The Petrie Lecture is an invited discourse by an outstanding astrophysicist which is held at Annual Meetings of the Society in alternate (odd-numbered) years, in memory of the significant contributions to astrophysical research by the late Robert M. Petrie. The Petrie Lecture originated under the auspices of the Canadian Committee for the IAU, prior to the existence of the Society, and was revived by the Society in 1977 as a regular event. Nominations for the Petrie Lecture can be made by submitting the name of a nominee to the Awards committee at any time, and should originate from at least two CASCA members in good standing. Nominations for the 2021 Lecturer should be received by December 31 2020.
2019 Petrie Prize Lecture
The 2019 R. M. Petrie Prize is awarded to Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez.
Dr. Gonzalez is a professor of physics and astronomy at the Louisiana State University and has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) since 1997. Her group has been involved in noise-characterization and calibration of the LIGO detectors, as well as data analysis. Dr. Gonzalez was the spokesperson for the LSC from March 2011 until March 2017, and in that role oversaw the ground-breaking discovery of the first gravitational wave source with Advanced LIGO. She is a fellow of the Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017.
CASCA is honoured to have Dr. Gonzalez give the Petrie Prize lecture.
| 2017 |  Charles Beichman |
From protostars to exoplanets to life on other worlds |
| 2015 |  Wendy Freedman |
Measurement of Cosmological Parameters |
| 2013 |  Françoise Combes |
Molecular gas in galaxies across the Hubble time |
| 2011 | Andrew Fabian | Within one gravitational radius of the event horizon of a black hole |
| 2009 | Scott Tremaine | Stellar dynamics at the centres of galaxies |
| 2007 | Ewine van Dishoeck | Spitzer observations of star- and planet-forming regions from ice cold to steaming hot |
| 2005 | Reinhard Genzel | Massive Black Holes in Galaxies |
| 2003 | Sir Martin Rees | How Did the Cosmic Dark Age End? |
| 2001 | James Gunn | The Sloan Digital Survey |
| 1999 | Sidney van den Bergh | The Local Group of Galaxies |
| 1997 | Alex Filippenko | Supernovae and their Cosmological Implications |
| 1995 | George Herbig | IC 349 – Barbard’s Merope Nebula |
| 1993 | Maarten Schmidt | From Galactic Structure to Quasars |
| 1991 | P. B. Stetson | Progress in CCD Photometry |
| 1989 | P. J. E. Peebles | Tracing the Orbits of Galaxies back in Time |
| 1987 | Henry Matthews | C3H2 – A New Probe of the Interstellar Medium |
| 1985 | Charles Townes | The Galactic Centre |
| 1983 | M. J. Plavec | Strongly Interacting Binary Stars |
| 1981 | Hubert Reeves | La Physique des Premiers Temps de l’Univers |
| 1979 | Geoffrey Burbidge | The Redshift Problem |
| 1977 | J. Beverly Oke | Seyfert Galaxies and Quasars |
| 1971 | Jesse L. Greenstein | Pre-White Dwarf Evolution |
| 1971 | C. S. Beals | Forms of Impact Craters Related to the Thermal History of the Lunar Surface |
| 1970 | A. G. W. Cameron | The Chemical Evolution of the Galaxy |
