View the Photo Gallery for the Department of Physics Senior Research Oral Presentations
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, April 17, 2014
2014 recipient Michael Adler (right) accepts the award from 1995 alum Jason LaCosse (left).
Back Row: Dr. Ray Shaw, Joseph Charnawskas, Michael Adler, Sawyer Hopkins, Dr. Ravi Pandey
Front Row: Darcy Jacobson, Emily Makoutz, Greg Furlich, Stephen Dipple
High School Girls Come to Michigan Tech to Explore Nanotechnology
Michigan Tech’s GEAR UP, a Pre-College Innovative Outreach Institute, and the physics department sponsored a workshop on nanotechnology to help spark the interest of pre-college girls on Tuesday, April 15, 2014, at Michigan Tech. The workshop is funded by the outreach component of a National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant. Yoke Khin Yap, a physics professor, talked about the subject, and the students had the opportunity to build model molecules.
Read more at Tech Today, by Monica Lester.
View the Nanotechnology Day! Photo Album in the Facebook Page of Michigan Tech GEAR UP.
Physics major Joe Charnawskas attended the the 2014 Science-Engineering-Technology Congressional Visits Day (SETCVD), which took place on March 25 and 26 in Washington D. C., Capitol Hill.
Joe is the President of the Michigan Tech Chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) and and an Associate Zone Councilor for the national SPS.
SPS is part of AIP, the American Institute of Physics, which was represented at the event, along with hundreds of scientists, engineers, educators, and other participants. Five students from across the country were there to represent SPS. They attended several talks and workshops focused on the budget and funding.
On the second day of the event, the SPS representatives met with a staff member of their Congressman or Senator. They discussed funding for STEM fields, especially funding at the undergraduate level. The students emphasized that undergraduate research is a very important part of their education, setting them ahead of those who do not have research experience.
Joe met with a staff member of the following people: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D), Rep. Dan Benishek (R) (MIchigan), Sen. Robert Menendez (D), Sen. Carl Levin (D) (Michigan), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) (Michigan), and Sen. Edward Markey (D). He also personally met Rep. Dan Benishek (Michigan), Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (Michigan), Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Rep. Rush Holt, and Rep. Bill Foster. Representatives Holt and Foster are both physicists.
Joe considers the Washington trip to be amazing. View the PHOTO GALLERY at Joe’s Facebook page.
Michigan Tech posted a video in Facebook with a statement by Dr. Raymond Shaw on the recent storm and cloud chamber forecasting.
Watch the video at the Michigan Technological University Facebook page.
Getting their heads in the clouds
Tech purchases large cloud chamber
Scientists and researchers at Michigan Technological University and beyond will be going to the cloud to find answers – the cloud chamber that is.
“Basically this is a chamber that allows us to simulate the atmosphere all the way up to altitudes that airplanes fly at, so 10 to 15 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, where it’s very, very cold and very low pressure,” said Raymond Shaw, physics professor and director of the atmospheric sciences Ph.D. program at Michigan Tech.
The scientists at Michigan Tech are currently testing the machine before starting their research projects. Shaw expects that within a few months the machine will be fully functional and available to professors, students and visiting scholars.
The culture and urbanism magazine Pages Of interviewed Dr. Robert Nemiroff, a professor in the Department of Physics. The interview focuses on APOD, the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
“I visualise a good link like a powerful skyscraper jutting out of the screen, adding valuable depth to an otherwise too-flat explanation.” –RJN
The Western UP Center has posted results and photos of the 2014 science fair held at the Memorial Union on March 25, 2014.
View Results, Project Pictures, Festival Pictures, and News
Science comes to life
Fourth- through eighth-graders attend science fair
From whether water concentration varies with snow depth to whether colored overlays improve readability, students asked questions and showed their answers Tuesday night at the Western U.P. Science Fair and Science and Engineering Festival.
Additionally, students, their families and the public attended the Science & Engineering Festival downstairs in the Memorial Union Building. Exhibits ranged from 3-D printers to how to clean oil spills. Unlike previous years, the festival was also open to children not participating in the fair.
Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Garrett Neese.
Copper Country students show off their work at regional science fair
The Memorial Union Building at Michgian Tech was filled with student from grades four through eight for the annual Western U.P. Science Fair yesterday…not a bad turnout for an event that started off with six students participating in its first year.
And the activities were wide-ranging, from making silly putty using glue to making ice cream using liquid nitrogen. One demo that caught the eye of many involved a vaccuum and a ball. Physics lab associate Scott Rutterbush explained what happens.
“When we take a ball and we place it in the stream of air, what you actually get is, the air around it pushes up on the ball slightly, allowing it to spin and holds it in the air,” he said.
Read more and watch the video at ABC 10 WBUP WBKP, by Mike Hoey.
15th Annual Western UP Science Fair and Festival Tuesday
The 15th Annual UP Science and Engineering Festival will be held 4:30-7:30 pm, Tuesday, March 25.
From 4:30-7:30 pm, K-8 students and their families may participate in the Science and Engineering Festival that will offer more than two dozen fun, hands-on engineering, physics, biological sciences, chemistry activities conducted by fifty Michigan Tech students in the Memorial Union Building Commons (ground floor).
Activities are facilitated by Biomedical Engineering students, Society of Physics Students, Dept of Chemistry students, Biological Sciences students, Engineers Without Borders, and more!
Read more at Tech Today.
Mac Brennan (Physics alum) and Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) co-authored an article in the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells titled “Effects of spectral albedo on solar photovoltaic devices.”
From Tech Today.
See the Seniors Spring 2013 group photo in the Flickr site for the Department of Physics.