Dawn Erb, astronomer and professor, will give the Sunday talk on November 16, 2025.

The theme is Numberless Beings, Uncountable Worlds

The study of astronomy confronts us with a vast and strange cosmos, and the search for life elsewhere in the universe challenges us to ask what life is, what it requires, and what responsibilities we owe to other forms of life. I’ll summarize some scientific approaches to these questions, and reflect on what this might tell us about how to live in an interconnected and impermanent world.

Dawn is a member of Milwaukee Zen Center.
She has been a professor in the department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for fifteen years. She studies the evolution of galaxies, teaches astronomy and cosmology at all levels, and has recently developed a course and public talk series on the search for life in the universe.