The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP, http://www.cap.ca/) congress is the most important physics conference in Canada. This year, it will be held at the University of Moncton from June 7th to June 10th 2009. During the conference, the CAP offers a public talk, the Herzberg public lecture, given to honour Gerhard Herzberg, one of the ten Canadian Nobel laureate. This bilingual lecture is generally given by famous physicists of Canada. Several Nobel laureates have been invited to the CAP.

To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA 2009), the CAP attempts to explore collaborative projects with the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA). The joint tour of speakers CAP-CASCA is very promising. It will be scheduled between January and April 2009 in the participating Canadian Physics and Astronomy departments. The CAP and the CRAQ are pleased to announce that Laurent Drissen, holder of a Canadian Astrophysics research chair at the Université Laval and one of the national “Galileo” speakers of the CASCA, will give the commemorative Herzberg public lecture during the CAP conference in Moncton in June 2009.

The research chair of Laurent Drissen, a regular member of the CRAQ, is focused on massive stars evolution and the influence they have on their environment and on the development of cutting-edge research instruments for the Observatoire du Mont-Megantic, like SpIOMM and Panoramix-II. He also contributes significantly to public outreach, for example, by animating the astrophysics news on the Radio-Canada TV show “Les Années Lumières”.