Joel Lamb

• Email: joel.lamb@bellevuecollege.edu

Biography:

I fell in love with astronomy during my first semester as an undergraduate at the University of Iowa in 2002. That fall, one of the most powerful solar flares ever recorded led to fantastic displays of Aurora across the United States.  I found myself staring up in awe as half the sky was illuminated in shimmering red, green, purple, and iridescent white light.  I was hooked!  It was my first of many observations as I eventually progressed towards a PhD degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Michigan. During that journey, I spent over a month conducting observations at the world class 6-meter Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile for my PhD Dissertation on Massive Star Formation in Sparse Environments.  Back in Michigan, as instructor of a fully planetarium-based introductory astronomy course, I discovered that my true calling was in the classroom and specifically in planetarium education.  I am grateful to be a faculty member at Bellevue College where I can share my passion for astronomy with students and the community using our fantastic digital planetarium and amazing collection of telescopes.