Sonoma State Professor Lynn Cominsky has been awarded the distinction of Fellow by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, for her outstanding contributions to space education.
The Sigma Xi Fellow distinction recognizes selected members who have made significant contributions in research and development, outreach, teaching and curricular innovation, mentorship, leadership, and/or science advocacy.
Cominsky has been a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer since 2023. She and other members named to the 2024 Fellows cohort will be celebrated at the International Forum on Research Excellence (IFoRE) in Washington, D.C., November 14-17, 2024.
“I am thrilled to be recognized by Sigma Xi, as I have been a member since receiving my Ph.D. in Physics from MIT in 1981,” Cominsky said. “It has been an honor to be a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer for the past year and I look forward to becoming more actively involved again in this society in the future.”
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). She is the author of over 225 research papers in refereed journals, has given over 160 conference presentations, and has presented over 200 invited lectures.
Cominsky has been a member of the Sonoma State faculty for nearly 40 years and chaired the Physics and Astronomy Department for 15 years. She also briefly chaired the Chemistry Department. In 1993, she was named SSU's Outstanding Professor and the California Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Other notable 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 1999, Cominsky founded and is Director of SSU’s EdEon STEM Learning, whose mission is to develop curricula that inspires students – from kindergarten through college – to pursue STEM careers, to train teachers nationwide in the use of these materials, and to enhance science literacy for the general public. EdEon has a special focus on increasing the numbers of underrepresented students in STEM.
Cominsky has been principal or co-principal investigator on over $43 million in grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education.
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 U.S. portion of the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite.
From 2015-2020, Cominsky was a co-investigator for NASA's Universe of Learning, the goal of which is to improve astrophysics education for learners of all ages. In 2021, she originated NASA's Neurodiversity Network (N3), whose goal is to provide a pathway to NASA participation and STEM employment for neurodiverse learners.
“To that 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 said.
Funded by a $3-million U.S. Department of Education (ED) grant in 2013, Cominsky led the development of an integrated CSTEM (Coding + STEM) ninth-grade physical science curriculum called Learning by Making (LbyM). Expansion of LbyM into Southern California was made possible by a second, $4-million ED grant awarded to Cominsky and EdEon Associate Director Laura Peticolas. With 10 years of data on LbyM’s success rates, the Education Department awarded $7.9 million to Peticolas and Cominsky to extend the project through a new initiative, STEMACES (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Computing Education Support). STEMACES is being designed for eighth-graders and their teachers, includes schools in California and Texas, and has the potential to serve thousands more rural and underrepresented students.
Selected as one of the first 200 Legacy Fellows named by the American Astronomical Society, Cominsky has also been named Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology (2007), American Physical Society (2009), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013), and the California Academy of Sciences (2017). She has served on the Roseland Charter District School Board and the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP) and continues to lead its Gravitation Section.
Cominsky graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Brandeis University in 1975. She earned a Ph.D. from MIT in 1981.