Chuck Higgins

Dr. Chuck Higgins grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, and the space program and rumblings of the Apollo engine test firings at the nearby NASA Marshall Space Flight Center captured his interest in astronomy and space. He completed a B.S. degree in physics from the U. of Alabama-Huntsville and received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the U. of Florida where he studied the radio emissions from the planet Jupiter.

He was a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and is now a professor of physics and astronomy at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the advisor of MTSU’s Astronomy Club and he mentors undergraduate students with their research projects.

Dr. Higgins is a founding member of a NASA-sponsored education project called Radio JOVE with the goal to use radio astronomy to help students, teachers, and the public get involved in science. As part of the NASA Space Science Education Consortium (NSSEC), Radio JOVE partners with other education groups and citizen scientists to promote science education. His research is the study of the magnetospheres of Jupiter and the Sun using low frequency radio telescopes, including the Long Wavelength Array (LWA) in Socorro, New Mexico.

He is a frequent hiker in many of the great state parks in Tennessee.