Physics Newsblog

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Heather Powers is a Associate Director of Digital Content in University Marketing and Communications (UMC) at Michigan Technological University. Powers is responsible for all content aspects of UMC's recruitment and reputation web properties and proactively improves and maintains quality, benchmarks, and tests to innovate key sites and pages to meet integrated marketing, brand awareness and reputation, and recruitment goals.

In Print

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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.

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GSG Merit Awards – Winners Announced

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This years awardees for the Graduate Student Government Merit Awards have been decided. A total of 88 nominations were received from departments all across campus. The decision process was not an easy one as there was a very strong pool of nominations this year. We are very grateful to all of our nominees for all of the work they put in to improve and enrich the life of our graduate students.

Without further ado, here are the award winners:

  • Exceptional Staff Member – Claire Wiitanen, Administrative Aide from the Physics Department
  • Exceptional Graduate Mentor – Victoria Bergvall, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Humanities
  • Exceptional Student Leader – Jacob Blazejewski, a PhD student from Mathematical Sciences
  • Exceptional Student Scholar – Nancy Henaku, a PhD student from Humanities

Congratulations to our winners and all you have done for our graduate students!

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Call for Applications: Songer Research Award for Human Health Research

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Matthew Songer, (Biological Sciences ’79) and Laura Songer (Biological Sciences ’80) have generously donated funds to the College of Sciences and Arts (CSA) to support a research project competition for undergraduate and graduate students.

Remembering their own eagerness to engage in research during their undergraduate years, the Songers established these awards to stimulate and encourage opportunities for original research by current Michigan Tech students. The College is extremely grateful for the Songers’ continuing interest in, and support of, Michigan Tech’s programs in human health and medicine.

Any Michigan Tech student interested in exploring a medically related question under the guidance of faculty in the College of Sciences and Arts may apply. Students majoring in any degree program in the college, including both traditional (i.e., biological sciences, kinesiology, chemistry) and nontraditional (i.e., physics, psychology, social science, bioethics, computer science, mathematics) programs related to human health may propose research projects connected to human health. 

Submit applications as a single PDF file to the Office of the College of Sciences and Arts by 4 p.m. Monday, March 30. Applications may be emailed to djhemmer@mtu.edu.

Read more about the Songer Research Award here.

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Physics Colloquium – Graduate Presentations

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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.

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U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Physicist to Visit Campus

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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.

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New Funding

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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.

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The Building Blocks for Gamma-Ray Astronomy for High School

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This summer a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) was hosted by the Department of Physics at Michigan Technological University and the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) research group at Michigan Tech. The six-week experience involved learning about the HAWC observatory and Gamma-Ray astronomy, developing five related lesson plans, and constructing a website to share the 2018 and 2019 RET lesson plans. Please join the 2019 teachers, Matt Laird and Heather Murphy, on (Friday) August 9 in Rekhi Hall Room 214 at 10:00 a.m. for a presentation/demonstration highlighting the following lesson plans: Celestial Navigation, Modeling Gamma-Ray Data, Observations of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, SS433 A Journey with the Scientific Method, and Star Evolution and Gamma-Ray Sources.

Heather Murphy is a high-school science teacher at Hancock High School, in Hancock Michigan. A Michigan Tech alumni graduating with a BS 2002 (major Biology minor General Science), and MSASE 2017, with Secondary Education Teaching Certificates in Biology (DA) 6-12, Science (DX) 6-12, Physics (2500), A.P. Physics- College Board, and A.P. Biology- College Board.

Matt Laird is a high-school science teacher at Lake Linden – Hubbell High School. A Michigan Tech alumni graduating in 2014 with a BS in Applied Geophysics and 2016 with a MS in Geophysics and a Science (DX) 6-12 certification.

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