Combining her three passions for education, science, and tennis, Dobrowolska-Furdyna first had the idea of organizing the Ace for Science tennis tournaments in 2014. However, recognizing the scope of organizing such an event, Dobrowolska-Furdyna connected with the South Bend Alumni Association for help. “We had a number of meetings to discuss what it would look like. I never organized a tournament in my life, so I didn’t exactly know what I was getting myself into,” Dobrowolska-Furdyna said.

               However, over the course of planning, the partnership between the Dobrowolska-Furdyna, a South Bend resident of now 30 years, and the South Bend Alumni Association flourished. “Working together with the South Bend Alumni Association was a very good thing,” Dobrowolska-Furdyna said. “I didn’t know how to do fundraising, but the Alumni Association knew. So I was taking the tennis part, and they were helping with the fundraising.”

               Over the course of three years and as many Ace for Science tournaments, Dobrowolska-Furdyna helped raise about $30,000. “And then there’s the question, ‘so we raised the money, now how do we give it to the schools?’” Dobrowolska-Furdyna said. She ultimately came up with the idea to collect grant proposals from science teachers in local schools. The project concluded with an award ceremony at the South Bend Alumni Association where Dobrowolska-Furdyna awarded the science teachers who submitted winning proposals.

               Dobrowolska-Furdyna feels humbled to have received the award and was pleased at how the tournaments went. “I was totally surprised. My first reaction was, ‘I haven’t done anything.’ But I definitely appreciated it and am humbled by it,” Dobrowolska-Furdyna said. “I am happy that I could do something for the city and for the schools.”

The South Bend Alumni Association will recognize Dobrowolska-Furdyna at the South Bend Community Hall of Fame Banquet on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

Originally published by Cliff Djajapranata at on October 12, 2017.

received a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research on the Standard Model of physics at the University of Notre Dame’s Nuclear Science Laboratory.

With the $530,000 grant, Brodeur, the Ortenzio Family Assistant Professor in Applied Medical and Nuclear Physics, will develop an ion trapping apparatus, called the NSLtrap. The NSLtrap will hold radioactive nuclei unimpeded in free space, allowing Brodeur to perform delicate measurements. “The research done with this instrument will raise the possibility of discovering physics beyond the Standard Model,” Brodeur said.

The Standard Model is a cornerstone theory that governs the interactions between the universe’s basic building blocks known as fundamental particles. �����ǻ��ܰ�’s research seeks to test the Standard Model by looking for minute deviations in the energy spectra of the particles emitted during the radioactive decay of certain nuclides. So far, the Standard Model has been very successful, especially since the discovery of the Higgs boson. “However it fails to reproduce many unexplained features of our visible universe, which currently prompts several different searches at the energy, intensity, and precision frontiers,” Brodeur said.

�����ǻ��ܰ�’s will be ongoing over the next three years.

Originally published by Cliff Djajapranata at on September 29, 2017.