Jacqueline McShan, a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has received an Iowa Space Grant Consortium (ISGC) Graduate Fellowship for a research project entitled “Calibrating RR Lyrae Stellar Parameters." McShan is working with Assistant Professor David Nataf on the project. The main goal of this endeavor is to find the zero-point anchor for metal-poor RR Lyrae by correlating their observed metallicities from spectral data with their predicted metallicities from their photometric light curves

The University of Iowa has won nearly $1.5 million to expand its materials science center and to explore new ways to leverage materials for quantum technologies. The award from the U.S. Department of Defense will unite researchers in chemistry, engineering, and physics to investigate which materials can be combined to build light- or electronic-based quantum systems. Ravitej Uppu, John Prineas, and Thomas Folland are co-principal investigators on the award.