Department of Astronomy

We are thrilled to report that Professor Liese van Zee is receiving the 2022 Mary Burgan Distinguished Service Award for the Indiana University Bloomington campus.  The Award recognizes the essential role that faculty play in service to the campus, the community, the state, and the nation.  van Zee has recently chaired of the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF) and is recognized nationally and internationally for her leadership in protecting important regions of the radio spectrum used for scientific observations.

The use of the radio spectrum has been rapidly for communications, medical devices and monitoring, avionics, automobile safety, and many other services, CORF, under van Zee’s leadership, has played a key role.  Radio emissions that spill into protected bands profoundly limit scientific observations using those bands, not only for radio astronomers but for many other fields that rely on remote sensing of radio emissions. 

As Chair of CORF, Prof. van Zee led the Committee through 18 National Academy filings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) outlining the effects on scientific observations of proposed FCC rule changes and commercial requests for new uses of the radio spectrum.  She has made multiple presentations at workshops and conferences on the radio spectrum and to federal agencies including NASA, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation. Her technical prowess has enabled her to go toe-to-toe with large commercial interests, and to document clearly (and quantitatively!) what the effect of proposed new radio emissions will be.  Prof. van Zee also appreciates the need for balance between the utility of technology for society and for the many ways it improves human health and safety, and the need for clear regions of the radio spectrum for scientific use.

In addition to her work on CORF, Prof. van Zee was appointed by the US State Department as a member of the US delegation preparing for the international World Radio Communication conferences of the International Telecommunications Union, which are held approximately every four years to formalize international regulations governing the use of radio frequencies.  Since 2017, Prof. van Zee has helped to formulate US national positions on changes to international rules and has participated in numerous international radio spectrum management discussions in Geneva as a member of the U.S. delegation.  Her focus is always to monitor threats to frequency bands essential for scientific observations and to work with proposed new users of those bands to reach equitable compromises that enable continued scientific use of essential frequencies.