Physics Colloquium
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, December 12, 2013
at 4:00 pm
Room 139 Fisher Hall
Lasers and “Anti-lasers” in
Complex Photonic Media
Li Ge
College of Staten Island
One Senior College of
City University of New York
The science behind snow at Tech
According to Dr. Cantrell, associate professor of Physics and member of the Atmospheric Sciences interdepartmental PhD program, there are three reasons Tech gets so much snow.
The first reason is that it gets cold.
Read more at the Michigan Tech Lode, by Rand Silvers.
The Michigan Tech chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has been selected again as one of the Outstanding SPS Chapters. The recognition is based on chapter interaction with SPS national programs, the professional physics community, the campus community, and the public. The Michigan Tech chapter is part of Zone 09. SPS Chapter Awards are selected by Zone Councilors and Associate Zone Councilors of the SPS National Council.
Fewer than 10% of all SPS chapters are recognized as outstanding.
Michigan Tech’s SPS chapter was also recognized in the SPS National Council’s publication “Effective Practice” which provides tips and hints for SPS groups to be effective.
Society of Physics Student Chapter Honored
“This is the 4th consecutive year that the chapter has been named an outstanding, chapter,” said Associate Professor and SPS Advisor Will Cantrell (Physics). “Michigan Tech’s SPS chapter being named as an Outstanding Chapter is a testament to the work and enthusiasm of its members—not just now, but for the past several years.”
Read more at Tech Today, by Erika Vichcales.
Physics Colloquium
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, December 5, 2013
at 4:00 pm
Room 139 Fisher Hall
Rotation Dynamics of Anisotropic Particles
Rui Ni
Department of Physics, Wesleyan University
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Yale
University
Professor Miguel Levy and Assistant Professor Ramy El-Ganainy (Physics/IMP), “Collaborative Proposal: Quantum Inspired Nonreciprocal Photonic Arrays,” NSF.
Read more at Tech Today.
Jennifer Donovan teaches the workshop “Writing for a Non-Technical Audience” at Kasetsart University in Thailand. She uses examples from Michigan Tech, such as the news site, Michigan Tech Magazine, and Michigan Tech Research Magazine. Donovan writes:
I pass around copies of both magazines. Professor Bob Nemiroff on the cover of the Michigan Tech Research magazineThe 2013 research magazine cover–showing Physics Professor Bob Nemiroff in a bar, holding up a cognac bottle labeled “space time” and a brandy snifter–particularly intrigues them. “It’s about astrophysics,” I say. ”Professor Nemiroff is an astrophysicist who has done research showing that space time is smooth like cognac rather than frothy and bubbly like beer (the popularly held belief). You see, that’s how to make hard science interesting. Who could resist reading that story?”
Read more at Tech Goes to Thailand: The Write Way by Jennifer Donovan.
Three physics alumni reunited at the New Faculty Workshop, sponsored by the AAPT (American Association of Physics Teachers), the AAS (American Astronomical Society), APS Physics, the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and NSF (National Science Foundation). Changgong Zhou, ’06, Lin Pan, ’08, and Haiying He, ’09, were the only cohorts that originated from the same school and knew each other personally.
Zhou, now at Lawrence Tech University, was a student of Edward Nadgorny working on aperture assisted laser direct write. Pan, now at Cedarville University, studied atomic physics with Donald Beck. He, now at Valparaiso University, did research on electron transport in molecular systems with Ravi Pandey.
The Workshop for New Physics and Astronomy Faculty was held on November 7-10, 2013, in the American Center for Physics, College Park, MD. AAPT sponsors programs to help new faculty become more effective educators and support their quest to gain tenure.
Physics Colloquium
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, November 14, 2013
at 4:00 pm
Room 139 Fisher Hall
Microcavity Exciton-Polariton
Condensates Physics and Applications
Na Young Kim
Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory,
Stanford University, Stanford California
Partially sponsored/funded by the
Visiting Women & Minority Lecturer/Scholar Series
Vithal Tilvi, who graduated in 2006 with an MS in Physics from Michigan Tech, co-authored a paper in Nature on the most distant galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago.
UT, Texas A&M Astronomers Discover Universe’s Most Distant Galaxy
The paper’s lead author is Steven Finkelstein, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin and 2011 Hubble Fellow who previously was a postdoctoral research associate at Texas A&M under the mentorship of Texas A&M astrophysicist Casey Papovich, who is second author as well as current mentor to Tilvi. Ten other international institutions collaborated on the effort, from California to Massachusetts and Italy to Israel.
On a crisp, clear April night, Tilvi, Finkelstein and his graduate student, Mimi Song, sat behind a panel of computers in the control room of the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is perched atop the summit of Hawaii’s dormant Mauna Kea volcano and houses the two largest optical and infrared telescopes in the world, each standing eight stories tall, weighing 300 tons and equipped with 10-meter-wide mirrors.
They detected only one galaxy during their two nights of observation at Keck, but it turned out to be the most distant ever confirmed.
Read more at Science, Texas A&M University. Watch the video of the interview with Tilvi.
Ramy El-Ganainy, PhD
Ramy El-Ganainy joins the Department of Physics as assistant professor. He comes to Michigan Tech from the University of Toronto, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics.
El-Ganainy received his PhD in Optics and Photonics and MS in Optics from the College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida. He also received an MS in Electromagnetics and BS in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Cairo University.
El-Ganainy’s work has been published in Optics Express, New Journal of Physics and International Journal of Theoretical Physics. He is a member of the Optical Society, International Society of Optics and Photonics and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. His research experience includes theory and applications of non-Hermitian optics, quantum effects inside photonic crystal structures and optical nonlinearities in interaction nano-suspensions.
Read more at Tech Today.