Faculty

Professor Nelson received his Ph.D. in 1984 in the area of theoretical astrophysics (cannibalistic binary interactions). He subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT (Center for Space Research) that led to pioneering work on the structure and evolution of a completely new class of substellar objects known as Brown Dwarfs. From 1986-1988 he was a research fellow at CITA (Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics). He joined the department of physics at Bishop's as an Assistant Professor in 1988 and became a Full Professor in 1998. In 1995 he won the Chancellor's Prize for teaching and he is currently a Canada Research Chair in Astrophysics.

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Professor Edery is an Associate professor in the Department of Physics since July 2007. He completed a B.Sc. in Physics at McGill University, a Master's degree in Theoretical Nuclear Physics at Queen's University and a Ph.D. (1998) at the Université de Montréal in the area of Gravitation and Field theory. He was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and then worked in Maryland for a NASA GSFC contractor on the lunar trajectory design of the WMAP mission and other NASA satellite missions. In spring 2008, he was awarded a five-year grant by NSERC for his project entitled Conformal anomaly in the gravitationally coupled magnetic monopole and vacua effects under external conditions.

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Dr. John Emerson joined the physics department in 1999 and brings a wealth of teaching experience to us having spent nearly 25 years teaching physics for Champlain College (located on the campus of Bishop's University). He received his Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Michigan and switched into low-temperature superconductivity research while completing his PhD in applied physics at Cornell. He subsequently became enthralled with astrophysics and has become an expert on the subject. He also runs the Physics Help Centre where students can get expert tutorial help when solving their assignment problems or in reviewing their course notes.

Valerio Faraoni earned a BSc in Physics (Laurea in Fisica) at the University of Pavia, Italy, and an MSc and PhD (1991) in Astrophysics under the supervision of Prof. George F.R. Ellis at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy (www.sissa.it). He has held various research and teaching appointments at the University of Victoria, B.C., the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India, the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and the University of Northern British Columbia. He came to Bishop's University in 2005, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the physics department.

Jim began work at Bishop's in January 1980, after spending several years in the armed forces and in industry. Since arriving here, there has been a huge change in laboratory equipment and procedures. Computers have enabled better collection and analysis of lab data, and yet basic principles often rely on classical equipment and techniques. It has been Jim's job to keep the equipment in top shape, and help with the transition to the newer methods of data collection. Jim's private interests include flying, hiking, golf, curling, skiing, reading, playing the accordion, and maintaining email correspondence with his family and friends.

Dr. Patrick Labelle initially joined Bishop's in 1996 as an assistant professor in the department of physics. He is a native of Quebec and completed his BSc at Laval before traveling to Cornell University to complete his PhD in the area of quantum electrodynamics. He has published many papers in theoretical physics, especially in particle physics. He has also supervised a number of our Honours students' thesis dissertations (Renormalization of the Quark Mass in Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics, Bosonic String Theory).

Dr. Turcotte completed his BSc in physics in 1988 at the Universite de Montreal, and later received his MSc and PhD (1997) from the same institution. For his doctoral research, Sylvain worked with Dr. Georges Michaud on the diffusion of metals in stellar atmospheres. Before arriving at Bishop's in 2003, Sylvain was a postdoctoral fellow at the Theoretical Astrophysics Center (Denmark), the CEA-Saclay (France) and Lawrence Livermore Labs where he worked on the structure of 3-D hydrodynamic models of stars. He has currently been using the FLASH (nuclear-hydrodynamic) computer code to model the effects of the explosion of white dwarfs on their companion stars (Type Ia Supernovae).