PTM: II Lecturers

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Prof. Leon Lederman Prof. Riccardo Giaconni Prof. Francis Everitt Prof. Lawrence Krauss Prof. David Goldhaber-Gordon Prof. Em. Gerald Smith Prof. John Dicello

Prof. John G. Cramer Prof. Richard Lieu Prof. Mario Livio Prof. Don Q. Lamb Prof. Sylvester J. Gates Dr. George F. Chapline Dr. Joan Centrella

Prof. Leon Lederman Neutrinos: The Second Forty Years Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Batavia, Illinois	Nobel Laureate 1988 for neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino. Leon Lederman, internationally renowned specialist in high-energy physics, is director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. Lederman was the director of Fermilab from 1979 until 1989. Since 1998, he holds the position of Resident Scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora; and since 1993, Pritzker Professor of Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He has served as President and Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest scientific organization in the U.S. He is a member of the National Academy of Science; and has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science (1965), the Elliot Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1976), the Wolf Prize in Physics (1982), the Nobel Prize in Physics (1988) and the Enrico Fermi Prize given by President Clinton in 1993. Lederman currently serves on over a dozen boards, including the Board of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the Council of American Science Writers, and the University Research Association Board. Dr. Lederman has received honorary degrees and memberships in over 60 institutions, including those in England, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Israel, Finland, Russia, India and China. Dr. Lederman has also worked tirelessly to improve science education. He was instrumental in founding the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), a residential high school for the gifted, and the Teachers Academy for Math and Science (TAMS), which provides professional development for primary school teachers in Chicago. The “hands-on” pedagogue has been applied in France, Brazil, China and Malaysia. The Lederman Science Center, a hands-on science museum, where visitors can explore the physics and technology of Fermilab, was also born as a result of his efforts. “Saturday Morning Physics” (a short-course for high school students) was initiated by Lederman in 1980. He has been an outspoken advocate for new approaches to secondary science that emphasize a coherent three-year science curriculum beginning with physics. There are a growing number of schools introducing the new curricula inspired by his advocacy. Nobel autobiography Return to top of page
Prof. Riccardo Giaconni The Development of X-Ray Astronomy The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland	Nobel Laureate 2002 for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources. Born in Italy, Riccardo Giacconi earned his PhD in cosmic ray physics at the University of Milan. In 1959 he joined American Science and Engineering, a Massachusetts research firm, where he began work on X-ray astronomy. His team developed grazing incidence X-ray telescopes and launched them on rockets. In 1962 they discovered Sco X-1, the first known x-ray source outside the solar system. They then built the UHURU orbiting X-ray observatory and made the first surveys of the X-ray sky. Joining the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 1973, Giacconi led the construction and successful operation of the powerful X-ray observatory, HEAO-2, also known as Einstein, which made detailed images of X-ray sources. Professor Giacconi was the first director of the Space Telescope Science Institute from 1981 to 1993; from 1993-1999 he directed the European Southern Observatory; and in 1999 he became president of Associated Universities, Inc., the operator of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources. He has simultaneously held the position of professor of physics and astronomy (1982-1997) and research professor (since 1998) at Johns Hopkins University. Nobel autobiography Return to top of page
Prof. Francis Everitt Gravity Probe B: Testing Einstein in Space, A Marriage of Physics and Engineering Stanford University Stanford, California	C. W. Francis Everitt obtained his PhD in the University of London (Imperial College) in 1959 for research under P.M.S. Blackett on plate tectonics and the physics of rock magnetism. Among his discoveries was the fact that in Carboniferous times (300 million years ago), Britain was 10 degrees south of the equator. Everitt then spent two years at the University of Pennsylvania working on liquid helium and was responsible in collaboration with Kenneth Atkins and Arnold Denenstein for the experimental discovery of "third sound," a surface wave on superfluid helium films. In 1962, he joined William Fairbank and Leonard Schiff in the Stanford Physics Department as the first full-time research worker on the Gravity Probe B relativity gyroscope experiment. With Dan DeBra and Dick Van Patten of the Aero-Astro Department he was responsible for developing many of the basic technical ideas for the satellite concept. He is the long standing Principal Investigator of NASA’s Gravity Probe B Mission and of the joint NASA-ESA STEP program to perform a new very precise orbital test of the equivalence principle. He has been Adjunct Professor and subsequently Professor (Research) in the W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford since 1974. In addition to his interests in experimental gravitation, he has written extensively on the history of physics including articles about Fairbank, Schiff and the two London brothers, and is author of a standard biography, James Clerk Maxwell: Physicist and Natural Philosopher (Scribners 1975). Information Return to top of page
Prof. Lawrence Krauss Einstein's Biggest Blunder: A Cosmic Mystery Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio	Professor Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy, and Chair of the Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University. He is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests, including the interface between elementary particle physics and cosmology, where his studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He received his PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 then joined the Harvard Society of Fellows. In 1985 he joined the faculty of Physics at Yale University, and moved to take his current appointment in 1993. Professor Krauss is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prof. Krauss is the author of over 180 scientific publications, as well as numerous popular articles on physics and astronomy. In addition, he is the author of six popular books, including the national bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek, and his most recent book Atom: An Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth...and Beyond. He has lectured to popular audiences at such places as the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Natural History in New York, as well as serving on the boards of three different science and natural history museums, and appears frequently on radio and television around the world. Prof. Krauss is the recipient of numerous awards for his research, writing, and lecturing. These include the Gravity Research Foundation First Prize Award (1984), and the Presidential Investigator Award (1986). In February 2000, in Washington, D.C., Prof. Krauss was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science's 1999-2000 Award for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology , joining previous awardees Carl Sagan (1995) and E.O.Wilson (1994). In April 2001, he received the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society. The citation reads "For outstanding contributions to the understanding of the early universe, and extraordinary achievement in communicating the essence of physical science to the general public". In April 2001 the American Institute of Physics announced that Krauss had been awarded the 2001 Andrew Gemant Award, given annually to "a person who has made significant contributions to the cultural, artistic, or humanistic dimensions of physics". Previous awardees include Freeman Dyson, Steven Weinberg, and Stephen Hawking. In 2002 Krauss was awarded the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, for his book, "Atom". In June of 2003 he was awarded an honorary D.Sc. degree from Carleton University for his scientific contributions and his efforts to improve public understanding of science. In August of 2003 it was announced that Krauss had been awarded the Oersted Medal , the highest award of the American Association of Physics Teachers, for his contributions to the teaching of physics. Previous awardees include Richard Feynman, I.I. Rabi, Edward Purcell, and Hans Bethe. Krauss is the only physicist to have been awarded all three awards by the APS,AIP and AAPT. Information Return to top of page
Prof. David Goldhaber-Gordon Spins in Semiconductor Nanostructures Stanford University Stanford, California	David Goldhaber-Gordon is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Stanford University, where he is also Co-Director of the NSF-sponsored Stanford-IBM Center for Probing the Nanoscale. His research focuses on the strange ways electrons behave when they are squeezed into narrow wires or small boxes, with dimensions 1-100 nanometers. Goldhaber-Gordon received his PhD in1999 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for work done both at MIT and at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. He also holds a Master's in History of Science from Harvard. For two years prior to joining Stanford, Goldhaber-Gordon was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. For part of his time there, he took a break from electrons to explore the properties of ultrafine powders composed of submicron particles. He also served as Chocolate Steward for the Society. Goldhaber-Gordon is the lead author of a widely-cited review article on nanoelectronic devices for computing. In 1997, Goldhaber-Gordon discovered that the Kondo effect, a classic behavior of metals with magnetic impurities, can also be observed in a "single-electron transistor" -- a specially designed semiconductor nanostructure. For this work, which has since been confirmed and extended by researchers worldwide, Goldhaber-Gordon received the inaugural (2002) George E. Valley Prize of the American Physical Society, which recognizes an outstanding physicist under the age of thirty. Other honors include the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2001), Air Force Office of Scientific Research PECASE Award (2002) and the McMillan Award of the University of Illinois (2002). Information Return to top of page
Prof. Em. Gerald Smith Antimatter: History, Science, and Unsolved Problems Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania	Dr. Smith is a native of Ohio, and received his BA in physics (magna cum laude) from Miami University (Ohio) in 1957. He received his MS (1958) and PhD (1961) in physics at Yale University. He is a second-generation graduate student of Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi, and spent his early post-doctoral years (1961-66) serving as Assistant Professor of Physics under Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1968 he created a high-energy physics research program at Michigan State University, where he was on the faculty until 1882. While on leave he served as Associate Laboratory Director for High Energy Physics at the Argonne National Laboratory in 1978. In 1983 he became Director of the Laboratory for Elementary Particle Science and Physics Department Head at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Smith was Principal Investigator and spokesperson for several major national and international collaborations involving university groups working at Brookhaven National Laboratory, CERN, Fermilab and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He has over 300 journal-refereed publications, 200 invited papers, lectures, seminars and colloquia and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Dr. Smith designed and oversaw the successful development of two antiproton traps, the Mark I portable Antimatter Trap built for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the High Performance Antimatter Trap (HiPAT) for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Dr. Smith became Professor Emeritus from Penn State in 2000. In 2001 Dr. Smith founded Positronics Research LLC (PRLLC), a small business in Santa Fe, NM that develops solutions to national security and other problems. Present clients include the US Air Force (USAF) and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Emphasis is on development of novel high-density storage devices for positrons, the anti-electron. Applications include utilization of positrons for propulsion, micro-energy storage, nuclear medicine, sensors and destruction of chemical and biological agents. Information Return to top of page
Prof. John Dicello Biophyscial Processes Leading from Radiation Exposures to Cancer The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, Maryland	John F. Dicello is Professor of Radiation Oncology and Professor of Oncology at the School of Hygiene and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He received his B.S. in Physics from St. Bonaventure University in 1960; his M.S. in Physics from the University of Pittsburg in 1962 and his PhD in Physics from Texas AandM University in 1967. From 1967 to 1973 he served as a Faculty Associate at Columbia University. Professor Dicello’s research and professional positions include: 1962-1963: Instructor, St. Bonaventure University, NY, Department of Physics; 1963-1967 AEC/AWU Graduate Fellow, Texas AandM University, Department of Physics; 1967-1973: Faculty Associate, Columbia Univ., NY, Dept. of Radiology, Radiological Research Laboratories; 1973-1982: Research Scientist, Biomedical Group. Univ. of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM. ;1981-1982: Teaching Faculty, Univ. of New Mexico, Los Alamos Campus, NM. ;1982-1995: Professor, Clarkson University, NY, Dept. of Physics.; 2003-present: Professor of Radiation Oncology, Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine; 1995-present: Professor of Oncology, Johns Hopkins Univ. The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center; 1997-present: Joint Appt. in the Dept. of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Hygiene and Public Health. Professor Dicello is a member in the following Professional Societies: Radiation Research Society since 1970, Editorial Board and Associate Editor (1991-95); American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) since 1971, Leader, Basic Physics, and Past Member of the Steering Committee, for NIH-funded Task Group #20, Past Secretary-Treasurer of Rocky Mountain Chapter; American Physical Society (Biological and Particle Beam Divisions), since 1962; American Cancer Society since 1978, past Member of the Board of Directors of New Mexico Division of the American Cancer Society, Chapter President and Vice-President; Proton Therapy Cooperative Group, since 1986; Sigma Xi Research Honor Society since 1986, past Chapter President (two terms), past Chapter Vice-President; National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements since 2000, Council Member; Panel member of NRC Board of Assessment of NIST Programs for the National Research Council/National Academies of Sciences since 2001. Dr. Dicello has over 30 years of research experience in radiation research as well as radiation standards and intercomparisons. Most of these 30 years include clinical trials, in-vitro radiobiology and in-vivo radiobiology, as well as the first biomedical studies, preceding those at the Berkeley Bevalac, with HZE particles. He is a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Units and served as a member of the task group on hazards to crews in space for the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Information Return to top of page
Prof. Richard Lieu The Era of Observational Cosmology: Does General Relativity Really Work So Well on Hubble Scales? University of Alabama in Huntsville	Richard Lieu is Professor of Physics at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. His degrees of higher learning were all obtained at Imperial College London, with BSc, DIC in Physics, and PhD in X-ray astronomy. In 1981 he joined the University of Calgary (Canada) as a Postdoctoral Fellow, and in 1985 returned to Imperial College to work on the EUV camera aboard ROSAT. In 1991 he became part of the EUVE team at UC Berkeley, and in 1995 came to Huntsville as Faculty. Lieu worked on many areas (theoretical and observational) of high energy astrophysics, including the quantum electrodynamics of strong (pulsar) magnetic fields, acceleration of cosmic rays in relativistic shocks, and the first EUVE source catalog. His most notable achievement is the discovery in 1995 of a new (soft X-ray and EUV) emission component in clusters of galaxies - a result which was subsequently confirmed by several satellite missions, including the recent XMM Newton observations which provided the clincher evidence that the originally detected signals are real. Recently Lieu's attention was directed at testing General Relativity and quantum gravity by means of the wealth of existing data from many astronomy missions. His findings are published (or about to appear) in five Astrophysical Journal papers.. Information Return to top of page
Prof. John G. Cramer The Blind Men and the Quantum: Testing Quantum Interpretations Washington University in Seattle Seattle, Washington	John G. Cramer is a Professor of Physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he leads a research program in ultra-relativistic heavy ion physics, participating in experiments at the RHIC facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory and at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland and. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His recent work had focused on Hanbury-Brown Twiss interferometry with pions and the solution to the “RHIC HBT Puzzle”. His transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics has become one of the leading alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation and has recently survived an experimental test that other interpretations have failed. Since 1984 John has written the bimonthly science-fact column, "The Alternate View" for Analog Science Fiction/Fact and recently submitted his 126th column. He has also written two hard SF novels, Einstein’s Bridge (Avon 1997) and Twistor (Morrow 1989). Reprints of John's Analog columns and selected physics publications, as well as information about his novels, can be found at his web site. Information Return to top of page
Prof. Mario Livio Cosmology and Life The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland	Dr. Mario Livio is a senior astrophysicist and former Head of Science Division at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the institute which conducts the scientific program of the Hubble Space Telescope. He received his PhD in theoretical astrophysics from Tel Aviv University in Israel, was a professor in the Physics Dept. of the Technion-Israel Institute of technology from 1981 till 1991, and joined STScI in 1991. Dr. Livio has published over 300 scientific papers and received numerous awards for research and for excellence in teaching. His interests span a broad range of topics in astrophysics, from cosmology to the emergence of intelligent life. Dr. Livio has done much fundamental work on the topic of accretion of mass onto black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs, as well as on the formation of black holes and the possibility to extract energy from them. During the past five years Dr. Livio's research focused on supernova explosions and their use in cosmology to determine the rate of expansion of the universe, and the nature of the "dark energy" that causes the cosmic expansion to accelerate. In addition to his scientific interests, Dr. Livio is a self-proclaimed 'art fanatic' who owns many hundreds of art books. Recently, he combined his passions for science and art in two popular books, The Accelerating Universe (Wiley and Sons, 2000), and The Golden Ratio (Broadway, 2002). The former book discusses 'beauty' as an essential ingredient in fundamental theories of the universe. The latter discusses the amazing appearances of the peculiar number 1.618... in nature, the arts, and psychology. Dr. Livio lectures very frequently to the public. He has given 14 full day seminars to the public at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and just during the past two years has given public lectures at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, the Library of Congress, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Berlin Planetarium, the Edinburgh Planetarium, and many more. Information Return to top of page
Prof. Don Q. Lamb Gamma Ray Bursts: The Most Brilliant Events in the Universe University of Chicago Chicago, Illionois	Don Q. Lamb is the Louis Block Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago. He received his B.A. in Physics (cum laude) in 1967 from Rice University, M. Sc. Physics in 1969 from the University of Liverpool, and PhD Physics in 1974 from the University of Rochester. He was on staff of the Department of Physics from 1973 to 1980, rising from Research Assistant Professor to Professor; was a Lecturer at the Department of Astronomy, Harvard University from 1980 to 1985; and simultaneously served as a Physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He joined the University of Chicago in 1985, serving as Chair of the Department of Physics and Astrophysics at the University from 1988 to 1991. Professor Lamb was the Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Marshall Scholar (1967-1969); NSF Predoctoral Fellow (1971-1973); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow (1978-1979); Fellow of the American Physical Society; and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, Royal Astronomical Society (London); International Astronomical Union; American Physical Society; Institute of Physics (London); and the European Physical Society. Professor Lamb’s current research interests include gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and galaxy clusters. He is the author of more than 300 papers, and co-editor of several books on theoretical astrophysics. He has made seminal contributions to stellar structure and evolution of white dwarfs and neutron stars, and to compact X-ray sources, especially magnetic white dwarfs and X-ray burst sources. He has developed powerful statistical methods based on Baynesian inference, and applied them to a variety of astrophysical problems. He helped found and continues to play an important role in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. He is Mission Scientist for the High Energy Transient Explorer-2 and a Swift Associate Scientist. He is also the Director of the DOE ASC/Alliance Flash Center at the University of Chicago. Information Return to top of page
Prof. Sylvester J. Gates Toward Space-time Technology for the Third Millennium University of Maryland, College Park	Professor Gates completed his undergraduate education (1969-1973) at MIT and received two BSc degrees (Mathematics and Physics). His PhD (1977, physics) was conferred for studies of elementary particle physics and quantum field theory. Thus, began his research into the topic known as “supersymmetry” with his thesis being the first devoted to this subject at MIT. His postgraduate studies started as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows (1977-1980) and ended with an appointment at Caltech (1980-1982). Faculty appointments began at MIT (1982-1984) and later continued at the University of Maryland at College Park (1984-present). From 1991-1993, he was on leave of absence and served as Physics Professor and Departmental Chair at Howard University. In July, 1998 he was named the first John S. Toll Professor of Physics and thus the first African-American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major research university in the U.S. Prof. Gates has authored or co-authored over 120 research papers published in scientific journals, co-authored one book (available as a PDF file - this is an extremely technical presentation for specialists, pp.568) and contributed numerous articles in others. His research, in the areas of the mathematical and theoretical physics of supersymmetric particles, fields and strings, covers topics such as the physics of quarks, leptons, gravity, super and heterotic strings and unified field theories of the type first envisioned by Albert Einstein. To date he has supervised 14 PhD students, including two African-Americans, to graduation. He began teaching, at first college undergraduates, in 1972 as a summer calculus instructor at MIT and has since taught mathematics or physics without interruption. The Washington Academy of Sciences named him as its 1999 College Science Teacher of the Year. He addresses issues of general education through lectures to groups interested in science and mathematics. Other lectures and writings discuss the challenge of technical educations for African-Americans and the issues of affirmative action, diversity and equity. Dr. Gates has served as a consultant for the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, the Educational Testing Service and Time-Life Books. He was chosen as the first recipient of the APS Bouchet Award and is a Fellow of the APS and NSBP. From MIT in 1997, he was bestowed with the Martin L. King, Jr. Leadership Award. He also has served on the executive board of the APS and was a member of the 62nd College of Distinguished Lecturers of Sigma Xi. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Quality Education for Minorities Network (QEM). Information Return to top of page
Dr. George F. Chapline Relativistic Stars: From White Dwarfs to Dark Energy Stars Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California	Dr. Chapline is a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He received his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology (CIT), Pasadena, in 1967. He was a teaching assistant and Assistant Professor at CIT in Santa Cruz until July 1969 when he joined LLNL. He received the U.S. Department of Energy E.O. Lawrence Award in 1983 and served as Science Advisor to the Associate Lab Director for Defense Programs at the Los Alamos National Labs in 2000 and 2001. His general research interests are quantum theory, astrophysics, and neural networks. Selected recent publications include; “Gossamer metals”, with D. Santaigo and Z, Nazario, Phil Mag, to appear “Quantum mechanics and pattern recognition”, Int J Quantum Information 2, 295 (2004) “Have nucleon decays been observed?”with J. Barbieri Phys Lett. B 590, 8 (2004) “Quantum Phase Transitions and the Failure of General Relativity” IJMP 18, 3587 (2003) “Transition from quantum to classical information in a superfluid” with A. Granik, Phys. Lett. A310, 252 (2003) “Formation and dynamics of a Schrodinger-cat state in continuous quantum measurement” with G. Berman et al, J of Physics A (to be published) “Magnetic-resonance force microscopy measurement of entangled spin states” with G. Berman et al, Phys Rev A 66, 32106 (2002) "Quantum Holograms" with A. Granik, in Holography for a New Millennium, ed. H. J. Caulfield (Springer-Verlag 2002) “Entangled states, holography, and quantum surfaces”, Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals 14, 809 (2002) “Quantum mechanics as self-organized information fusion”, Phil. Mag. B 81, 541 (2001) “Quantum phase transitions and the breakdown of classical general relativity” with R. Laughlin et al, Phil. Mag. 81, 235, (2001)
Dr. Joan Centrella Gravitational Waves: Cosmic Messengers NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland	Joan Centrella received her PhD from Cambridge University, where she was a student at the Institute of Astronomy. Following postdoctoral appointments at the University of Texas and the University of Illinois, she joined the faculty of Drexel University in the Physics Department. In 2001, she moved to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to join their newly-formed gravitational wave astrophysics group, where she leads their source modeling and numerical relativity effort in support of LISA. She is currently head of the Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory, which encompasses the gravitational wave and theoretical astrophysics groups at Goddard. Her research interests include black hole mergers, gravitational waves, numerical relativity, structure formation, and cosmology.