Benedictine University

MSI, PUI, Liberal Arts College

Matthew Wiesner

mwiesner@ben.edu

Benedictine University is a small university near Chicago and situated in Lisle, Illinois, about equidistant between Fermilab and Argonne National Lab. We are a very diverse school and are classified as a minority serving institution. Faculty in physics regularly collaborate at both nearby national laboratories; cross-curricular partnerships are also quite common at Benedictine. We have a small physics program as well as a partnership with Illinois Institute of Technology that attracts a number of engineering students to our 3/2 engineering program. Physics majors are required to complete undergraduate research and are encouraged to present and publish their work. Students in other majors also frequently participate in astronomy research for interest and to gain experience in the field. We have several telescopes on campus. Dr. Matthew Wiesner leads efforts in astrophysics research at Benedictine; he has been a member of the LSST-DESC since 2015, working especially on DC1 and DC2 and on strong gravitational lensing. His group is also now involved with calibration efforts for the Rubin commissioning team and also works on gravitational wave follow-up efforts with the Dark Energy Survey Gravitational Wave Collaboration. Hosting a Fellow at Benedictine would allow the Fellow to get to know our students and faculty and to see the advantages and challenges of research and teaching at a small liberal arts institution. It would also provide a huge benefit to our students to be able to collaborate with one of the LSSTC Catalyst Fellows.

https://ben.edu/degree-programs/physics/

 

 

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