astronomy

Robin Selinger

Robin Selinger is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Robin Selinger rather than just read about it. In short: Robin Lillian Blumberg Selinger (née Blumberg) is an American materials scientist. She is professor of physics at Kent State University and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute.

Key takeaways

Robin Selinger belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Robin Selinger to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Robin Selinger from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Robin Lillian Blumberg Selinger (née Blumberg) is an American materials scientist. She is professor of physics at Kent State University and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute. In 2016, Selinger became the first female Kent State University faculty member to be elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Early life and education Robin Lillian Blumberg was born to parents Elliott and Louise Blumberg in Arlington, Texas, United States. Growing up, her family attended Congregation Beth-El (Fort Worth) where she was one of the first girls to celebrate a bat mitzvah. As a high school student at Fort Worth Country Day School, Selinger received a four-year corporate-sponsored National Merit scholarship after scoring high on standardized tests. Following high school, Selinger enrolled at Harvard-Radcliffe College for her undergraduate degree in Physics. She remained at Harvard University for her graduate degrees in the same field. While completing her studies, Selinger received the Zonta International Club's Amelia Earhart Award and the National Science Foundation Fellowship Award. Her PhD thesis, which was completed under the guidance of Bertrand Halperin and H. Eugene Stanley, was entitled Physics of disordered media: Aggregation and diffusion. Following her PhD, Selinger completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Maryland, and National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Career Following her postdoctoral work, Selinger joined the physics faculty at the Catholic University of America in 1995 and then spent a sabbatical at the United States Naval Research Laboratory from 2002 to 2003. While at CUA, she earned a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her project Evolution of Dislocation Microstructures which ran from 1997 to 2000. She then moved to Kent State University as a full professor in 2005. As a professor at Kent State, Selinger co-hosted the Ohio STEM Project Fair which engaged high school students in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. She was also the Founding President of The Northeast Ohio STEM Alliance and served as a consultant to the Educational Testing Service for the Physics Graduate Record Examinations and Praxis General Science Examination programs. Later in her career, Selinger helped develop the Liquid Crystal Institute's Master of Science in Liquid Crystal Engineering to explore the "application of liquid crystal engineering in addition to the fundamentals of liquid crystal technology." In 2016, Selinger became the first female faculty member at Kent State University to be elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). She was recognized for her "fundamental contributions in theory/simulation of materials, focusing on liquid crystals, polymers and lipid membranes" and her outreach activities. Following this, she was among eight researchers who published findings that demonstrated the potential application of photoactive films in light-driven locomotion and self-cleaning surfaces. Selinger was elected to the APS Council of Representatives beginning in 2019 and served as Speaker of the Council in 2022. In January 2020, Selinger was elected to a three-year term on the APS Board of Directors.

Personal life Selinger and her husband Jonathan are active members of Temple Beth Shalom in Hudson, Ohio; she is the cantorial soloist while he is past-president of the congregation. They have two adult children.

References

External links Robin Selinger publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Robin Selinger

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Robin Selinger claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Robin Selinger before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Robin Selinger ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Robin Selinger

In research: Robin Selinger appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Robin Selinger in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Robin Selinger is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American materials scientists, Catholic University of America faculty, Fellows of the American Physical Society, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Robin Selinger outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Robin Selinger in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Robin Selinger means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Robin Selinger out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Robin Selinger in simple terms?

Robin Lillian Blumberg Selinger (née Blumberg) is an American materials scientist. She is professor of physics at Kent State University and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute.

Why does Robin Selinger matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Robin Selinger?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Robin Selinger.