SC State awarded $1.27 million for four-year astrophysics research project

ORANGEBURG, S.C. – South Carolina State University has been awarded nearly $1.27 million by the National Science Foundation to continue research and education in astrophysics. 

Three SC State faculty members -- Dr. Donald Walter and Dr. Jennifer Cash in physics and Dr. Reginald Williams in education -- will lead the four-year project, which includes partnerships with astronomers at Clemson University, the University of the Virgin Islands and Villanova University.

Walter, the principal investigator and SC State’s physics academic program coordinator, oversees all aspects of the project including monitoring the success of the multiple partnerships and collaborative research.

“This important award allows SC State to continue over 25 years of funded astrophysical research,” Walter said. “Our students and faculty will be a part of the exciting future of astronomy, using cutting-edge facilities on the ground and in space along with our partners at other institutions.”

This partnership will benefit all the institutions through sharing resources, exchanging personnel and engaging students and faculty in the exciting field of time domain, multi-messenger astronomy. This includes follow-on imaging of supernova events and studying the centers of active galaxies powered by supermassive black holes.

Additional collaborators from the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile will assist in training students and faculty in preparation for the next great leap forward in ground-based astronomy. SC State faculty and students will be involved in analyzing large astronomical data sets that require advanced computing and image processing procedures. The skill sets acquired will carry over to any career field the students chose after graduation.

SC State faculty and students will continue to use the 1.3-meter telescope at the Kitt Peak Observatory, 50 miles west of Tucson, Arizona. The Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT) has been a part of the university’s astrophysical research program for nearly 20 years. SC State co-manages the RCT with Western Kentucky University and Villanova. The RCT’s observations will be coordinated with the University of the Virgin Islands’ telescope plus Clemson’s telescopes in the Canary Islands, Chile and Arizona. This will provide continuous observation of objects in the night sky as they move nearly 100 degrees in longitude while spanning seven time zones. 

Cash, a professor of physics, is a co-principal investigator who will lead the SC State-Villanova collaboration using the large data sets of stellar light curves returned by the Rubin Observatory which should be fully operational during the second year of the project. In the meantime, she and her colleagues will be preparing faculty and students using existing data from other telescopes while training with the software used with the upcoming Rubin data.

“I'm excited about the work we're going to be able to do under this award which expands our astrophysics research capabilities and gives our students hands-on experience in big data,” Cash said.

Williams, acting director of assessment in the SC State College of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences and a  professor of early childhood education, is the astrophysics project’s evaluator. He oversees the assessment of the project participants’ success and the quality of the research and learning environment for students and faculty.

“Few things are more rewarding than ensuring that programs focused on the STEM sciences are palatable to each kind of student,” Williams said. “I am humbled and blessed to be a part of this extraordinary project.”