Saint Vincent College

"The scientist's condition as a sentinel in the modern world, as one who is the first to glimpse the enormous complexity together with the marvelous harmony of reality, makes him a privileged witness of the plausibility of religion, a man capable of showing how the admission of transcendence, far from harming the autonomy and the ends of research, rather stimulates it to continually surpass itself in an experience of self-transcendence which reveals the human mystery."

- Pope John Paul II, 17 July 1985

Assistant Professor of Physics
Director of the Honors Program

Office:  Physics Building, Room 211
E-mail:  john.smetanka@email.stvincent.edu
Phone:  724-805-2504  Campus Ext.: 2504

Education

B.S. Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, 1989 (with University Honors)
M.S. Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 1991
Ph.D. Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 1997

Awards

1999 Quentin Schaut Faculty Award, Saint Vincent College

Distinguished Faculty Award, Pathways to Success, Saint Vincent College, 2002

Grants and Grant Funded Projects

Project Director, Lancy Scholars Program, Summer 2003, Summer 2004.

Project Director, Interdisciplinary Summer Research Program, Summer 2001, Summer 2002.

Project Director, CAPE/NASA Grant, 2000-01 Academic Year
Exploring the Earth, Sun, and Stars. Click here for web site.

Faculty Member, Teacher Enhancement Institute, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003.  Click here for 2003 web site.

Faculty Member, Pathways to Success, 1998--2003

Saint Vincent College Team Member, SENCER Institute, August 2003