Department Chair Jeffery Blackmon Named to SEC Leadership Program for LSU
Jeffery Blackmon, Russell B. Long Professor of Physics and Department Chair, is one of four LSU faculty members to be named a SEC Academic Leadership Development Program (ALDP) Fellow. The SEC ALDP seeks to identify, prepare and advance academic leaders for roles within SEC institutions and beyond.
An experimental nuclear physicist, Blackmon studies nuclear reactions that are important for understanding astrophysical events like stellar explosions and the decays of short-lived atoms that influence nuclear reactor safety. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2012 and his research is supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science Office of Nuclear Physics.
He has served in leadership positions within the scientific community, including on the U.S. Nuclear Science Advisory Committee and the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics. He served for eight years on the Steering Committee of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at LSU, including a term as Committee Chair. He was named Chair of the Department in 2020 and led the Department through its pandemic response. He developed the Department's Committee for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility and led the first strategic planning exercise for the Department in more than a decade.
The SEC ALDP has three components, a university-level development program designed by each institution for its own participants (i.e., fellows); two SEC-wide three-day workshops held on specified campuses for all program participants; and a competitive fellowship designed to provide administrative growth opportunities for former fellows.
Since its creation in 2008, more than 300 faculty and academic administrators have completed the SEC ALDP, and program alumni have become deans and provosts, among other senior-level positions, at universities around the SEC and country.
The other three SEC ALDP fellows from LSU are Tammy Dugas, Associate Dean for Research
and Graduate Education, School of Veterinary Medicine
Professor, Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences; Marwa Hassan, Associate
Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Engineering, CETF Distinguished Professor; Jacobs
Professor of Excellence, Director, Tran-SET Regional University Transportation Center;
and Michael Pasquier, Associate Dean of Faculty and Research, College of Humanities
and Social Sciences, Jaak Seynaeve Professor of Christian Studies, Professor of Religious
Studies and History
###
Contact:
Mimi LaValle
LSU Physics & Astronomy
225-439-5633
mlavall@lsu.edu
Latest Department of Physics & Astronomy News
- Fox Foley Captures Fantastically Small Images at ORNLFox Foley, a PhD student in the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy, recently received the KC Donnelly Externship Award to do research at the Center for Nanoscale Materials Science at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
- Beatriz Elizaga Navascués Awarded Bronstein PrizeBeatriz Elizaga Navascués, originally from Madrid, Spain, joined LSU’s Hearne Institute of Theoretical Physics last year to work with professors Jorge Pullin and Ivan Agullo and continue a promising line of research—using observations of extreme and enormous phenomena, such as the beginning of the universe and black holes, to improve our understanding of physical forces and matter on an atomic level.
- Mette Gaarde Named LSU Distinguished Research MasterMette Gaarde, the Les and Dot Broussard Alumni Professor in the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy, has been recognized for her scholarship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Each year, LSU's Office of Research & Economic Development honors the exceptional research and scholarship of two LSU faculty as Distinguished Research Masters.
- NASA Space Mission Named for the Late LSU Professor Arlo LandoltLandolt Mission will launch artificial star into Earth's orbit seeking to uncover the secrets of dark energy.
- Two LSU Physics Alumni Receive NSF GRFPJeanne Garriz and Madison LeBlanc, both 2022 LSU BS in Physics alumni, have been awarded the prestigious and highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship that supports outstanding graduate research across the country.
- PhD Alumnus Dimitrios Kranas Receives 2024 Distinguished Dissertation Award in STEMThe LSU Alumni Association 2024 Distinguished Dissertation Award in Science, Engineering and Technology has been awarded to Dimitrios Kranas from Thessaloniki, Greece, who joined LSU and the Hearne Institute of Theoretical Physics under the mentorship of Associate Professor of Physics Ivan Agullo in 2018.