Baalrud earns prestigious NSF CAREER Award for research and museum project

Monday, February 16, 2015

Scott BaalrudScott D. Baalrud, Assistant Professor in the University of Iowa Department of Physics & Astronomy, has won a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is the NSF's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research.

Baalrud's project is titled, "Transport Phenomena in Ultracold Neutral Plasmas," and includes a complementary outreach program that will introduce the public to plasma physics through an interactive "What is Plasma" demonstration. The demonstration will be an integral part of a larger exhibit on the history of space science at the University of Iowa to be displayed in the UI Old Capitol Museum, and later as a traveling exhibit in the UI Mobile Museum.

The total amount of the grant over the project's five-year period is estimated at $550,000.

Baalrud earned his doctoral degree in Engineering Physics in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and joined the UI in 2013. He leads the Fundamental Plasma Theory Group, which conducts research in basic and applied plasma physics.

The Department of Physics & Astronomy is part of the UI College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.