Workshops & Panels

I am very interested in computational systems and physics research, as well as establishing an inclusive community in physics. My goals in the climate committee align around enhancing the physics student experience, and making sure that every undergraduate and graduate student is represented in the talks for systematic change in our climate committee meetings.

While I am currently adjunct at George Washington University, I was a tenured Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Appalachian State University where I focused on Nanoscience, electronics, acoustics, and microscopy. Before teaching, I was fortunate enough to be a National Research Council fellow at NIST in the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory within the Semiconductor Electronics Division. There we studied organic crystals and nano electronic devices. None of that would have been possible without my Ph.D. work in the Surface Science Group at the University of Maryland – College Park. My motto is, “One spherical cow approximation at a time…”

She students the self-assembly of spherical RNA viruses. LaNell is the Founder of the Women+ of Color Project and currently serves as the APS Councilor for the Forum on Graduate Students and Forum on Early Career Scientists since January 2020. LaNell will be serving on the APS Board of Directors as of January 2021.

She is a member of the Center for Fundamental Laws of Nature and the Black Hole Initiative, studying black holes (BHs) and gravity under Prof. Andrew Strominger. In her research she characterizes universal observational signatures of Kerr BHs using analytic tools such as the analysis of critical null geodesics, and the emergent conformal symmetry of the near horizon region of near extremal BHs. She did her undergraduate at the University of Maryland, College Park where she studied physics and math.