Gail McLaughlin
Bio
Professor McLaughlin received her PhD in 1996 from the University of California San Diego. She was a postdoctoral research associate first at the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington from 1996-1998, and then at TRIUMF from 1998-2000.
From 2000-2001, she was a research scientist at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. She joined NC State University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor, and became an Associate Professor in 2005.
Area(s) of Expertise
Professor McLaughlin works in the areas of nuclear and particle astrophysics. This includes neutrinos in astrophysical environments, both their effect on the environment as well as the potential for detecting the neutrinos which make their way to earth. It includes also element synthesis, the study of how neutrons and protons combine to make elements in particular astrophysical environments. She is known for her work on neutrino interactions during the formation of the rapid neutron capture elements, theoretical studies of the detection of supernova neutrinos, and work on theories which create a neutrino magnetic moment.
Publications
- HD 222925: A New Opportunity to Explore the Astrophysical and Nuclear Conditions of r-process Sites , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (2023)
- Superheavy Elements in Kilonovae , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS (2023)
- The Influence of beta-decay Rates on r-process Observables , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (2023)
- Neutrino flavor mixing with moments , PHYSICAL REVIEW D (2022)
- Searching for the origin of the rare-earth peak with precision mass measurements across Ce-Eu isotopic chains , PHYSICAL REVIEW C (2022)
- Solar data uncertainty impacts on MCMC methods for r-process nucleosynthesis , FRONTIERS IN PHYSICS (2022)
- Kilonovae Across the Nuclear Physics Landscape: The Impact of Nuclear Physics Uncertainties on r-process-powered Emission , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (2021)
- Markov Chain Monte Carlo Predictions of Neutron-rich Lanthanide Properties as a Probe of r-process Dynamics , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (2021)
- Modeling Kilonova Light Curves: Dependence on Nuclear Inputs , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (2021)
- Reconstructing Masses of Merging Neutron Stars from Stellar r-process Abundance Signatures , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (2021)
Groups
Honors and Awards
- She received an Outstanding Junior faculty Award from the Department of Energy, 2002-2007, and was also offered an NSF CAREER award in 2002. She has served on a number of committees which advise on policy nationally, such as the Nuclear Physics committee for Implementation the Long Range Plan, the committee which created the report "A Vision for Nuclear Theory", and the executive committee of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics. She is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society, Sigma Xi and AAAS. She is a member of the editorial board for Journal of Physics G.