Category: Research

Yap named University Professor

Yoke Khin Yap, a professor in the Department of Physics, was selected to become Michigan Tech’s newest University Professor during the 2019-2020 academic year, through a highly selective process. Yap joined the Department of Physics in 2002 and was promoted to full professor in 2011. Ravi Pandey, chair of physics, said “Dr. Yap is enthusiastic about both teaching and research and treats the two as inseparable.”

Read more in Tech Today.

In Print

Complex, noncore-shell morphology of BC-containing particle, from Figure 1, image A in recent study.

A recent study, Radiative absorption enhancements by black carbon controlled by particle-to-particle heterogeneity in composition, stemming from a collaboration between Brookhaven National Laboratory, Michigan Tech, and other institutions was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and has been highlighted in the research highlights section of Nature Climate Change this March. 

The research resulted in the development of a new modeling approach – guided by experimental results – to account more accurately for the effects of soot on climate. Coauthors of the paper include two former students of the Atmospheric Sciences Ph.D. program from the physics department, Drs. Janarjan Bhandari and Swarup China.

Janarjan Bhadari, ’18, currently works at the Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, and Swarup China, ’14, is at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Physics Colloquium – Graduate Presentations

Two Physics Graduate Students will be presenting their research at 4 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 20) in Fisher 139.

Tyler Capek (advisor Claudio Mazzoleni) will present “Measuring Humidification Effects on Atmospheric Particles Optical Properties with a Novel Humidity-Controlled Albedometer.”

Abu Sayeed Md Shawon (advisor Will Cantrell) will present “Laboratory Measurement of Aerosol Scavenging by Activation in a Cloudy, Turbulent Environment.”

A social with refreshments will be held 30 minutes prior to the talk in the Fisher Hall lobby.

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Physicist to Visit Campus

Ben Dzikowicz will present “A Taste of Acoustics at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory” at 11 a.m. Thursday (Feb. 20) in GLRC 202.

In the New York Times Magazine in 1915, Thomas Edison wrote an editorial addressing concerns over US involvement in WWI stating “The Government should maintain a great research laboratory… In this could be developed…all the technique of military and naval progression without any vast expense.” From this editorial, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) was established in 1923.

Dzikowicz, a physicist in the NRL Acoustics Division, will provide a brief overview of NRL, followed by information on arctic-related programs and new navigation/sonar techniques he developed utilizing transducers capable of producing sound fields with spiral wavefronts.

New Funding

Pengfei XuePengfei Xue (CEE/GLRC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $109,790 research and development cooperative agreement with the University of Michigan.

The project is entitled, “The Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR): Long-Term Data Assimilative, Temperature and Currents Database for the Great Lakes (Year 2: Lake Michigan).

This is a one year project.