Rica Sirbaugh French #IDIC ᐰ
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ricadink.bsky.social
Rica Sirbaugh French #IDIC ᐰ
@ricadink.bsky.social
next appearance = @creationent's Trek to Las Vegas #STLV
astrophysicist | education researcher | teacher | s͎u͎s͎p͎e͎c͎t͎e͎d͎ human
https://linktr.ee/ricadink
🔭⚛🧪 @StarTrek🖖🏼 @Titans🏈
Thank you! 😁
August 23, 2025 at 5:45 AM
Lol, thanks!

(Yeah, there really isn't an actual distinction between astronomer & astrophysicist any more [decades ago, somewhat yes]. Any distinction these days is usually about the title of your degree and/or position.)
August 15, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Are you at @creationent.bsky.social's #STLV? Join us for "Women of STEM & Sci-Fi: Meet the Astrophysicists" with me, @jesstella.bsky.social, & Olivia Greene of @neuroverse-tni.bsky.social!
August 6, 2025 at 5:34 AM
June 14, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Love it! Where might I get one? I think I'll wear it on stage during one of our panels this year in Vegas.
June 5, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Oh how awful! So very sorry! Deepest sympathies. 💔🕊🤍
May 10, 2025 at 12:41 AM
****This also likely explains that night's presentation by Danielle Martino and I entitled, "Doppler Shift, Buzzed" after which Kevin begrudgingly made us take out the most interesting parts because he said his dean wouldn't appreciate it the way he did.
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
has the monopoly on this one.

**I write that fully acknowledging that Kevin -- and likely some of you reading this -- have long desired a "dealing with Rica" playbook.

***Ed's words, not mine, though I admit to co-opting them occasionally.
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
profoundly sad that he won't get to enjoy the retirement he was looking forward to. If anyone deserved that, it was he. I am privileged to have known him, worked with him, learned from him. My heart breaks for his family.

Kevin Michael Lee, 09 April 1963 - 14 April 2025

*Ed Prather undoubtedly
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
during which he convinced me that I was in fact qualified to review proposals and brought me aboard to do so.

I will miss my friend. I will miss working with him, arguing with him, killing hours in airports with him talking through our latest respective crises, whether real or perceived. I am
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
<https://astro.unl.edu>. He earned awards, including AAPT's Halliday and Resnick award <https://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/lee_2012hallidayresnick_pr20120404.cfm> and their Dodge Citation <https://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/pressreleases/Dodge_2016_Lee.cfm> and served as a program officer at NSF for a while
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
over on technology in the classroom, the innovative materials he, his longtime developer Chris Siedell, and their team at Nebraska produced are among the best in the world for animations, simulations, and other learner-centered interactives in astronomy, physics, and physical science
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
spent most of a week sharing how to improve teaching and learning in astronomy.

For the better part of three decades (at least), Kevin and his work influenced literally thousands of educators; easily hundreds of thousands of people if you count the students of those educators. An expert many times
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
He's smiling, laughing, and genuinely looks like he's having a good time. We did have a good time. Admittedly, it's kind of hard not to in a bar where tag-team indoor adult tricycle racing is a regular occurrence, particularly since it was filled to the gills with astronomy educators who had just
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
wallet, which was in his back pocket, and he'd always wondered if he could do it. Danny and I shamelessly encouraged him to try. So he did. And it worked.

These photos of Kevin on an adult-sized tricycle in a bar in Boulder, Colorado, are possibly my favorite photographs of him ever.
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
the lab door with Kevin musing aloud whether it was possible to unlock the lab by jumping and rotating midair such that one's butt swiped across the electromagnetic lock at precisely the right time and angle. We were puzzled (and a little scared) until he explained that the key card was in his
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
time but I especially noticed it when we were at the Monument."

Another time, at a retreat he hosted at UNL, we returned to work in a computer lab one evening after a dinner that involved copious adult beverages****. I recall some vague talk about superheroes and then we were standing in front of
April 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM