts for JWST - IV. Implications for cosmic reionization and LyC escape fraction, MNRAS, 496, 4574-92

• "All the light we would rather not see", Washington Post editorial, 2024
• "The remote Argentinean community that is saving the stars," BBC, 2024.
• "Astronomers are worried about this satellite that’s brighter than most stars," The Washington Post, 2023.
• "Video captures parade of Starlink satellites," National Geographic, 2023.
• "Amazon Is Going to Fill the Sky With Satellites. Astronomers Aren’t Happy," WIRED Magazine, 2023.
• "A new international space race is on — and it could junk up our pristine moon," Vox, 2023.
• "The loss of dark skies is so painful, astronomers coined a new term for it," Space.com, 2023.
• "Ballooning satellite populations in low Earth orbit portend changes for science and society," Physics Today, 2022.
• "Satellite Constellations Are an Existential Threat for Astronomy," Scientific American, 2022.
• "Astronomers set up center to counter threat of satellite swarms," Science, 2022.

Recent Podcasts

• Noctalgia. Nocturne Podcast.
• Nocturne: Noctalgia. KALW.
• 'Noctalgia' and the loss of dark skies. CBCListen.
• Advocacy With Hope. Restoring Darkness.
• Aparna Venkatesan: Protecting space as ancestral global commons (Ep402). Green Dreamer.
• Goodbye darkness, my old friend—satellite constellations are alarming astronomers, The Economist — Shortlisted for Best Podcast of 2022 by the Association of British Science Writers.
• 2023 Women's History Month feature in USF student newspaper-created Fog Pod