Aileen O’Donoghue
Associate Professor of Physics

Aileen O’Donoghue did not always enjoy science, or learning about it. “ Though I had always loved nature and jumped at every chance to go to the mountains near my Colorado home, I found science classes in school terribly boring.  They didn't teach me about what I saw outside; they made me memorize phyla,” she laments. The recollections influence her teaching style today.

At a local community college, “Suddenly, science was about the universe I loved,” O’Donoghue says. “Shazaam!” She earned her undergraduate degree at Fort Lewis College and her master’s and doctorate at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, along the way becoming more interested in teaching science than in pursuing a research or fieldwork career in it. “I grew passionate about helping people discover the wonders of nature and of science,” she explains.  

At St. Lawrence, O’Donoghue teaches astronomy, global climate and other physics courses. “I'm always trying to figure out how to get the ideas across,” she says. “As a one-time science-phobe, I still struggle to get others past their phobias.”

While O’Donoghue misses the “landscapes and desert skies of the Southwest,” she has found other outlets in her adopted region, such as regular spots on North Country Public Radio. “It's a way for me to teach people about the sky without having to give any grades,” she says. “It's pure fun!”