• Research Professor, Physics
• Faculty Fellow, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences

• Ph.D. in Physics at Colorado State University
• M.S. in Physics at Colorado State University
• B.S. in Physics at Ottawa University

Professional History:
Research Professor, Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

Honors and Awards:
1966-1969 NASA Fellowship

1980 NASA group achievement award for HEAO-3 Experiment

1998 NASA group achievement award for ACE-CRIS Experiment

Research Interests:
He is a co-investigator on the Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer (CRIS) experiment aboard the NASA ACE spacecraft that was launched in August 1997, and was responsible for the development of the scintillating fiber hodoscope, which is the trajectory detector on CRIS. The objective of the CRIS experiment is to measure the isotopic abundances of nuclei with 3 < Z < 30.

He is the Principal Investigator on the Trans-lron Galactic Element Recorder (TIGER) experiment that launched in December 2001 on a long duration balloon from Antarctica. The balloon-borne instrument built in the University's cosmic ray astrophysics laboratory completed an unprecedented second loop around the South Pole in search of the origin of cosmic rays, atomic particles that travel through the galaxy at near light speeds and shower the Earth constantly.

TIGER lifted off from McMurdo Station in Antarctica at 5:30 a.m. CST Dec. 20, suspended from a pilotless helium-filled balloon. After traveling approximately 9,000 miles around the perimeter of Antarctica, the experiment landed 31 days, 21.5 hours later -- at 2:55 a.m. CST Jan. 21, some 284 miles from its launch site.

The previous endurance record for a long-duration scientific balloon flight was set in January 2001, also from McMurdo Station. That flight was one orbit of the South Pole, lasting 26 days. The TIGER mission more than doubled the amount of continuous science observational time over any previous balloon mission.

The instrument, designed and built mostly by faculty, staff and students in the cosmic ray astrophysics group in the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences, traveled some 125,000 feet into the atmosphere to measure the elemental abundances of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs).

The study of GCRs will lead to a better understanding of their origin and the explosive processes in our galaxy that are responsible for giving the nuclei such enormous energy.

Binns was also a co-investigator on the Heavy Nuclei Experiment that was flown aboard the NASA High Energy Astronomy Observatory (HEAO-3) spacecraft launched in 1979. In addition, he has been an investigator on numerous other balloon-borne experiments. He was also a member of the ACCESS Investigators' Working Group that studied cosmic ray experiments planned for the Intl. Space Station.

Selected Recent Publications:

1. Binns, W.R., Wiedenbeck, M.E., Christian, E.R., Cummings, A.C., George, J.S., Hink, P.L., Israel, M.H., Klarmann, J., Leske, R.A., Lijowski, M., Mewaldt, R.A., Stone, E.C., von Rosenvinge, T.T., Yanasak., N.E., "Galactic Cosmic Ray Neon Isotopic Abundances Measured by the Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer (CRIS) on ACE", Adv. Space, Res. 27, 767, (2001).

2. Binns, W.R.; Hink, P.L.; Klarmann, J.; Lijowski, M.L.; Christian, E.R.; von Rosenvinge, T.T.; Cummings, A.C.; Leske, R.A.; Mewaldt,R.A.; Stone, E.C.; George, I.S.; Wiedenbeck M.E.; Yanasak, N.E. "Measurements of the Isotopic Abundances of Galactic Cosmic Rays and Their Implications for Cosmic Ray Origin, in LiBeB, Cosmic Rays, and Related x- and Gamma Rays" Astron. Soc. Pacific Conf. Series 171, 96 (1999).

3. Wiedenbeck, M.E.; Binns, W.R.; Christian, E.R.; Cummings, A.C.; Dougherty, B.L.; Hink, P.L.; Klarmann, J.; Leske, R.A.; Lijowski, M.; Mewaldt, R.A.; Stone, E.C.; Thayer, M.R.; von Rosenvinge, T.T.; Yanasak, N.E. "Constraints on the Time Delay between Nucleosynthesis and Cosmic-Ray Acceleration from Observations of Ni-59 and Co-59", Astrophy. J. Letters, 523, L61-64, (1999).

4. Stone, E.C.; Cohen, C.M.S.; Cook, W.R.; Cummings, A.C.; Gauld, B.; Kecman, B.; Leske, R.A.; Mewaldt, R.A.; Thayer, M.R.; Dougherty, B.L.; Grumm, R.L.; Milliken, B.D.; Radocinski, R.G.; Wiedenbeck, M.E.; Christian, E.C.; Shuman, S.; von Rosenvinge, T.T.; Binns, W.R., Dowkontt, P.; Epstein, J.W.; Hink, P.L.; Klarmann, J.; Lijowski, M.; Olevitch, M.A,. "The Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer for the Advanced Composition Explorer," Space Sci. Rev. 86, 283 (1998).

5. W. R. Binns, T. L. Garrard, P. S. Gibner, M. H. Israel, M. P. Kertzman, J. Klarmann, B. J. Newport, E. C. Stone, and C. J. Waddington, "The Abundances of Ultraheavy Elements in the Cosmic Radiation: Results from HEAO-3", (1989) The Astrophysical Journal, 346, 997.