GSU Physics and Astronomy

Luoth Chou is an astrobiologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Originally from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, she attended college at the University of Maryland after which she earned a PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "The possibility that life could exist elsewhere has always captivated my imagination, and it was this question that drove me into a life-long pursuit of studying theories of life and the methods that allow us to detect life on other planets."

Dr. Chou describes her research as "focused on 'agnostic biosignatures', a class of biosignatures that do not pre-suppose the presence of a particular life form (such as Earth-based life). I study what features of life could be common in the universe (rather than specific to Earth), and what kinds of chemical imprints unfamiliar life could leave behind. I specifically use flight-capable instruments, such as mass spectrometers, onboard various future missions like ExoMars and Dragonfly, to look for such biosignatures. Mass spectrometers are an important analytical platform used in space exploration because they allow us to study the chemical composition of a sample at very high resolution and sensitivity."

When asked if she has any early career advice to share, she replied: "I have two pieces of advice: always keep your eyes open for serendipitous opportunities, and be open-minded to failures."

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/4d8zy2R

Join us at the Fernbank Science Center next Thursday, June 4th from 7:00-9:00pm for the next Cosmic Conversations featuring Dr. Misty Bentz! Misty will be delving into her research area of world-renowned expertise: supermassive black holes!

A planetarium show will directly precede the talk. Tickets are $5 per person for students or $10 for adults and may be reserved through the series' official webpage (https://t.gsu.edu/4jZ4eWq). The planetarium show will begin at 7pm, with the featured talk beginning at 8pm. A ticket allows you to attend either or both experiences. Ticket pricing remains the same whether you attend one portion of the evening or both.

"For Young-Kee Kim, physics has always transcended borders. 'Global collaboration isn’t only a necessity,' she says. 'There’s also beauty in it.'"

"Kim is the 2024 APS President and an experimental particle physicist, whose field is known for projects of grandiose scale, with thousands of scientists around the world working in tandem on decades-long projects. 'There are so many wonderful outcomes, because we have so many people from diverse backgrounds,' she says."

"Kim herself is a walking example of global science: Originally from South Korea, she has worked on experiments in Japan, Switzerland, and the U.S."

"Kim earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from Korea University and her doctorate from the University of Rochester, and worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow. After several years at the University of California, Berkeley, she moved to the University of Chicago in 2003, where she is the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor of physics."

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/4cCVyCU

Dr. Brittany Kamai is only the second native Hawaiian to earn a PhD in astrophysics. “Growing up in urban Honolulu, Kamai never felt a strong connection to the night sky. That changed when she took an introductory astronomy course in college. What really hooked her was learning that the vast majority of the universe is made up of dark energy and dark matter, which still remain a mystery to astronomers.”

“At the end of the course, I went to my teacher and asked, ‘How do I figure out what dark energy is?’” Kamai recalls. “The teacher told me to start by majoring in physics. I went back home and told everyone I was going to major in physics, and they all thought I was in over my head — including my high school teachers.”

“Kamai proved them wrong. She earned a BS, MA, MS, and PhD in physics, and then continued to work on the Nobel-prize winning gravitational-wave project, LIGO, before stepping into a leadership role on Cosmic Explorer, an instrument being developed to deepen and clarify humanity’s gravitational-wave view of the cosmos.”

“Along the way, Kamai co-founded the Society of Indigenous Physicists (SIP), a forum to connect with other Indigenous scientists. “So many of us are the only Indigenous people in anything that we’ve done in physics,” she says. “Many of us are the first and only from our nations. This is a chance for us to be together and have high-level conversations about our respective fields but also incorporate discussions about our ancestral and spiritual knowledge that connects with our work.” Encouragement and letters of support from SIP colleagues led to Kamai's current course:” Pacific Indigenous Astrophysics, which she is teaching as a visiting lecturer at the University of Washington.

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/3Wt49Am

Dr. Paul Coleman was the first Native Hawaiian to earn a doctorate in astrophysics. His doctoral research focused on the angular size of faint radio-wave sources and its implications for cosmological models.

After a series of faculty appointments at various universities, he returned to his native Hawaii with a position at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) in 2002. “It was there that Coleman took up the public outreach activities and advocacy for which he is recognized. He sought to increase Native Hawaiian participation in the sciences by leading many members of the Hawaiian community — students, politicians, residents — on visits to the observatories on Mauna Kea and Haleakala. He addressed civic and business groups, connecting the future of astronomy with the rich history of Polynesian voyaging.”

“For nearly a decade, Coleman led the IfA’s National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, which brought undergraduates from around the country to conduct research with IfA astronomers during the summer. He also helped lead the NSF's mitigation program for the DKIST, to advance Native Hawaiian participation in STEM fields, and he worked closely with Haleakala’s Faulkes Telescope North project, a remotely operable telescope used by students around the world. In addition, he was a research adviser to the next generation of Native Hawaiian astronomers, many of whom are now active researchers in the field.”

Upon Coleman’s death in 2018, Robert McLaren, interim director of the IfA said, “It’s a big loss for us. He was one of our best undergraduate instructors, and he was a mentor to many. He will be irreplaceable.”

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/3w8eJlO

On this Memorial Day, we remember Ellison Onizuka and Kalpana Chawla.

Ellison Onizuka was the first Asian American to fly in space. He was a member of NASA's Astronaut Class of 1978, also known as the Thirty-Five New Guys, the first astronaut class in nearly a decade and also the first to include women, Hispanics and Asian and African Americans. On January 28, 1986, Onizuka lost his life when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. https://t.gsu.edu/4uaUQm6

Kalpana Chawla was the first Indian-born woman in space. In 1994, Chawla was selected as an astronaut candidate. Over the course of her two missions, Chawla logged 30 days, 14 hours, and 54 minutes in space. After her first launch, she said, "When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system." She perished on 1 Feb 2003 shortly before the end of her second mission, when the orbiter Columbia broke apart during reentry in the Earth's atmosphere.
https://t.gsu.edu/4b2HEGV

Happy birthday to Shuji Nakamura, born on this day in 1954 in Japan. Nakamura's path from disinterested student (who spent more time on volleyball than homework) to professor at UC Santa Barbara is a winding tale that spans decades and countries.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources."

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/3kvFerM

"MiMi Aung is no stranger to historic firsts. She was raised in Burma, where her mother was the first woman in the country to earn a doctorate in mathematics. On April 19, Aung served as team lead for NASA’s first helicopter flight on Mars."

"It 'was an incredible moment,' Aung said of Ingenuity’s 39-second flight, which is drawing comparisons to the Wright brothers’ first flight on Earth in 1903 for its promise for future discovery and innovation. 'This morning our dream came true.'"

"Working at NASA is 'a privilege and just an enormous opportunity I value every day,' Aung says. 'Being that little girl in Myanmar, I had no idea if I would ever be in another country, or let alone be a part of a community that’s actively' exploring space."

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/4297ioE and https://t.gsu.edu/497pjcH

May is also Jewish American Heritage month!

Dr. Rosalyn Yalow was a Nobel Prize winning scientist, but she was also an orthodox Jewish woman who not only kept a kosher home filled with kids, but also invited her lab assistants to the Passover Seder!

When Rosalyn Yalow was looking at graduate schools in 1941, few accepted women. Fortunately for her (and in hindsight all of us today), she received an assistantship at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and went to earn a PhD in nuclear physics. Radiation intrigued her, and in 1959 she developed a technique known today as “radioimmunoassay” (RIA) which is a laboratory technique used to measure tiny amounts of substances (such as proteins and hormones) in blood or other body fluids. This incredibly sensitive test helps people who may have diabetes, thyroid disease, viruses, and other health conditions. While the exact number of lives this technique has saved over the decades is not known, it has been estimated to be hundreds of millions! She received a well deserved Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1977. She also tirelessly advocated for women in science, and famously said “The world cannot afford the loss of the talents of half of its people if we are to solve the many problems which beset us.”

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/4tA2O7O

"'I REALLY wasn’t interested in space,' confesses Josephine Santiago-Bond... The Filipina-American engineer never anticipated that her experiences would culminate in a career revolving around missions and exploration in outer space."

"It was 15 years ago when Santiago-Bond first landed an internship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida."

Today, she serves as the Commercial Crew Office Chief for Safety and Mission Assurance at John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where she manages a multi-center workforce responsible for ensuring crew and vehicle safety for human spaceflight missions. Under her leadership, SMA support of crewed mission certification, launch readiness, and ongoing mission assurance improvements has contributed to NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑7 through Crew‑12 rotation and NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test missions.

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/4u5BWNI and https://t.gsu.edu/4mVRIsa

Rizal Hariadi "initially garnered an interest for science while participating on the Indonesian Physics Olympiad Team. After establishing his love for science, he went on to complete his undergraduate degree at Washington State University. His plan was to pursue genetics, but because he missed the math and level of rigor of physics, he decided to shift his focus to physics and biochemistry. At Caltech, where he completed his PhD, he worked with DNA nanotechnology."

As an assistant professor of physics at Arizona State Univ., Hariadi was awarded an NIH New Innovator Award, which recognizes "exceptionally creative early career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects." NIH Director Francis S. Collins says of the program: "[It] supports exceptionally innovative researchers who have the potential to transform the biomedical field."

"Hariadi's proposal for the NIH addresses the functionality of a biomolecular system when force is applied, specifically in the context of malaria parasite invasion. 'Malaria, as we know, claims half a million lives every year. It is equivalent to one malaria death every minute, and it affects half of the world population. The cost is $12 billion in terms of economic burden, so it’s a big problem,' Hariadi said."

"What’s unique about Hariadi’s approach is that he is using 'DNA as a biophysical tool, not an information carrier.' DNA origami will be used to arrange the proteins associated with this host invasion and apply tension. By studying the biomechanical forces and their effect on the system, molecules can eventually be screened for their ability to disrupt the malaria parasite invasion, thus translating into drug screening methods to treat malaria."

Read more: https://t.gsu.edu/40VXbCB