SU endowed professor elected to international physics institute council

Stephen C. McGuire, the Southern University James and Ruth Smith Endowed Professor of Physics, has been elected to the Edward Bouchet-Abdus Salam Institute (EBASI) Council of the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).

In McGuire’s appointment letter, EBASI chair Milton Dean Slaughter stated “It is very clear that your goals for United States of America science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational systems enhancement and Sub-Saharan Africa's future Stephen C. McGuire               scientific, technological, and human infrastructural development are commensurate with the goals of EBASI. Furthermore, your presence on the EBASI Council would greatly increase the probability that EBASI would achieve more of its mission objectives in a shorter time frame.”

Founded in 1988, the Institute is named after Edward Alexander Bouchet and Nobel laureate Abdus Salam.  Bouchet is the first African American and the first known person of African descent to earn the Ph.D. degree in physics, awarded to him by Yale University in 1876.  Salam shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contributions to the electroweak unification theory.  He is the founder of the ICTP.

The EBASI Executive Body is composed of African Council members, American Council members, the administrative officer, and one ICTP representative.

McGuire has been a contributor to the EBASI since 1988 when he served on the Advisory Committee for the first EBASI meeting held at the ICTP in Trieste, Italy.   Subsequently, he has participated in meetings held on the African continent in Ghana, Botswana, and Benin.  Over this period he has reported on his research activities in areas of relativistic cosmic-ray collisions, industrial and agricultural uses of radiation and radioisotopes and, most recently, investigations of optical materials for applications in gravitational-wave detection.

At SU, professor McGuire serves as the principal investigator for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and directs the Southern University-LIGO Advanced Optical Materials Laboratory on campus.  He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and his research is funded by the National Science Foundation.