GRAAA Reflections: April 2025

Each month this year, we will share with you a significant image from the GRAAA archives as the group commemorates 70 years of existence in 2025. The images are selected to reveal not only significant history, but also some lighter moments.

Pictured here is 16-year-old Jacob Bourjaily in 2000. He is speaking at a commemorative event marking the 30th anniversary of Veen Observatory, and the re-dedication of new versions of both the Borr and Hawkins Telescopes at the facility.

Dr. Bourjaily is our featured speaker on April 30, 2025, and is one of the world's leading young researchers in the realm of quantum theory--but also an accomplished and experienced communicator. Now Associate Professor at Penn State University, Jake began his amazing career right here as an intern at the Chaffee Planetarium and a young leader in GRAAA during the period 1999-2003. The latest in an impressive list of Jake's achievements includes being named the 2025 recipient of the prestigious Lars Kann-Rasmussen Prize as one of the world's leading young physicists.