Sherry J. Yennello is an American nuclear chemist and an Elected Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. She is a

Regents Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

and the holder of the Cyclotron Institute Bright Chair in Nuclear Science, who currently serves as the Director of the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University. She is also a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

. She has authored as well as co-authored more than 530 peer reviewed journal

articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...

and has conducted many invited talks, presentations and seminars at several prestigious academic conferences and scholarly lectures.

Education

Professor Yennello received a B.S. in

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

in 1985, following which she also received a B.S. in Physics in 1986. She continued her education with her Ph.D. studies in Nuclear Chemistry at Indiana University, where she also worked as an Associate Instructor. She completed her doctoral studies in 1990, and began her career as a post-doctoral Research Associate at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

Professional career

In 1993, she joined Texas A&M University, College Station as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Her significant contributions to research and academia during her tenure at Texas A&M, led her to serve as the Program Director for Nuclear Physics for the National Science Foundation, for a period of two years from 2000 to 2002. She was appointed as an Associate Dean for Diversity for the College of Science at Texas A&M University in 2004, following which she also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs (2008 - 2014) and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives (2016 - 2018) for the same. She was awarded the title of

by Texas A&M University in 2007. In 2014, she was named the Director of the Cyclotron Institute, which is a

U.S. Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. ...

University Facility at Texas A&M, jointly supported by DoE and the State of Texas. Over the years, she has supervised and been a research adviser to more than 80 students, including post-doctoral research fellows, graduate and undergraduate students.

Research Interests

Dr. Yennello's research interests include accelerator based heavy-ion reactions to study the dynamics and thermodynamics of excited

nuclear matter Nuclear matter is an idealized system of interacting nucleons (protons and neutrons) that exists in several phases of exotic matter that, as of yet, are not fully established. It is ''not'' matter in an atomic nucleus, but a hypothetical sub ...

and elucidate the nuclear equation of state, particularly the density dependence of the symmetry term, which has implications for the formation of

elements Element or elements may refer to: Science * Chemical element, a pure substance of one type of atom * Heating element, a device that generates heat by electrical resistance * Orbital elements, parameters required to identify a specific orbit of ...

and other astrophysical processes. The Yennello Research Group focuses on further constraining this density dependence using heavy-ion collisions. Utilizing the K500 and K150 cyclotrons, heavy-ion projectiles are accelerated to up to 40% the speed of light and collided with stationary targets. These reactions are important for studying structure, chemical composition, and the evolution of neutron stars and dynamics of supernovae explosions.

Awards

Dr. Yennello's contributions to the domain of nuclear physics and chemistry has been well acknowledged internationally, and she has been the recipient of several prestigious awards and honors over the span of her career. Some of the prominent awards received by her are listed below: * GE Foundation Faculty for the Future Award, 1993 * Oak Ridge Associate Universities Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, 1993 *

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...

Young Investigator Award, 1994 * TAMU Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar, 1995 * Sigma Xi National Young Investigator Award, 2000 * University Faculty Fellow, 2000 * Women’s Spirit Month Award, 2002 * Fellow,

, Elected 2005 *

, 2007 * Association of Former Students Distinguished Award for Teaching – College Level, 2008 * ACS Francis P. Garvan – John M. Olin Medal, 2010. * Outstanding Mentoring Award, Women’s Faculty Network, 2010 * Fellow, American Chemical Society, Elected 2011 * Association of Former Students Distinguished Award for Teaching – University Level, 2012 * Fellow,

, Elected 2013 * Bright Chair in Nuclear Science, 2014 * APS Division of Nuclear Physics Mentoring Award, 2017 * Texas A&M University ACE Award, 2017 * Texas A&M College of Science LEAD Award,https://advance.tamu.edu/7-6-2017-dr-yennello-has-been-awarded-the-2017-college-of-science-leadership-in-equity-and-diversity-award/ 2017

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yennello, Sherry Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 21st-century American physicists Texas A&M University faculty Indiana University alumni Michigan State University alumni