Dr. McNamara has been at NMSU since 1975 and during that time has been active in both research and teaching, publishing over 50 referred journal articles and several books. Dr. McNamara's primary research fields are star formation, binaries, and high-energy transit events. He has been a summer faculty member at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on ultra high speed optical detectors and at Marshall Space Flight Center as part of the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory program (CGRO). During the last decade Dr. McNamara worked extensively on ground-based follow-up efforts to detect the source of gamma ray bursts serving as the head of an international team devoted to this task. He was also a long-standing guest investigator on the CGRO working on low mass x-ray binaries (LMXBs). Dr. McNamara has served as a reviewer on national minority student programs (AMP), optical observations of transient phenomena (Hubble Space Telescope), high-energy astrophysics programs, and undergraduate curriculum studies (NSF).

Recent Refereed Journal Publications

"Ground-Based Gamma-Ray Burst Follow-up Efforts: Results of the First Two Years of the BATSE/COMPTEL/NMSU Rapid Response Network", McNamara, B.J. et al. 1996, Ap.J. Suppl. 103, 173.

"Optical Photometry of the X-ray Novae GU Mus (+Nova Muscae 1991) and V518 Per (= GRO J0422+32), King, N., Harrison, T., McNamara, B. 1996, A.J. 111, 1675.

"High Energy Transient Events from Cygnus X-1: Evidence for a Source of Galactic Gamma-Ray Bursts, Mason, P.A., McNamara, B.J., Harrison, T.E. 1997, A.J. 114, 238.

"A Multiyear LIght Curve of Scorpius X-1 Based on Comptron Gamma-Ray Observatory BATSE Spectroscopy Detector Observations" McNamara, B.J., Harrison, T.H., Mason, P.A., Templeton, M., Heikkila, C.W., Buckley, T., Galvan, E., Silva, A. 1998, ApJ. Suppl Ser 116, 287.

"The optical counterparts of x-ray bursts" McNamara, B.J. and Harrison, T.E. 1998, Nature 396, 233.

"Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor Astrometric Parallaxes for Three Dwarf Novae: SS Aurigae, SS Cygni, and U.Geminorium, Harrison, T.E., McNamara, B.J. Szkody, P., McArthur, B., Benedict, G.F., Klemola, A.R., Gilliland, R.L. 1999 Ap.J. 515, L93.

"The Macho Project Sample of Galactic Bulge High-Amplitude Delta Scuti Stars: Pulsation Behavior and Stellar Properties", (the Macho Collaboration), 2000, Ap.J., 536, 798.

"Infrared Observations of Nova Muscae 1991: Black Hole Mass Determination from Ellipsoidal Variations", Gelno, D.M., Harrison, T.E., and McNamara, B.J. 2001 AJ 122, 971.

"The Origin of cyclic period changes in close binaries..." 2002 AJ (accepted for January ediation)


Published Books/Conference Editor

1990 Optical Spectroscopic Instrumentation and Techniques for the 1990s, Applications in Astronomy, Chemistry and Physics, editors B.J. McNamara, J.M. Lerner, SPIE Proceedings, 1318.

2000 Into the Final Frontier: The Human Voyage in Space, Harcourt College Publishers, (in press)

BOX: 4500
Office Phone: (505)646-2614
E-mail: bmcnamar@nmsu.edu