Sultana Nurun Nahar is a

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

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physicist. She is a research scientist in the Department of Astronomy at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. Her research is on atomic processes of photoionization, electron-ion recombination, photoexcitation, collision. Her contributions include development of the unified method for total electron-ion recombination, theoretical spectroscopy for Breit-Pauli R-matrix method, resonant nano-plasma theranostics (RNPT) method for cancer treatment.

Education and career

Nahar completed her undergraduate education in Physics and M.Sc. in

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

at the

University of Dhaka The University of Dhaka (also known as Dhaka University, or DU) is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the oldest university in Bangladesh. The university opened its doors to students on July 1st 1921. Currently i ...

, and earned an M.A. in Quantum Optics and Ph.D. in

Atomic Theory Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient philosophical tradition known as atomism. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter a ...

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

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. She is an author of the textbook ''Atomic Astrophysics and Spectroscopy'' (Cambridge UP, 2011), along with Anil K. Pradhan.

Research interests

Nahar has published extensively on radiative and collisional atomic processes in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, including Photoionization, electron-ion recombination, photo-excitations and de-excitations, and electron-ion scattering. She has also worked on dielectronic satellite lines, theoretical spectroscopy, and computational nanospectroscopy for biomedical applications. She is a member of the international collaborations, "Opacity Project" and "Iron Project," to study radiative and collisional atomic processes and calculate accurate atomic parameters for astrophysically abundant atoms and ions.

Awards

She was elected as a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

in 2006, for "seminal contributions to studies of photoionization and recombination of multicharged atomic systems fundamental to atomic physics and plasma physics and pioneering calculations of remarkable complexity on astrophysically significant processes". In 2013 she won the

John Wheatley Award The American Physical Society gives out a number of awards for research excellence and conduct; topics include outstanding leadership, computational physics, lasers, mathematics, and more. ;David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials ...

of the American Physical Society "for efforts to promote physics research and teaching through collaboration, mentoring, and philanthropy in several third-world countries, and in particular for her promotion, as both an advocate and role model, of Muslim women scientists".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nahar, Sultana N. University of Dhaka alumni Bangladeshi physicists Bengali physicists Bengali astronomers Bangladeshi astronomers Women astronomers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)