Assistant Research Scientist Scott Bounds is serving as the principal investigator for the Aurora Current and Electrodynamics Structures II (ACES II) mission, which launched rockets from Andøya Space in Norway on Nov. 20, 2022. The NASA-funded project measured the global electric circuit underlying the Northern Lights. 

Women in physics have been grossly underrepresented for decades, but a recent conference hosted by the UI Department of Physics and Astronomy, a program housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is working to help change that.  The American Physical Society selected Iowa to host a regional Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, or CUWiP. The January 20-22 event brought dozens of undergraduates from the UI and other Midwest colleges and universities to Iowa City to learn about the industry, how to get involved in research, and best practices for applying to graduate school.  

Undergraduate students from across the United States came to campus last July, enticed by the prospect of stewarding a mission to explore Earth or space. The students were the first group to enroll in a new class, called the Edge of Space Academy, offered by Iowa as another marker of its living, breathing legacy in space-based research.

The Space Telescope Science Institute has awarded Assistant Professor Keri Hoadley $24,799 for a project entitled “Jets and disk scattering - Spatially resolved optical and FUV observations of AA Tau.” The award is for a Hubble Space Telescope program to analyze new far-ultraviolet and optical observations of a protostar hosting a planet-forming disk, analogous to the one formed in our own Solar System.

The University of Iowa Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics Jan. 20-22. The UI conference is sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS) 12 other universities and one laboratory across the United States.

Chris Piker, Senior Database Administrator, was profiled in the January 2023 UI Staff Council newsletter.

George McCrory, a longtime communications professional for the UI, currently working in the Physics and Astronomy Department, splits his time between his work at Iowa and giving back to his community.

Dale Stille has been selected to receive a $500 Mary Louise Kelley Professional Development Award to attend the 2023 American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) conference.

The Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) is presenting its 2023 Early Career Award to Professor James W. R. Schroeder of Wheaton College, who received his PhD in physics from the University of Iowa. The award recognizes Prof. Schroeder’s experimental confirmation of the acceleration of auroral electrons by Alfvén waves in the laboratory.

Prof. Mary Hall Reno has been named the new Departmental Executive Officer of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, effective Jan. 1, 2023.