Biography

Dr. Dobbins mentors students in both graduate and undergraduate research projects and engages in broadening the participation of students in synchrotron x-ray and neutron studies at national research laboratories.  Her research programs are aimed at attracting and recruiting top students to the sciences using societally relevant energy-related and biomedical-related topics.  She continues to do cutting edge research in applying synchrotron x-ray and neutron analysis to modern engineering problems in carbon nanotubes, gold nanoparticles, the hydrogen fuel economy, and polymer self-assembly.  Also, she works diligently to engage high school students in science through her NSF funded programs.

Education:

• B.S. in Physics at Lincoln University (Lincoln University, PA) (May 1993)
• M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA) (Dec 1995)
• Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State University (May 2002)
• NRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at NIST (Sept 2002 to June 2003)

Awards and Recognition: 

• Recipient of the Penn State University Alumni Achievement Award (in 2007). 
• She is a 2009 recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for a project titled: “Enhancing Atomic Mobility and Desorption Kinetics in Metal Hydrides”.   

Service:

• African Light Source Executive Steering Committee –2014 -present
• American Institute of Physics - Task Force for Underrepresentation of African Americans in Physics –Dec 2017 to Dec 2019.
• American Physical Society, Forum on International Physics – since 2017

Publication Track Record:

• 30 scholarly publications in peer reviewed journals (h-index of 10)

http://users.rowan.edu/~dobbins/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=-xVXrPgAAAAJ