Physics Newsblog

Category: Research

Best Grad Student Talks and Posters 2013

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2013 Physics Department Poster SessionThe best graduate student talks and posters 2013 have been found by popular vote. As in previous years we had two clear favorites in each of the two categories. And the winners are:

Best Posters

Renee Batzloff – Paleomagnetism of the Baraga-Marquette Dyke Swarms
Li Jie – Implementation of a Hot-Deformation Process for Making Nd2Fe14B-based Permanent Magnetic Materials

Best Talks

Marwa Abdalamoneam – Atomic Moments and Polarizabilities of Ni II
Hugo Albert Ayala Sorlares – Studying Galactic Diffuse Gamma-Ray Emission with the HAWC Observatory in Mexico

The Physics Department Poster Session was held on April 18, 2013, in the Fisher Atrium. The physics graduate students were held throughout the latter part of Spring Semester 2013.

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

View the 2013 Physics Department Poster Session photo gallery.

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Summer Internships in Germany for Jacobson and Adler

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Droplet Velocity FieldTwo Physics majors, Darcy Jacobson and Michael Adler, will be accepting summer internships with the German Academic Exchange Service this summer. The program is called RISE, or Research Internships in Science and Engineering. The internship is offered through DAAD, or Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the German Academic Exchange Service.

Darcy Jacobson will be working at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany. Darcy will be collaborating with PhD student Martin Rohloff on a project entitled “Size Distribution of Rain Droplets,” measuring droplet size distributions and velocity fields for various temperature ramps, compositions and stirring rates. The research group, coordinated by Jürgen Vollmer, is working on a wide range of topics in non-equilibrium statistical physics.

Michael Adler will be collaborating with Konrad Makowka on “Numerical Simulation of Supersonic Combustion including Turbulence Chemistry Interaction with Large Eddy Simulation.” The application is for scramjets, which are hypersonic airbreathing engines that may offer more efficient travel to space than classical rocket engines. This work will take place at the TU München, or Technical University of Munich, preceded by a two week language immersion program in Berlin.

In mid July members of the RISE program will meet in Heidelberg for a conference.

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Hawc Captures First Image

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Hawc ImageBBC News has reported on the image captured by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory or Hawc. This facility now holds the record for the highest-energy light captured. The image shows the shadow cast by the Moon as it blocks light and particles.

Hawc is currently composed of 30 detectors located in a national park near the Mexican city of Puebla.

Assistant professor of physics Petra Huentemeyer, whose background is in astrophysics and elementary particle physics, is involved with the Hawc Observatory.

Read more at BBC News Science & Environment, by Jason Palmer.

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Proposals in Progress for April 8, 2013

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Associate Professor Will Cantrell (Physics) and student Joseph Niehaus (Physics), “Mineral Dust and Biomass Burning Aerosol as a Source of Contact Ice Nuclei in Arctic Mixed Phase Clouds: Constraints from Laboratory Studies,” NASA.

Assistant Professor Claudio Mazzoleni (Physics) and graduate student Kendra Wright (Physics), “Radiative Properties of Free Tropospheric Aerosols in the North Atlantic at the Pico Mountain Observatory,” NASA.

From Tech Today.

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Kelley-Hoskins Nominated for Thesis Award

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MAGSThe Graduate School is pleased to announce that Evan Anderson is Michigan Tech’s nominee for the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Thesis Award.

Three other graduate students were also nominated for consideration. Jean DeClerck was nominated by her advisors, Ann Brady and Wendy Anderson (HU) and committee member Victoria Bergvall (HU). Nathan Kelley-Hoskins was nominated by his advisor, Petra Hüntemeyer (Physics). Andrew Orthober was nominated by his advisor, Carol MacLennan (SS). All of the nominations were noteworthy for their scholarship, and the evaluation panel had a difficult task in selecting one nominee to represent Michigan Tech.

Read more at Tech Today, by the Graduate School.

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SURF Awards 2013

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SURF will Fund 26 Students

This summer, the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) will fund 26 students from across the University with funds from the Vice President for Research, the Honors Institute, the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, the Earth Planetary and Space Sciences Institute, and the Department of Physics. The total funding for the program this year is $85,800.

From Tech Today.

SURF award recipients in physics include:

Joseph Charnawskas
Advisor: Raymond Shaw
The Effects of the Gravitational Force on Water Particles in a Turbulent Flow

Mick Small
Advisor: Yoke Khin Yap
Photovoltaic Responses of Quantum Dot Sensitized ZnO Nanowires

Angela Small (Honor’s Institute)
Advisor: Jacek Borysow
Analysis of Artificial Breath Samples Using Raman Spectroscopy for Medical Diagnosis

Kevin Rocheleau (Honor’s Institute)
Advisor: Petra Huentemeyer
Analysis and Modeling of Diffuse Gamma-Ray Emission from the Cygnus Region using FERMI and HAWC Data

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John Jaszczak Publishes in Rocks and Minerals

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Rocks And MineralsJohn Jaszczak, professor of physics and adjunct curator of the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum authored/co-authored three papers in the March-April 2013 issue of the journal Rocks and Minerals: “Raman Spectroscopy in the Identification of Minerals“, “Miracle at Merelani: A Remarkable Occurrence of Graphite, Diopside and Associated Minerals from the Karo Pit, Block D, Merelani Hills, Arusha Region, Tanzania,” and “Fluorapatite from a Remarkable Occurrence of Graphite and Associated Minerals from the Karo Pit, Block D, Merelani Hills, Arusha Region, Tanzania.”

From Tech Today.

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