Jessica Rosenberg, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, scored another hit for the College of Science faculty when she was named a recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award last fall. It is the fifth CAREER Award captured by faculty members in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in recent years. She’ll be using the five-year NSF grant of $869,000 to recruit and train future science teachers — in particular, physics teachers. Rosenberg says,“Physics teachers tend to be in short supply.”

“Jessica is a brilliant observational astronomer,”says department chair Michael Summers.“Mason is extremely fortunate to be able to recruit scientists of her caliber, both for the research expertise she brings to the university and for the opportunities she provides for student research projects.”

Rosenberg plans to use a process she participated in at the University of Colorado while doing post-doctoral work.The process calls for recruiting gifted undergraduate students who show potential as science teachers and involving them with small study groups of fellow students to make introductory science courses more compelling and interactive.

Other plans include hiring at least one student per summer who is on track to get a teaching certificate to help with research and to translate that research into a teaching model. She says,“It is useful for classroom teachers to understand what research entails if they are going to work with students and try to explain science to them.” Currently Rosenberg has five undergraduate students working on various research and collaborative projects.

The prestigious NSF CAREER Award also contains a research component. Rosenberg’s research will focus on combining and cataloging two previously separate types of recorded data on thousands of galaxies, which will facilitate other scientists’ research.

The most recent addition to the physics department faculty, Rosenberg helps quell the concern about the lack of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs because she is an active researcher who understands the challenges facing women entering scientific studies. She holds a doctoral degree in astronomy from the University of Massachusetts and a bachelor‘s degree in physics and astronomy from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Rosenberg always has been interested in the planets and space and claims her role model in high school was a“fabulous”woman physics teacher who had a doctoral degree in nuclear chemistry.