HOME >> NEWS INDEX >> Profile
Bernie McNamara:
Regent’s professor looks to the sky for answers
Astronomer sets his sights on economic development
BYGABRIEL VASQUEZ
The Las Cruces Bulletin
Tucked away in a campus office, sitting amid a stack of textbooks, VHS tapes, computer equipment and model space shuttles sits New Mexico State University Regent’s Professor Bernie McNamara, still working diligently with his lifelong partner – the sky.
McNamara, a pioneer of NMSU’s Astronomy Department, has seen firsthand the evolution of the university’s now highly regarded space research program. From sharing an office with Pluto-discoverer Clyde Tombaugh in the ’70s to using the Hubble Space Telescope to research black holes in the new millennium, McNamara’s career has been nothing short of stellar.
“When I first came here, our observatories were up on A Mountain and at Blue Mesa and we had a staff of about six” said McNamara, who came to NMSU from California in 1975. “Now, we have one of the strongest research programs at NMSU, excellent faculty, researchers and teachers.
We cover the field of astronomy all the way from planets to cosmology.”
Over the years, McNamara has worked on several space missions including the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, Rosat, RXTE and the Hubble Space Telescope. He has published more than 60 refereed research articles and has written several books.
McNamara’s passion for the stars came at an early age. While he was growing up in Cherry Valley, Mass., he often frequented a local corner grocery store – not for eggs and milk – but to talk to one of the grocers, an amateur astronomer.
“As I delivered my newspapers, I always stopped to talk to him,” McNamarasaid. “That was one of the childhood experiences that really motivatedme.”
While attending high school, McNamara also participated in a National Science Foundation (NSF) space camp, which sent high school students to a university setting to study the stars.
“We were grouped into space biologists and space scientists,” he said. “I was a space scientist.”
When McNamara learned that stars could be mapped through the use of mathematics and computer modeling, “I was hooked,” he said. “I just thought that was unbelievable.”
McNamara earned a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from the University of Massachusetts, eventually moving on to pursue a master’s and Ph.D. in the same field at the University of California-Santa Cruz.
He got his first taste of the Southwest during a visit to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory near Nogales, Ariz.
“I worked there during the summeralone on top of a mountain,” he said. “I could remember nights hearing mountain lions roaring outside the door.”
In the ’70s and ’80s, McNamara worked on variable star research and stellar motion. In the ’90s, he worked on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory in an effort to learn more about the origin of gamma-ray bursts, the largest known explosions in the universe, he said.
“Throughout the entire decade, we coordinated a worldwide network of ground-based optical telescopes to look for these bursts,” he said. “We were trying to find the optical counterpart to these explosions. About a few dozen of them have been tracked, and they’re still being tracked today.”
Most recently McNamara has worked with researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Earth-orbiting Kepler Space Telescope to begin a search for planets around other stars and yield new insights into the parent stars themselves.
As a friend of the late Tombaugh, planetary research is something of special interest to McNamara, who took issue with the International Astronomical Union’s decision to demote Pluto from a “classical” planet to a dwarf planet.
“I don’t think the issue of whether Pluto is a planet is completely dead,” McNamara said.
“I’m not trying to say they didn’t have good reasons for questioning whether Pluto was a planet, I just thought the timing of it was extremely poor.”
McNamara said the IAU’s decision came at a hard time for Tombaugh, McNamara’s longtime colleague.
“I know it caused Clyde some distress near the end of his life – it was just unwarranted,” he said. “Especially because it was not and is not a burning issue for astronomers.”
McNamara added that attendance was poor at the IAU meeting in which the fate of Pluto was decided and did not necessarilyreflect the opinion of the entireastronomical community.
“It seems as though Pluto meets essentially all the traditional criteria for a planet, and in order for it to be disqualified, a somewhat bizarre property was added that was meant to exclude Pluto,” he said. “That’s not a scientific motivation to proceed with something like this. It’s a question of definition, and I think that definition is not yet settled.”
Pluto was demoted under the new definition because of its size and orbit beyond Neptune. It is now in a subcategoryof objects that could potentially havedozens of members.
Of more recent and pressing importance to McNamara is the possible relocation of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) to the NMSU campus, a move thatcould bring significant economic development to the area, he said.
“I think scientists, in general, are entrepreneurial,” he said. “We are visionary. We are always looking beyond what we already know. I like that attitude.”
The NSO’s primary goal is to study the sun and operates two facilities in Sacramento Peak, N.M. and in Kitt Peak, Ariz. McNamara said the NSO is planning to consolidate its facilities and operations and move to a permanent location embedded within an institution of higher learning.
McNamara, along with a group of educators and policymakers, is working to make sure NMSU has the best shot at acquiring the NSO facility, which could eventually be housed within the Arrowhead Complex, he said.
“The (NSO) is building a new telescope in Hawaii, and as a result will be consolidating its science and engineering staff,” he said. “They have been in New Mexico for at least 40 years, but it’s not clear that they’re going to continue to be here. That would be a real shame.”
He said NSO’s operation would be similar in size to NMSU’s College of Engineering.
“It could bring about 120 jobs to our area,”he said. “High-paying, stable jobs and a labor income of about $30 million over 5 years.”
He said the NSO center would also attract other high-tech companies to the area.
“We’re very excited about this, and we think our chances are very good,” he said. “Our competitors are Arizona, Colorado and California at the present time.”
McNamara added that a team would be sent to next year’s Legislative Session to seek support for the project.
“We’re working with (state) Sen.
Steve Fischmann to explore ways in which we might be able to do that,” he added. “Everybody realizes economic times are tough but these kinds of opportunities only come up once every few decades. We have been proactive with the university but we need state support as well.”
BERNIE MCNAMARA, regent’s professor, NMSU
Can't find what you're looking for? Try browsing the entire Las Cruces Bulletin by clicking
here!
