2009 Presenter Full Presenter List

Jaymie Matthews

Astro-Paparazzo of the Stars

Jaymie Matthews is an astro-paparazzo who unveils the hidden lifestyles of stars by eavesdropping on "the music of the spheres." 

His version of an interstellar iPod is Canada's first space telescope, which detects sound waves in ringing stars whose vibrations are too subtle to be seen even by the largest telescopes on Earth. Jaymie is the Mission Scientist leading this Canadian Space Agency project and an astrophysics professor at the University of British Columbia. His research sounds more like astromedicine than astrophysics: performing "ultrasounds" on stellar embryos, checking on the hyperactivity of a pre-teen sun and taking the pulses of stars in their twilight years. Matthews and his team are also forecasting the weather on planets beyond the Solar System, and they have begun the search for Terra Nova - alien Earths around other suns.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006.