Dr. Lusaka Bhattacharya, a visiting professor for the Oklahoma State University department of physics has received one of five M. Hildred Blewett scholarships through the American Physical Society. The scholarship recognizes female physicists returning to their careers after a hiatus.

The scholarships are one-year grants of up to $45,000 that can be used toward a wide range of necessities, including equipment procurement, salary, travel, tuition, and dependent care. This year marks the largest number of awards given since the scholarship program began 10 years ago.

Bhattacharya was raised and educated in India where she studied theoretical nuclear physics at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and received her Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta in 2012. She met her husband, Dr. Kirtiman Ghosh, who is also a theoretical physicist, while working on her doctorate. She later joined him in Stillwater where he was doing his post-doctoral work at OSU.

After taking some time off to start a family, Bhattacharya decided it was time to return to her career in physics. She has volunteered her time at OSU, teaching one upper division course, and has served as a laboratory supervisor.

Bhattacharya plans to use her scholarship at Kent State University, where she will work with her mentor to develop a photon probe for detecting when quark gluon plasma has been created in accelerator collisions.