Sam M. Austin has long had an interest in the nuclear processes that power red-giant stars and that create the elements. On the side, he has performed pioneering experiments in nitrogen fixation in collaboration with the MSU Plant Research Laboratory. He was chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the NSCL. He has held visiting appointments at Oxford University, the Niels Bohr Institute, the University of Munich, CEN-Saclay, France, TRIUMF (Vancouver, Canada), and Institut de Physique Nucleaire (Paris).
