Student Achievements 2004-05

Congratulations to Our Graduates for 2005

  • Joe Piacentine will head off to Southern California to work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
  • Kevin Meagher will head off to graduate school in physics at the University of Maryland.

Arloe Anania-Murray Scholarship Recipients 05-06

  • Alan Hans

Michael McGie Service Award Recipient 05-06

  • Joel Amato

Paul G. Hewitt Scholarship for Future Physics Teachers Recipient 05-06

  • Evan England

Floyd English Scholarship Recipients 05-06

  • Joel Amato
  • Terry McAfee

Summer Internships 2006

  • Justin Stimatze was awarded a DOE sponsored SULI summer internship at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Other Students Achievements of Note

  • Justin Stimatze presented his poster "Numerical Simulation of bi-Maxwellian Electron Distribution Function Formation in Low Pressure Capacitively Coupled Plasmas" at the 46th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, November 15-19, 2004, in Savannah, GA.
  • Joe Piacentine presented a poster, "A New Method for the Detection of Galaxy Clusters in X-ray Surveys" at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 17-21, in Washington, DC.
  • Joe Piacentine, Justin Stimatze, Brendan Diamond and Kevin Meagher attended 2004 Quadrennial Congress of Sigma Pi Sigma, October 15-16, in Albuquerque, NM. Joe Piacentine presented a poster, "A New Method for the Detection of Galaxy Clusters in X-ray Surveys." Justin Stimatze presented his poster "Numerical Simulation of bi-Maxwellian Electron Distribution Function Formation in Low Pressure Capacitively Coupled Plasmas." Kevin Meagher presented his poster "Magnetic Insensitive Muon Detection." These three posters were also presented at the Society of Physics Students Zone 18 Meeting, April 8th and 9th, at the University of California Santa Barbara. Brendan Diamond, Tiara Norris, and Nick Sanabria also attended.

Faculty Achievements 2004-05

Dr. Eric Ayars and Dr. Louis Buchholtz published "Analysis of the Vacuum Cannon" in the American Journal of Physics of July, 2004. Dr. Xueli Zou presented an invited talk entitled, "Quantitative research in physics education," at the National Summer Meeeting of American Association of Physics Teachers at CSU Sacramento in August 2004. At the same meeting, Dr. David Kagan shared his invited talk, "Humidity and the COR of Baseballs" and Dr. Eric Ayars presented a poster, "Vacuum Cannon Velocity Limit." Orion Davies and Dr. Xueli Zou gave their talk, "Development and assessment of students' skills in designing and conducting introductory physics experiments: Part I." Dr. Xueli Zou co-authored several more talks including, "From students' perspectives: A Q-type assessment instrument," "Using a Q-type assessment instrument to study correlation between teacher attitudes and student perceptions of physics laboratories," and "Development and assessment of students' skills in designing and conducting introductory physics experiments: Part II." Finally, Orion Davies spoke on, "Applied Cross-discipline Undergraduate Research through Corporate Sponsorship."

Dr. David Kagan and David Atkinson published "The Coefficient of Restitution of Baseballs as a Function of Relative Humidity" in the June 2004 issue of The Physics Teacher.

Brendan Diamond and Cheuk-Kin Chau presented their work, "Have You Seen the Dark Bands on the Rainbow Spectrum with Diffraction Grating" at the Spring Meeting of the Northern California Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on March 27, 2004. At the same meeting, Dr. Philip Gash talked about "A Simple Way to Measure Student Reaction Times."

In December 2004, Dr. Eric Dietz published his article, "Force on a Dielectric Slab: Fringing Field Approach," in the American Journal of Physics.

Dr. Xueli Zou published "Making internal thermal energy visible," in The Physics Teacher of June 2004.

Dr. David Kagan's letter to the editor of The Physics Teacher, "Upright Homopolar Generator" was published in the February 2005 issue.

Dr. Philip Gash presented two talks at the Fall Meeting of the Northern California Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers on November 6th, 2004 in Palo Alto, California. They were entitled, "The Physics of a Springy Pendulum" and "The Effective Mass of a Hanging Slinky"

Dr. Eric Ayars contributed a talk, "Analysis of the Vacuum Cannon" at the Fall Meeting of the Northern California Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers on November 6th, 2004 in Palo Alto, California.

Dr. David Kagan has been appointed to the Editorial Board of The Physics Teacher and the Advisory Board for Basic and Applied Academies of Research.

Dr. Cheuk Chau was awarded a $3000 contract by Advanced Light Technologies for utilization of laser and other infrared light sources to destroy unwanted microorganisms. Three students work under this contract - Orion Davies, Joe Piacentine and Jessica Porter.

Dr. Xueli Zou co-authored a presentation, "Instructor expectations and student perceptions in introductory physics laboratories," at the National Winter Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 2005.