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Shelly Lesher

Pronouns: she/her/hers
Professor
Physics University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

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Shelly Lesher Pronouns: she/her/hers

Professor

Physics

Specialty area(s)

Experimental Nuclear Physics
Physics and Society
Mentor training

Current courses at UWL

Note: I am currently on leave from UWL.

 

Education

Ph.D. Nuclear Physics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
B.A. Physics, Indiana University South Bend, South Bend, IN

Career

Teaching history

@ UWL
PHY 103 / PHY 103L - Fundamental Physics (general education category GE05)
PHY 125 / PHY 125L - Physics for the Life Sciences (general education category GE05)
PHY 142 - Navigating Global Nuclear Issues  (general education category GE04)
PHY 311L - Experimental Physics
PHY 343 - Thermodynamics
PHY 376 / PHY 376L - Intro to Nuclear Science
PHY 386 - Radiation Physics
PHY 497 - Physics & Astronomy Seminar
PHY 498 - Nuclear Physics Research

@Yale
PHYS 296 - Impact of the Atom (Seminar)

@University of Richmond
PHYS 127 - Algebra-Based General Physics 1 (Workshop format)

Professional history

Prior to joining the Physics Department at UWL I held Postdoctoral Fellowship positions at the Instituut voor Kern- en Stralingsfysica, University of Leuven, Belgium, the University of Richmond, and N-Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. Since 2010 I have been a Guest Professor in the Physics Department at the University of Notre Dame. For the Academic Year 2019/2020 I was on sabbatical at Yale University as a Presidential Visiting Fellow and Visiting Associate Professor in Physics. 

I serve as the Director of the Conference Experience for Undergraduate (CEU) program for the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) as part of the American Physical Society (APS) and was elected to the DNP Executive Committee for a two-year term starting in 2023. In 2020 I was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. 

At UWL I have been chair of the Physics Department since In 2021. 

From 2021 - 2024 I served as the Director of the UWL McNair Scholars Program.

Research and publishing

My research involves studying the vibration of nuclei using a combination of accelerated beams and detector arrays at research laboratories around the world. To further these goals, our group is collaborating with the University of Notre Dame Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics (ISNAP), to build our own detector array, the La Crosse fIREBAll. This detector will measure conversion electrons in coincidence with gamma rays at ISNAP on nuclide we have interest in studying.

All of my research involves UWL undergraduates. The La Crosse fIREBAll requires students to develop the detectors and software needed to operate the array. Most other projects involve data analysis. 

Some undergraduate students are involved in My Nuclear Life, a podcast which explores the ways nuclear science and society intersect.

Current work is supported by two National Science Foundation Grants, Nos. PHY-1919364 and PHY-2011267.

Publications:

Google Scholar link.      Research Gate Link

(selected publications) UWL undergraduate students underlined

Transformation of ICEBall to fIREBall for conversion electron spectroscopy
Kevin Lee, Christina Dulal, Wanpeng Tan, Armen Gyurjinyan, Ethan Sauer, Shelly Lesher, and Ani Aprahamian, Nucl. Inst. Meth A 1052, 168288 (2023).

Lifetime measurements of 0+ states in 168Er with the Doppler-shift attenuation method
S.R. Lesher, A. Aprahamian, K. Lee, B. Alemayehu, L.M. Clark, X. James, J.C.T. Lowrie, M. Meier, L. McEwan, S. Mukhopadhyay, E.E. Peters, A.P.D. Ramirez, M. Ryan, B.G. Rice, A. Stratman, E. Temanson, J.R. Vanhoy, and S.W. Yates, Phys. Rev. C 106, 044302 (2022).

Lifetime measurements in 156Gd
A. Aprahamian, R.C. de Haan, S.R. Lesher, C. Casarella, A. Stratman, H.G. Börner, H. Lehmann, M. Jentschel, and A.M. Bruce, Phys. Rev. C 98, 034303 (2018).

Lifetime measurements of low-spin negative parity levels in 160Gd
S. R. Lesher, C. Casarella, A. Aprahamian, L.M. Robledo, B. P. Crider, R. Ikeyama, I. R. Marsh, M. T. McEllistrem, E. E. Peters, F. M. Prados-Estevez, M. K. Smith, Z. R. Tully, J. R. Vanhoy, S. W. Yates, Phys. Phys. Rev. C 95, 064309 (2017).

Lifetime measurements in 162Dy
A. Aprahamian, S.R. Lesher, C. Casarella, H.G. Borner, M. Jentschel, Phys. Rev. C 95, 024329 (2017).

Collectivity of 0+ states in 160Gd
S. R. Lesher, C. Casarella, A. Aprahamian, B. P. Crider, R. Ikeyama, I. Marsh, M. T. McEllistrem, E. E. Peters, F. M. Prados-Estevez, M. K. Smith, Z. R. Tully, J. R. Vanhoy, S. W. Yates, Phys. Rev. C 91, 054317 (2015).

Signatures of the Z = 84 Shell Closure in α-Decay Process
A. N. Andreyev, M. Huyse, P. Van Duppen, C. Qi, R. J. Liotta, S. Antalic, D. Ackermann, S. Franchoo, F. P. Hessberger, S. Hofmann, I. Kojouharov, B. Kindler, P. Kuusiniemi, S. R. Lesher, B. Lommel, R. Mann, K. Nishio, R. D. Page, B. Streicher, S. Saro, B. Suligano, D. Wiseman, R. A. Wyss, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 242502 (2013).

STARS/LiBerACE: Segmented silicon and high-purity germanium detector arrays for low-energy nuclear reaction and structure studies
S.R. Lesher, L. Phair, L.A. Bernstein, D.L. Bleuel, J.T. Burke, J.A. Church, P. Fallon, J. Gibelin, N.D. Scielzo, and M. Wiedeking, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, 621, 286 (2010).

Kudos

presented

Shelly Lesher, Physics, presented "Inclusive Mentoring Practices" at the Heavy Ion Seminar on March 22 in Argonne National Laboratory.

Submitted on: Mar. 23, 2024

served

Shelly Lesher, Physics, served as chair of Workforce and DEI Chapter. On Wednesday, Oct. 4, the Nuclear Science Advisor Committee submitted their report to the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, culminating a year-long community-wide engagement activity. This Long-Rang Plan gives the agencies a 10-year roadmap of the vision of nuclear science for the future.

Submitted on: Oct. 9, 2023

presented

Shelly Lesher, Physics, presented "Collectivity in Dysprosium" at International Symposium on Capture Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy July 21, in Grenoble, France.

Submitted on: July 24, 2023

published

Theodore Kim, Yale University and Shelly Lesher, Physics, co-authored the article "No, AI is most certainly not the new Manhattan Project" in The OpEd Section published on Thursday, July 20, by The San Francisco Chronicle.

Submitted on: July 20, 2023

presented

Shelly Lesher, Physics, presented "Communication on Nuclear Topics and Challenges to Public Perception" at Council on Ionizing Radiation Measurements and Standards Annual Meeting on April 19 in Washington, DC. as the closing Keynote speaker.

Submitted on: April 25, 2023

published

Shelly Lesher, Physics, authored the article "Lifetime measurements of 0+ states in 168Er with the Doppler-shift attenuation method" in Physical Review C published on Oct. 7 by American Physical Society. This paper was published with five UWL undergraduate student authors.

Submitted on: Oct. 9, 2022

Important links