More than a dozen Michigan Tech faculty members and researchers have gone on the record in support of a ballot initiative designed to give a big boost to the state’s renewable energy industry. If passed by the voters in November, the initiative would require that 25 percent of Michigan’s electricity be generated using renewable energy sources by the year 2025. Among the signers is assistant professor of physics Claudio Mazzoleni. READ MORE
Edward M. Leonard, Jr.
Physics Alum ’12
Mind Trekkers is a group of undergraduate students from all disciplines that take STEM. “The best part about this group? It’s 100% volunteer on the student side. After finishing homework for the night, it’s Mind Trekker time. There are always more logistics to work, more lessons to plan, and more demonstrations to write, and it’s with the will power and dedication of the volunteers that we are the dynamic sensation that we are today.” READ MORE
Mike Meyer has been appointed the new director for the Center for Teaching and Learning. He will start his new duties on July 9. Meyer has been at Michigan Tech since September 2002.
He joined the physics department as laboratory coordinator, was lecturer from 2006 to 2010, and has been senior lecturer since 2010. He was elected to Tech’s Academy of Teaching Excellenceand won the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011.
The expanded responsibilities of the new center director are an outcome of the recommendations of the Task Force on Blended and Technology-Rich Teaching/Learning Environment and Support Systems. READ MORE
On the Wednesday before obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree, I left Houghton at 05:00 with 16 other Mind Trekkers for DC (story here). On Saturday, I woke up, donned my Mind Trekkers jersey, and went to the event. I noted that Bill Nye would be signing things starting at 11am, so around then I put on my cap and gown, grabbed my diploma cover, and John Lehman (assistant VP, enrollment services) and myself headed over there. READ MORE
It’s a tradition at this event for the graduating seniors to be recognized and for a senior coach to say a few words or tell a story about their experiences working as a coach. For example, Edward Leonard, from the Physics Learning Center, recounted backwards his four years at Tech, and with each year (and story) he took off a layer of clothes. READ MORE
Administration, faculty and staff have made a lot of headway during the last year at Michigan Technological University and those efforts were honored at the Board of Control meeting Friday morning. “Michigan Tech is recognizing two faculty members with the 2012,” Richardson said. “Professors Robert Nemiroff and Andrew Storer.” Nemiroff works with half of the team to contribute NASA’s astronomy picture of the day, garnering more than 500,000 hits daily.
Images of ZnO Nanotubes are selected as one of the cover images of Applied Physics Letters (APL) highlighted in the APL 50th anniversary celebration website. The related article, “Formation of Single Crystalline ZnO Nanotubes without Catalysts and Templates,” was the most read article in March 2007. The images and article are from Professor Yoke Khin Yap’s research group.
Recent work on in-situ probing of individual boron nitride nanotubes by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) inside a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) system is being featured in NanotechWeb. The research is conducted by Hessam M Ghassemi and Reza S Yassar in the mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics department and Chee Hui Lee and Yoke Khin Yap in the physics department. NanotechWeb notes that BNNTs are unique materials which enable the study of band structure modulation by mechanical straining. “This may lead to rational control of the electrical properties of novel nanostructures in the future,” commented Yoke Yap.
Senior Physics Majors
Physics Department
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, April 19, 2012
3:30 pm, Fisher 139
Physics Graduate Students
Physics Department
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, April 19, 2012
1:00 – 3:00 pm, Aftermath Atrium in Fisher Hall