Profile
Mark D Leising
Physics and Astronomy
Professor
864-656-7137
Kinard Lab 112 [Exhibition]
Kinard Lab 216 [Office]
Kinard Lab 303 [Office]
Educational Background
B.S., Physics, University of Notre Dame
M.S., Space Physics & Astronomy, Rice University
Ph.D., Space Physics & Astronomy, Rice University
Profile/About Me
Mark Leising has been on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Clemson since 1991. He served as department Chair from 2011 to 2016, and as Interim Dean he led the construction of the new College of Science from departments in agriculture and engineering from 2015-2017. He has directed Clemson astronomy labs and the Clemson Planetarium since 1994. He has a B.S. in physics from the University of Notre Dame (1982) and a M.S. and Ph.D. (1987) in space physics and astronomy from Rice University.
Prior to joining the Clemson faculty he was an astrophysicist for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (1988-91) and a research associate for the National Research Council/Naval Research Lab (1986-88). While at Clemson, he has taken leave to work at other institutions including the Max Planck Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik in Germany as a Humboldt fellow and the Observatoire du Midi- Pyrenees /CESR in Toulouse, France.
Among research highlights, he and collaborators made the first detections of radioactive debris in a supernova explosion, calculated gamma-ray emission from classical nova thermonuclear explosions, produced an early map of electron-positron annihilation from the Milky Way galaxy, improved measurements of the MeV cosmic background radiation, and he predicted the detectability of supernova radioactivity in X-rays, which has since been realized. He has directed the disertations of numerous Ph.D. graduates, and M.S. and B.S. students.
Research Interests
Astronomy and Astrophysics:
Radioactivity from supernovae and classical novae. Interstellar electron-positron annihilation; X-ray and gamma-ray spectroscopy of radioactivity from explosive nucleosynthesis events. Co-Investigator of the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), a NASA gamma-ray telescope mission planned for launch in 2027, and of other instruments proposed to NASA and ESA.
Courses Taught
2022-2023: Quantum Mechanics, PHYS 4550, PHYS 4560, PHYS H4550, PHYS H4560, PHYS 6550, PHYS 6560
