Department Chair Jeffery Blackmon Named to SEC Leadership Program for LSU

Jeffery Blackmon, Russell B. Long Professor of Physics and Department Chair, is one of four LSU faculty members to be named a SEC Academic Leadership Development Program (ALDP) Fellow. The SEC ALDP seeks to identify, prepare and advance academic leaders for roles within SEC institutions and beyond.

An experimental nuclear physicist, Blackmon studies nuclear reactions that are important for understanding astrophysical events like stellar explosions and the decays of short-lived atoms that influence nuclear reactor safety. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2012 and his research is supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science Office of Nuclear Physics.  

He has served in leadership positions within the scientific community, including on the U.S. Nuclear Science Advisory Committee and the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics. He served for eight years on the Steering Committee of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at LSU, including a term as Committee Chair. He was named Chair of the Department in 2020 and led the Department through its pandemic response. He developed the Department's Committee for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility and led the first strategic planning exercise for the Department in more than a decade. 

The SEC ALDP has three components, a university-level development program designed by each institution for its own participants (i.e., fellows); two SEC-wide three-day workshops held on specified campuses for all program participants; and a competitive fellowship designed to provide administrative growth opportunities for former fellows. 

Since its creation in 2008, more than 300 faculty and academic administrators have completed the SEC ALDP, and program alumni have become deans and provosts, among other senior-level positions, at universities around the SEC and country.

The other three SEC ALDP fellows from LSU are Tammy Dugas, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, School of Veterinary Medicine
Professor, Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences; Marwa Hassan, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Engineering, CETF Distinguished Professor; Jacobs Professor of Excellence, Director, Tran-SET Regional University Transportation Center; and Michael Pasquier, Associate Dean of Faculty and Research, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jaak Seynaeve Professor of Christian Studies, Professor of Religious Studies and History

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Contact:

Mimi LaValle

LSU Physics & Astronomy

225-439-5633

mlavall@lsu.edu