Alumni in the News

Wonder what your fellow graduates are up to? Below are some of the recent headlines UNO grads are making.

 

See our Archive for past Alumni in the News.

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Australia's chief scientist 

 

Ten years ago, the UNO Alumni Association told graduates how Penny Sackett had been seeing stars — and lots of them.

 

Now she's become a star.

 

Omaha World-Herald columnist Mike Kelly in October profiled the 1978 UNO graduate, announcing her new post as chief scientist of Australia. Sackett, notes Kelly, is the first woman to hold the job and was selected after a six-month search. She will advise the government on scientific and technological issues.

 

Sackett previously was director of the Australian National University Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories. Prior to that she was an assistant professor at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

 

The Association featured her in a 1998 publication on outstanding graduates called Profiles. Sackett was a four-year dean's list honoree at UNO who graduated summa cum laude and was named both outstanding mathematics and physics student. She received her master's degree and doctorate in physics from Pittsburgh.

 

Sackett taught at Pittsburgh from 1978 through 1993, during which time she also put in a year with the National Science Foundation as program director with the Astronomical Sciences Division. She also was a research member and fellow at the University of Princeton's School of Natural Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies. She took her post in the Netherlands in 1995.

 

See more on UNO Alum Penny Sackett in the News via a Q&A interview conducted by ABC Sydney at http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/10/03/2381204.htm

 

Reada Wikipedia entry on Sackett at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Sackett

 

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