American University Annual Report 2016-2017

IN BRIEF
SUCCESSES
AU Team
on Nobel
Physics Project
An AU research team, led by
physics professor Gregory Harry,
contributed to what the Royal Swedish
Academy called “a discovery that shook
the world.” The academy awarded the Nobel
Prize in Physics to the architects of LIGO, the
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory,
for discovering gravitational waves, or ripples in spacetime,
a century after Einstein predicted their existence
in his General Theory of Relativity. Members of the LIGO
Scientific Collaboration, AU researchers helped fine-tune the
instrument. Said Harry, “The detection of gravitational waves
marks the beginning of a new way of observing the universe.”
SPA Team Wins
Mock Trial Invitational
SPA’s Mock Trial team won the Great American
Mock Trial Invitational. Only the top 24 teams in the
country attend the prestigious tournament, which
head coach Don Martin likened to Wimbledon or the
Kentucky Derby. The win was that much sweeter
given the field of powerhouse competitors, including
Yale, Columbia, University of California–Berkeley,
New York University, Cornell, and Northwestern.
Film Student Assists
on IMAX Production
Nick Zachar, SOC/MFA ’16, was an assistant
cameraman on the acclaimed IMAX film National
Parks Adventure, narrated by Robert Redford.
The highest grossing documentary of 2016, it
won multiple prizes at the Giant Screen Cinema
Association’s Achievement Awards and is playing
in theaters at the Smithsonian, across the US,
and in 12 countries.
SIS Professor Named Guggenheim Fellow
Robin Broad is the first School of International Service faculty
member to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. Building on her work
in El Salvador to encourage an environmental grassroots movement
and policy, she plans to conduct research for a book to debunk the
myth that people and governments in poorer countries do not, or
cannot, care about the environment.
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