Skip to content.

Lynn Cominsky

Dr. Lynn Cominsky

Project Director - SSU E/PO
Professor/Chair - Department of Physics and Astronomy - Sonoma State University
Phone: 707-664-2655
Fax: 800-848-6369
E-mail: lynnc@universe.sonoma.edu
http://glast.sonoma.edu/~lynnc/
Dr. Lynn Cominsky joined the faculty at Sonoma State University in 1986; she has been a Professor of Physics and Astronomy since 1991 and Chair of the Department since 2004. In 1992, Dr. Cominsky began collaborating with scientists in the Particle Astrophysics group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and at Stanford University. When the Stanford-led Large Area Telescope was selected by NASA in 1999 to be the primary scientific instrument onthe Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly known as GLAST), Dr. Cominsky was chosen to lead the Education and Public Outreach program for the mission. She is also the E/PO lead and Press Officer for the Swift Gamma-ray burst mission, launched on November 20, 2004. In 2003, she took over as lead for the E/PO effort for the US part of ESA's XMM-Newton mission. More recently, Cominsky was asked to lead the E/PO program for the NuSTAR focusing hard x-ray mission, now in Phase B, with launch planned for 2011.

Dr. Cominsky has been a Guest Investigator on many X-ray and gamma-ray satellite experiments including: HEAO A-1, EXOSAT, ROSAT, RXTE and the BATSE, EGRET and OSSE experiments on board CGRO. Her observational goals have been to increase the understanding of the physics of mass transfer in neutron star and black hole X-ray binaries. Highlights of Dr. Cominsky's research career include the discovery of pulsations from the first X-ray transient shown to be in a binary system, the discovery of eclipses from an X-ray burst source, which revealed the first precise orbital period for a low mass X-ray binary, and the discovery of X-ray emission from the only radio pulsar in a binary orbit with a Be star.

For a decade, Dr. Cominsky volunteered time as the Deputy Press Officer for the American Astronomical Society. She remains active organizing press events for Swift, Fermi and occasional astronomical conferences. In these roles, she often interprets astronomical discoveries for the public via broadcast media. In 1993, Dr. Cominsky was named both SSU Outstanding Professor and California Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). In 2008, she was named a fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology and in 2009, she was named a fellow of the American Physical Society, by the Forum on Education.