Stories

Rhiannon Mayne, curator of the Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Collection and Gallery, shares her expertise with ABC News about the highly anticipated Geminid meteor shower, which peaks this weekend and promises to deliver a dazzling celestial display.

When she’s not researching computational biophysics, viral infections or cancer, TCU physics professor and department chair Hana Dobrovolny can be found skating on the ice.

Zygmunt (Karol) Gryczynski, Ph.D., and TCU students Danh Pham ’28 and Rajveer Sagoo ’26 earn prestigious recognition with their paper on luminescence, featured as the front cover of the Luminescence Journal.

TCU’s youngest undergraduate is about to be its youngest Ph.D.

In the lab, TCU physics professor, Zygmunt (Karol) Gryczynski, focuses on fluorescence spectroscopy, biomedical diagnostics, forensic, drug development/delivery, and nanophotonics. In his free time, however, Gryczynski is a pickleball phenom. He shares a little about his journey in the sport.

A few months ago, residents of Starr County reported a loud blast accompanied by a streak of fire falling from the sky. A meteor traveling nearly 30,000 mph with energy equal to eight tons of TNT landed on a remote ranch near El Sauz, Texas. It was reported that the entire Rio Grande Valley, all the way into Mexico, heard and felt the shock from sonic booms.

After two years of being shut down due to COVID, the Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Gallery once again opens its doors. Visitors to the Monnig can once again learn how to identify a meteorite, enjoy hands-on encounters with different types of meteorites, create their own terrestrial impact crater, and have an “out-of-this-world” experience.

Being well established in fluorescence technology, Zygmunt Gryczynski, TCU’s W.A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Chair of Physics, got involved in probe development and their application to cancer imaging, cancer detection, DNA detection, protein detection, and diagnostic assays, such as the COVID PCR test that is based on fluorescence. With TCU having one of the most advanced fluorescence labs in the world, Gryczynski shares how research being done on campus can lead to significant medical breakthroughs.

Doug Ingram, senior instructor in TCU’s department of physics and astronomy, answers questions about the reinvigorated fascination with space travel and why he thinks the United States will ultimately win the race to the moon.