"Chancellor Aurora", August 20, 2018, 11AM CDT. Photo taken during ISS Expedition 56

The research of the SpaRTAN laboratory is focused on understanding the impact space radiation has on both the health of human spaceflight crews and the resilience of space vehicle hardware systems. Both of these efforts require a multidisciplinary approach; and the group partners closely with radiobiologists, aerospace physicians, engineers, and applied scientist to develop novel methods for studying the interaction of the heavy-charged nuclei found in the cosmic ray spectrum with both soft and condensed matters. The SpaRTAN Physics group utilizes high-performance, multi-core computers and sophisticated numerical techniques in order to study these complex interaction dynamics that are otherwise difficult to replicate in a laboratory setting.  Our computational outcomes are experimentally validated with measurements at beam line accelerators or by applying our models to results previously published in peer-reviewed literature. These efforts have led to novel approaches to simulating the complex space radiation environment and the development of more realistic ground-based space radiation analogs.