Rebecca A. Surman is an American theoretical physicist known for her research on nucleosynthesis, the processes that created the atoms in the universe, and particularly on the r-process for creating heavy atomic nuclei in high-energy cosmic events including supernovae, black hole collisions, and gamma-ray bursts. She is a professor of theoretical nuclear physics and astrophysics at the University of Notre Dame. [1]
Surman graduated summa cum laude from the State University of New York at Geneseo in 1993, with a bachelor's degree in physics. After earning a master's degree at Michigan State University in 1995, she completed a doctorate in 1998 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998, under the supervision of Jonathan Engel. [2]
She joined the Union College faculty in 1998 as a visiting assistant professor, and obtained a regular tenure track position in 2000, and was promoted to full professor in 2011. After several terms as a visiting professor at North Carolina State University and the University of Notre Dame, she moved to Notre Dame in 2014, taking a step down in rank to become an associate professor. Notre Dame promoted her to full professor again in 2018. [2]
Surman was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2016, after a nomination by the APS Division of Nuclear Physics, "for contributions in elucidating r-process nucleosynthesis, in particular for connecting microphysics such as mass models and reaction rates to astrophysical environments, and for guiding the experimental efforts worldwide on deciding the most impactful nuclei to study at exotic nuclear beam facilities". [3]
Witold (Witek) Nazarewicz is a Polish-American nuclear physicist, researcher, and educator. He is a John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in Physics and Chief Scientist at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University, and a Professor at the University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics.
Carlos A. Bertulani is a Brazilian and American theoretical physicist and professor at the department of physics of the Texas A&M University-Commerce. He graduated, PhD, at University of Bonn and works on nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics. He was formerly a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro from 1980-2000.
Gerald Edward Brown was an American theoretical physicist who worked on nuclear physics and astrophysics. Since 1968 he had been a professor at the Stony Brook University. He was a distinguished professor emeritus of the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University.
Friedrich-Karl "Friedel“ Thielemann is a German-Swiss theoretical astrophysicist.
Wick C. Haxton is an American theoretical nuclear physicist and astrophysicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley and senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was appointed a co-editor of the journal Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science as of 2023.
Hendrik Schatz is a professor of Nuclear Astrophysics at Michigan State University. He earned his Diploma from the University of Karlsruhe in 1993, and his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1997 after completing his thesis work at the University of Notre Dame. He is one of the Principal Investigators for the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics and is a leading expert on nuclear astrophysics,. Schatz also serves the science advisory committees for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams and GSI. Hendrik's primary field of expertise is Type I X-ray Bursts. His most notable contribution to this field is the discovery of the SnTeSb-cycle. Hendrik was featured in Science magazine November 22, 2002 for his work on experimental nuclear astrophysics. Hendrik has also contributed to Physics Today.
Gail Catherine McLaughlin is an American nuclear astrophysicist specializing in astrophysical neutrinos and the r-process for nucleosynthesis. She is Distinguished University Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University.
John William Negele is an American theoretical nuclear physicist.
Ulrich Mosel is a German theoretical physicist, professor emeritus at Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany
Ani Aprahamian is a Lebanese-born Armenian-American nuclear physicist. She has taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1989. She is currently Freimann Professor of Physics at Notre Dame. She has been director of the Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory in Armenia since April 2018, the first woman to hold the position.
Marianna S. Safronova is an American scientist involved in theoretical atomic physics.
Bunny Cowan Clark was an American nuclear physicist and a professor of physics at Ohio State University. She attended Kansas State University for both her bachelor's and master's degrees. She earned her doctorate in physics from Wayne State University in 1973.
Snezhana I. Abarzhi is an applied mathematician and theoretical physicist specializing in the dynamics of fluids and plasmas and their applications in nature and technology. Her research has revealed that instabilities elucidate dynamics of supernova blasts, and that supernovae explode more slowly and less turbulently than previously thought, changing the understanding of the mechanisms by which heavy atomic nuclei are formed in these explosions.Her works have found the mechanism of interface stabilization, the special self-similar class in interfacial mixing, and the fundamentals of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities.
Nancy Haegel is an American electrical engineer, materials scientist, and solar power researcher, known for her work on semiconductors and large-scale photovoltaic energy systems. Other topics in her research include imaging electronic processes and detecting nuclear radiation. Formerly a distinguished professor of physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, she is the director of the Materials Science Center in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and a director of the Research Corporation.
Calvin Rudolph Howell is an American physicist and professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Charlotte Elster is a German-American theoretical nuclear physicist whose early work made significant contributions to the formulation of the Bonn potential for the nuclear force, in joint work with Ruprecht Machleidt and Karl Holinde. In later research, she has developed methods for supercomputers to model few-body systems, including light nuclei. She is a professor of physics at Ohio University.
James Wellington Truran Jr. was an American physicist, known for his research in nuclear astrophysics.
Michael C. F. Wiescher is a German-American experimental nuclear physicist and astrophysicist, known for his laboratory research in nuclear physics connected with various astrophysical phenomena such as stellar evolution and explosion environments.
George Michael Fuller is an American theoretical physicist, known for his research on nuclear astrophysics involving weak interactions, neutrino flavor-mixing, and quark matter, as well as the hypothetical nuclear matter.
Carla Fröhlich is a Swiss and American nuclear astrophysicist whose research has included the neutrino p-process for nucleosynthesis in supernovae, and the study of multi-messenger astronomy. She is a professor of physics and University Faculty Scholar at North Carolina State University.