Friday, May 29, 2026

The MCSS Messenger

New and exciting activities in the
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences

Recent News From McDonnell Center Fellows

Buckley named Charles M. Hohenberg Professor of Experimental Physics

James Buckley has been named the Charles M. Hohenberg Professor of Experimental Physics in recognition of his distinguished achievements in research, teaching and service. He studies gamma-ray astronomy, cosmic rays and dark matter. He has played leadership roles in several major international collaborations, including VERITAS, the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System; ADMX, the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment; and ADAPT, the Antarctic Demonstrator for the Advanced Particle-astrophysics Telescope.

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The MCSS Messenger is always looking for community news to share. If your group has recent publications, conference presentations, fieldwork photos, student accomplishments, outreach activities, awards, or other updates, please send them along for consideration in an upcoming issue.

Summer may be quieter on campus, but exciting work continues across the MCSS community, and we’d love to highlight it.

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Recent Publications by McDonnell Center Fellows

Errando, M. (2025). X-ray polarization from relativistic jets – the blazar 1ES 1959+650 seen by IXPE. In Proceedings of Science (Vol. 482, p. 043).

GrandPre, T., et al. (2026). Extremal events dictate population growth rate inference. PLoS Computational Biology, 22(5), e1014088.

Jain, C., Solomatov, V. S., & McKinnon, W. B. (2026). Localized convection in Sputnik Planitia, Pluto. Geophysical Research Letters, 53(10).

Katz, J. I. (2026). Triaxial magnetars as sources of fast radio bursts. The Open Journal of Astrophysics, 9.

Mauceri, A. A., Hutchings, J. A., Konecky, B. L., et al. (2026). Selective accelerated solvent extraction method optimized for the sequential extraction and chromatographic separation of sedimentary plant wax and fire biomarkers. Organic Geochemistry, 218, 105211.

Qidiao, J., & Skemer, P. (2026). Microstructural evolution of Carrara marble with complex strain histories. Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth, 131(5).

Xie, J., Sankarasubramanian, S., Catalano, J. G., & Ramani, V. (2026). Decoupling the solubility of redox active species and the energy density of redox flow batteries using supersaturated, phase-change electrolytes. Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Baring, M. G., Chun, S., Gau, E., Hu, K., Krawczynski, H., Lisalda, L., Liu, B., Menon, S. V., Rauch, B., West, A.T., et al. (2026). Refined Constraints on the Hard X-Ray Polarization of the Crab Pulsar and Nebula Derived from an Extended XL-Calibur Dataset. The Astrophysical Journal, 1002(2), 222.

Bryk, A., Arvidson, R., Hughes, M.N., et al. (2026). Curiosity meets the Gediz Vallis Ridge: Remnants of a late-stage debris-flow dominated fan in Gale Crater. Icarus, 455, 117051.

Charity, R. J., Sargsyan, G. H., Launey, K. D., Webb, T., Brown, K., & Sobotka, L. G. (2026). Comparing invariant-mass spectroscopy of B 8 with ab initio predictions. Physical Review. C, 113(2).

Lodders, K., & Hazen, R. M. (2025). Goldschmidt’s geochemical classification of the elements: The evolution of a nuanced hypothesis. American Mineralogist, 111(5), 701–709.

Zhang, H., De Jonge, B., Errando, M., et al. (2026). Energy-dependent polarization angle variability as a robust diagnostic for Blazar flaring mechanisms. The Astrophysical Journal, 1003(1), 74.

Zhang, X. J., Parai, R., Barry, P. H., & Füri, E. (2026). Tracing deep Earth volatile heterogeneities with heavy noble gases in Réunion plume-influenced Central Indian Ridge basalts. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 686, 120038.

Upcoming Events

Halley's Spectacular 2061 Prospects

St. Louis Astronomical Society June Meeting
Joseph Marcus
Comet News Service - former editor
Friday, June 19
7:30pm, McDonnell 162

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McDonnell Center Contacts

Interim Director: William McKinnon
Associate Director: Michael Nowak
Assistant to the Director: Vickie Gee
Communications Specialist: Alison Verbeck

Compiled and edited by Alison Verbeck. Please send any contributions to alison@wustl.edu.

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