Barbara Szczerbinska is currently an Assistant Professor of Physics at Dakota State University in Madison, SD. She has been working at DSU, College of Arts and Sciences since summer 2006. Barbara received her PhD in Physics with an emphasis in theoretical nuclear physics from the University of South Carolina (USC) in Columbia, SC in 2006. Prior to that, Barbara spent 18 months working at the Institute of Nuclear Physics (present Polish Academy of Science) in Krakow, Poland. She also holds a MS in theoretical physics from University of Wroclaw (UW) in Wroclaw, Poland.
Barbara’s current research interests focus on neutrino-nucleus cross sections relevant to atmospheric and long baseline experiments. She works on this subject together with world known researches in the field: Prof. Kuniharu Kubodera from University of South Carolina, Columbia SC, Prof. Harry Lee from Argonne National Laboratory, Batavia, IL and Prof. Toru Sato from Osaka University, Japan. She is also a member of Homestake-DUSEL Collaboration (Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory) which includes several in and out of state universities, Berkeley National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Barbara’s other responsibilities at DSU are related to teaching and service to the university and the community. She teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in physics – general physics, classical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum physics etc. She supervises Women in Science and Technology organization which focuses on female students in all science and technology programs offered at the university. She helps the students to organize field trips (for example upcoming trip to Homestake Mine where students will be able to meet with several scientists from in and out of state, visit the mine, meet with the director of the lab, learn about the history and future opportunities of the mine), bring guest speakers (scientists from other universities, national labs, Europe). Barbara helps students to develop their internship opportunities at different research institutions and look for graduate programs after the graduation. Many of these activities are covered by American Association of University Women and NASA Space Grant – both lately awarded to Barbara.
