About The Collaborators

a close-up photo of Chantale Damas's face

Dr. M. Chantale Damas is an Associate Professor in the Physics Department at the Queensborough Community College (QCC) of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her background is in Space Science, specifically cometary physics and current research interest areas range from space weather to astronomy and physics education research. In 2015, Dr. Damas developed QCC’s Space Weather Research and Education Program, which is aimed at introducing community college students to research in space weather. Dr. Damas is the recipient of both NASA and NSF grants, and through collaborations with NASA partners, she seeks to increase student participation in space science and technology internships, in particular, underrepresented minorities and women. One of her current projects involves developing a curriculum which uses GRASP to introduce non-STEM majors in an introductory astronomy course to serious games. Dr. Damas earned her Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); M.S. in Physics from Montana State University; and B.S. in Physics with a minor in Astronomy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Dr. Damas was a NASA/IEEE Fellow at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies and served as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the NSF. Prior to receiving her doctorate, she worked at the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.