2024 FELLOWS

Lynn Cominsky

Lynn Cominsky is an award-winning Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Sonoma State University (SSU), where she has been on the faculty for nearly 40 years. She received a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT in 1981, and a B.S. magna cum laude in Physics from Brandeis University in 1975. Cominsky is an author on over 225 research papers in refereed journals, over 160 conference presentations and has given over 200 invited lectures. She was chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department from 2004 to 2019: she also briefly chaired SSU's Department of Chemistry from August 2005 to January 2007 and Fall semester 2018.

Highlights of Cominsky's research career in high-energy astrophysics include the discovery of pulsations from the first transient x-ray source (Cominsky et al. 1978), the first discovery of eclipses in an accreting low-mass x-ray binary system (Cominsky and Wood 1984), and the first discovery of x-ray emission from a radio pulsar (Cominsky, Roberts and Johnston 1994).

In 1999, Cominsky founded EdEon STEM Learning, formerly called the Education and Public Outreach group at Sonoma State University. She is EdEon's Director and Principal or Co-investigator on over $43 million in grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Education. She is also the final technical reviewer for all EdEon educational products. EdEon's mission is to develop exciting formal and informal educational materials to inspire students in grades 5-14 to pursue STEM careers, to train teachers nationwide in the classroom use of these materials, and to enhance science literacy for the general public with a special focus on increasing the numbers of under-represented students.

EdEon's largest NASA-funded project was the Education and Public Outreach program for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission. Launched on June 11, 2008, Fermi (formerly known as GLAST) is a space mission that uses silicon strip detectors to observe cosmic gamma-radiation from objects such as pulsars and quasars in the energy range 10 MeV - 300 GeV. Cominsky's group also led the Education and Public Outreach team for the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission, launched on November 20, 2004. In 2003, Cominsky assumed the lead for the outreach effort for the US portion of the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite. From 1999-2005, Cominsky was also the principal investigator and faculty advisor for the North Bay Science Project, a California Science Project site located at SSU. Other major projects developed by the SSU E/PO group include an online Cosmology curriculum for undergraduates (Big Ideas in Cosmology), and several different projects in which secondary and college students built small payloads for launch on high-powered or model rockets, drones and balloons (including Small Satellites for Secondary Students and Rising Data). Cominsky is also a scientific co-investigator on the Fermi, Swift NuSTAR missions, and a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. From 2012-2014, the SSU E/PO group developed an educator's guide for the NuSTAR mission. In 2013, Cominsky's students participated in designing, building and the successful operation of SSU's first CubeSat, T-LogoQube. A subsequent CubeSat, EdgeCube, launched in 2019, was not as successful, as communications were not established after the boost to orbit.

Starting in 2013, and in partnership with SSU's Early Academic Outreach program led by Susan Wandling, Cominsky's group began to develop an integrated CSTEM (Coding + STEM) ninth-grade physical science curriculum called "Learning by Making." During the first five years of the project, the curriculum was piloted with high-needs rural high schools in Mendocino county. The project was extended in 2018, and expanded to include a few non-rural schools and schools in Southern California. In 2024 the project, led by EdEon Associate Director Dr. Laura Peticolas, received expanded funding to continue similar work with rural middle schools in California and Texas. External evaluation of Learning by Making has shown that engaging in the curriculum leads to improved science and mathematics learning.

Cominsky also led an NSF project "Teaching Einstein's Universe to Community College students" which developed two on-line courses aimed at lower-division physics instructors about the science of LIGO. These courses also provide resources for instructors to use in their calculus-based introductory physics classes, an educator's guide for middle-school students and a narrated video explaining the details of the LIGO instrumentation.

From 2015-2020, Cominsky was a co-investigator on NASA's Universe of Learning, one of the first cohort of Science Activation projects chosen by NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The goal of NASA's Universe of Learning is to improve astrophysics education for learners of all ages. In 2021, Cominsky originated NASA's Neurodiversity Network (N3), which was selected as one of SciAct's second cohort of projects. N3's goal is to provide a pathway to NASA participation and STEM employment for neurodiverse learners, with a focus on those on the autism spectrum. To this end, we have provided summer internships for over 70 high school students, and have redesigned NASA educational activities to better include learners on the spectrum.

Cominsky has been a member of many different advisory committees, including the Chandra User's Group, the Structure and Evolution of the Universe Subcommittee of NASA's Space Sciences Advisory Committee, and the LIGO Program Advisory Committee. She has served on the executive committees for the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society, and for the Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society, and chaired the APS California-Nevada Section (now known as the Far West Section). For a decade, she was the deputy press officer for the American Astronomical Society, and she continues as a press officer for both the Fermi and Swift missions. In these positions, she often interprets astronomical discoveries to the public. Recent committee work includes being a member of the NSF's Third Generation GW Detector Advisory Committee and a co-chair of NASA's Bridge Program DEIA Committee. Cominsky has also served on the Roseland Charter District School Board and the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She continues to lead the Gravitation Section and is member of the Board of Directors for the Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP).

In 1993, Prof. Cominsky was named SSU's Outstanding Professor, and the California Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 2007, she was named a Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology, in 2009, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and in 2013, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Additional awards include the 2016 Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the 2016 Wang Family Excellence Award from the California State University and the 2017 Frank J. Malina Education Medal from the International Astronautical Federation. In 2019, she was selected as one of the first 200 Legacy Fellows named by the American Astronomical Society.

On Sigma Xi:
I was inducted into Sigma Xi when I finished my Ph.D. in Physics at MIT in 1981. When I was hired into a faculty position at Sonoma State University in 1986, I tried to revive the local Sigma Xi chapter for a few years, but ultimately was not successful. I sponsored an undergraduate student for a Sigma Xi Research award in 1990, Francis Moraes, “Geometric Modeling of X-ray Pulsations." However, I remained inactive in Sigma Xi until 2022 when I applied to become a Distinguished Lecturer and was accepted for 2023-2025. Since that time I have given several lectures to groups in Michigan and New Mexico and locally in Northern California and through teleconferences.

2024 FELLOWS

Lynn Cominsky

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