Physics Newsblog

Category: Academic

MESTA to Award Salotti Earth Science Education Award

Published
By
A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum
A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum

Since 1999, the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum has recognized individuals for excellence in earth science education with the Charles A. Salotti Earth Science Education Award. Now the mineral museum has a new partner in selecting the awardee: the Michigan Earth Science Teachers Association (MESTA).

“I am delighted that MESTA has agreed to partner with the museum to advance informal earth science education,” said John Jaszczak, museum adjunct curator and professor of physics, who has played a key role in the Salotti Award since its inception. “My own path to becoming a scientist started with informal mentoring in the mineral collecting hobby.”

Read more at Tech Today.

Continue Reading →

Naturally Graphite Supplies Samples for Study

Published
By
Graphite on Tape
K-12 students prepare graphene using graphite and scotch tape.

Naturally GraphiteTM is a local business that started as a project of Nanotech Innovations Enterprise, a former Enterprise program at Michigan Tech operated by undergraduate students. The business, advised by Professor of Physics Dr. John Jaszczak, supplies high quality natural graphite crystals and substrates for research, industry, and education. Jaszczak also serves as adjunct curator at the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.

Naturally Graphite was recently credited with supplying graphite crystals to a research group at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. The research, published in Physical Review Letters, involved the use of high-speed electron diffraction techniques to study electron-phonon coupling in graphite.

High quality graphite crystals from Naturally Graphite are also routinely sought by laboratories around the world for the production and study of graphene. As a single layer of carbon atoms in graphite, graphene often generates much interest in carbon-based nanotechnologies. Graphene exhibits unique and amazing mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. It is strong, highly conductive, transparent, elastic, and impermeable.

Naturally Graphite also donated graphite crystals to K-12 for an outreach event, Family Math Night based in Rocklin, California. The event involved simple experiments with graphite, including an activity for cleaving the graphite into layers using scotch tape. This was the original experiment by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester that led to the discovery of graphene and a Nobel Prize in 2010.

Learn more about the graphene sheet lesson plan in the 22-minute video Family Math Night Collaborative Project: Graphene Sheet by Elementary Mathematics Specialist Karyn Hodgens,.  The description of the experiments begins at about 16:20.

Continue Reading →

50 Years of Fisher Hall

Published
By
Fisher Hall
Fisher Hall

Fisher Hall has reached a milestone this fall: the big 5-0.

Anyone attending Tech within the last fifty years knows this campus landmark, which has been many things for many people—home for mathematics and physics majors, headquarters for gen ed courses, terror for first-years in chemistry, budget entertainment, and even a venue for true love (more on that later). Fisher has a character all its own—an identity that is as much tied to the Huskies who walked its halls as it is seated in the building’s physical attributes.

Fisher Hall is dedicated on October 7, 1964, replacing Hubbell Hall as the new home for the mathematics and physics department and engineering graphics. Much fanfare follows.

Read more at Michigan Tech Magazine Fall 2014, by Karina Jousma.

Continue Reading →

New Faculty Member Jae Yong Suh

Published
By

 

Jae Yong Suh
Jae Yong Suh

Jae Yong Suh, PhD
Jae Yong Suh joins the Department of Physics as an assistant professor. Suh comes to Michigan Tech from Northwestern University.

Suh earned a PhD in Physics from Vanderbilt University and a master’s in physics from Korea University.

Suh has been published in Nano Today, Nature Nanotechnology, Nano Letters and the Journal of Physical Chemistry. Suh also holds three patents.

Read more at Tech Today.

Continue Reading →

Meyer Recognized for Flipped Faculty Development

Published
By

POD Network 2014Work on “Flipped Faculty Development” by Mike Meyer and Jeff Toorongian of the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning has been recognized as a finalist for the national POD innovation award.

POD, the Professional and Organizational Development network, has been one of the premiere faculty development organizations since 1976. Meyer will travel to Dallas to present the work and attend an awards dinner where a single winner will be selected from among the finalists.

From Tech Today.

Continue Reading →

Best Grad Student Talks and Posters 2014

Published
By

Physics Poster Session 2014We are pleased to announce the following awards in association with the recent graduate oral and poster presentations.

Best Talks

Hao Zhou – Observing Very High Energy Gamma-ray Emission from Geminga with the HAWC Observatory

Hugo Ayala Solares – Observing the Galactic Diffuse Gamma-Ray Emission

Best Posters

Joseph Niehaus – Laboratory Measurements of Contact Freezing by Dust and Bacteria at Temperatures of Mixed Phase Clouds

Ran Duan – A Multi-band, Unidirectional, Phase-preserved Lensing Invisibility Cloak

Join us in applauding these and all of the graduate students for their effort and accomplishments.

The Physics Department Poster Session was held on April 17, 2014, in the Fisher Atrium. The physics graduate student talks were held throughout the latter part of Spring Semester 2014.

Congratulations to the four winners and everyone else on their presentations!

View the 2014 Physics Department Poster Session photo gallery.

Continue Reading →

SURF Awards for Innis and Laxo

Published
By

This summer, the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program will fund 23 students from across the University with funds from the Vice President for Research and the Honors Institute. The total funding for the program this year is $80,500.

Among the recipients are:

Robert Innis
Applied Physics
Yoke Khin Yap
CVD growth of Molybdenum DiSulfide

Adam Laxo
Physics
Raymond Shaw
An Investigation of Aerosols as Catalysts for Contact Nucleation

From Tech Today.

Continue Reading →