Prof. Bing Zhang received a 3-year NASA grant.

The NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (ADAP) program allocated Dr. Zhang a total budget of $378,244 for his proposal entitled "Understanding GRB physics with multi-wavelength data", which will allow Zhang's team to study several aspects of GRB physics, including the jet composition, energy dissipation mechanism, radiation mechanism, progenitor, and central engine, all using multi-wavelength data provided by NASA missions Fermi and Swift.

Former undergraduate student Jason Jaacks is headed to UT Austin!

Jason Jaacks has been a star undergraduate student working in Prof. Nagamine's group, having just submitted his third research paper for publication. He was the subject of a feature article written by Shane Bevell. He graduated in December and is off to UT Austin for graduate school in astrophysics.

Robert Thompson finishes his PhD and moves on to University of Arizona.

Combining passion for astronomy and a knack for computational science, Robert Thompson, who just became Dr. Thompson this month, completed his bachelor's, Master's, and doctoral degrees at UNLV. He completed his MS and PhD theses under Prof. Nagamine, studying galaxy formation and the large scale structure of the universe. Next month he will move to Tucson to begin postdoctoral research under Romeel Dave at UofA, which has a world renowned astrophysics department. In the second year of his postdoc he will relocate to South Africa to finish his postdoc at the University of The Western Cape.

Prof. Ken Nagamine was awarded the Chandra theory grant.

A research grant of $67,631 is awarded by the NASA Chandra program to Dr. Nagamine.  This grant is for support of the project entitled, “Discriminating different AGN feedback models with multi-scale hydrodynamic simulations."

Prof. Daniel Proga was awarded an HST theory grant.

A research grant of $70,894 was awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, AURA to Dr. Proga. This grant is for support of the project entitled “Thermal and Dynamical Models of Broad Line Regions in AGN - Testing Virial Estimators of Black Hole Masses.”

Russell Frank Astronomy Lecture Series is born!

Dr. Russell Frank has donated $25,000 to UNLV to establish a public astronomy lecture series. To commemorate the establishment of the series, we are inviting Prof. John Johnson from Caltech, a leader in exoplanet research, to give the first talk. A new speaker will be invited every semester, so be sure to keep an eye on our department news! Recorded talks will appear on our public outreach page.

Flying Apple succeeds in another balloon launch!

You might remember that one of our recent Ph.D. graduate, Dr. Amanda Maxham, who is currently teaching AST104 as a visiting faculty, also operates Flying Apple Space Technologies, and her team has succeeded in capturing the video from one of their first few space balloon launch at Nipton, NV back in December 2011. Check it out!