IRG 2025 Symposium Announcement
For the 9th Interstellar Symposium, The Interstellar Research Group is proud to partner with the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Planetary Systems Habitability. This is an amazing opportunity to showcase the talent that the state of Texas has to offer the interstellar community and our development goals.
Furthermore, IRG is proud to continue our collaboration with the International Academy of Astronautics. IAA is committed to tackling groundbreaking challenges in the peaceful exploration and use of space, which strongly overlaps with the mission and ethos of the IRG.
The 2025 symposium aims to bring together a multi-disciplinary community dedicated to advancing interstellar travel. The exploration of other stars and what lies between them (e.g. interstellar objects) is crucial not only for understanding the formation of stars, planets, galaxies, and the search for extraterrestrial life, but also for ensuring the safety of our planet and the future of humanity.
Come join the exciting work of IRG 2025. Whether you are a professional in the field or an interested amateur, join us for a great multi-day conference of expert talks, social events, public outreach functions (including science fiction, art and topic workshops).
The 9th Interstellar Symposium will be held October 12-15, 2025 in Austin, Texas at The AT&T Conference Center.
IRG Scholarships
The Interstellar Research Group “was created to foster and assist the study, research and experimentation necessary to make human interstellar travel a reality, with untold benefits to life on Earth,” said former IRG President Emeritus John Preston. “We can imagine no better way to demonstrate that goal than the creation of these scholarships, helping new generations of thinkers, builders and explorers to set their sights on the stars.”
Since 2017, IRG has been able to be provide scholarship oppertunities to the current generation of students thanks our sponsers generous support.
IRG 2024 Scholarship Winners
We are excited to annouce our 2024 Scholarship winners!
Tim Bolgeo Memorial Scholarship
Sadie Cullings
Tim Bolgeo Memorial scholarship winner
“I am honored to have been selected for the scholarship and I am extremely grateful to IRG and your sponsors, Baen Books and Rob and Ruann Hampson, for this amazing opportunity! I am looking forward to continuing to support interstellar research and discoveries and helping to unravel some of the biggest questions like the nature of reality, whether wormholes exist, or whether life exists elsewhere in space.
I plan to do this by both pursuing research in space exploration and encouraging others to do the same by explaining the importance of space exploration and research and advancing space capabilities beyond “this pale blue dot.”
– Sadie Cullings
Congratulations Sadie!
Ph.D Scholarship
Sarah Lamm
Ph.D scholarship winner
Sarah Lamm is currently a Geology PhD candidate at the University of Kansas, focusing her research on analyzing analog materials using Raman spectroscopy with application to Mars and Ocean Worlds. Lamm obtained her master’s degree from Kansas State University in 2021. During that time, she worked on developing a chemical calibration for chlorite minerals using Raman Spectroscopy, which also has implications for Mars research.
During her PhD and M.S. she also interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Origins and Habitability Lab in both the summers of 2021 and 2022. In 2018, she graduated from Kansas State University, with three bachelors degrees in Chemistry, Geology, and Geography. Throughout her undergraduate years, she was a member on ChemCam Instrument Team on the Mars Curiosity Rover and spent three summers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Congratulations Sarah!
Master’s Scholarship
Katlynn Vicuña
Master’s Scholarship Winner
A Brooke Owens Fellow and rising leader in the aerospace industry, Katlynn brings experience from internships across high-impact space organizations. Her graduate work at Johns Hopkins focuses on developing mission-critical space systems that will shape the future of off-world exploration.
Congratulations Katlynn!
IRG 2023 Symposium Videos
The 8th Interstellar Symposium took place from Monday July 10 to Thursday July 13, 2023 with pre-symposium seminars held on Sunday July 9, in collaboration with the International Academy of Astronautics and Breakthrough Initiatives, took place in Montreal, QC, Canada at McGill University.
MU, IAA, and IRG hosted a symposium highlighting the prospects for international cooperation in the development of technologies enabling long-distance space travel. Through this cooperation, the IAA’s long-standing history of supporting space sciences, life sciences, technology, and system development was applied to interstellar travel and habitation. This symposium featured many of the leading voices in space exploration, culture, and more.
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The Interstellar Research Group is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to bringing together solid, passionate individuals in order to discuss topics relevant to (eventually) turning humanity into an interstellar species. It is a forum of multidisciplinary individuals working together to facilitate solving interesting technical, economic, and social problems in our way.