Month: May 2019

The Dept. of Physics and Astronomy hosted the latest meeting of the Southeastern Laboratory Astrophysics Community (SELAC) from May 13-16, 2019 at the Madren Conference Center. The meeting kicked off on Monday, May 13th with a graduate student symposium featuring graduate student presenters as well as panel discussions from faculty who discussed job and research opportunities in the field of laboratory astrophysics. The full SELAC meeting ran from Tuesday-Thursday and featured speakers from several of our Southeastern colleagues as well as from NIST-Gaithersburg, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the National Ignition Facility. Participants took time for a short outing into the South Carolina Botanical Gardens and the meeting closed with a vibrant discussion of future plans for the community to bring additional laboratory astrophysics opportunities to the Southeast.

Marco Ajello has been awarded the Rising Star in Discovery by the College of Science. This award recognizes excellence in forefront research performed at Clemson University. Marco is interested in understanding the evolution of supermassive black holes and all kinds of high energy phenomena in the universe. Please join me in congratulating the success of our colleague.

The purpose of the President’s Leadership Institute is to hone and develop the skills necessary for leadership success with higher education. The institute expands the participant’s knowledge of higher education as an industry and provides a broad understanding of the skills needed for executive leadership. Participants also gain a broader perspective on the impact Clemson has at the state, regional, national, and international level. Please join me in congratulating Hugo for being selected for the President’s Leadership Institute.

Our students continue to excel! Second year graduate student, Jordan Eagle, has been awarded the Chandra X-ray Observatory Predoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The Chandra X-ray Center is the Science and Operations Center for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). After completing her coursework at Clemson, she will spend two years doing research at the forefront of high energy astrophysics. Please join me in congratulating Jordan for this well deserved honor.

Graduation is always a bittersweet time for us. On the one hand we are sad to see the students that we have worked with over the past four years leave us. On the other we are excited to see them accomplish their goals and move onto this next stage in their life. This spring, we had 19 undergraduates and 1 graduate student and had the opportunity to have brunch together prior to the commencement ceremony. Please join me congratulating these students on all their hard work.