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From the Chair
Putting the graduation message into
practice
It seems as thought the
semester just began and suddenly we are at the midpoint of the academic
year and the end of the calendar year. We have just congratulated
our outstanding Fall graduating class of seven BS, five MS, and six PhD
recipients. Dean Wheeler spoke at commencement about the dynamics
of our society and how many of our students will be seeking jobs in
positions that did not exist five years ago. The student speaker,
Leigh Ann Thagard, a graduate in Biochemistry, challenged the graduates
to find their passion, to take risks, and to continue learning for the
rest of their lives.
In every way this has been an exciting year for ASU
Physics. Our skilled and knowledgeable staff have challenged each other
to be student focused and to help all of our students succeed. The
faculty have established a new strategic plan that emphasizes biological
physics, nanoscale science, and particle-astrophysics, and all three
groups are building a collaborative environment. The new graduate
program has had a successful launch with over twenty new students
participating in the ‘Research Rotations’ to immerse themselves in
research from the very beginning of their graduate student studies.
The Colloquium and Distinguished Lecture series have
provided opportunities for students and faculty to gather with many of
today’s innovators in science and science policy. Our
undergraduate majors have represented themselves and ASU well at many
events including the Four Corners Section Meeting of the American
Physical Society.
The Physics faculty have welcomed two new members, Dr.
Cecilia Lunardini and Dr. Robert Ros, and searches are underway for new
physics faculty at both the Tempe and Polytechnic campuses. Our physics
education programs are focused on high school teachers and they continue
to be recognized as setting the standards for defining effective
approaches to student learning.
We are equally excited about the challenges ahead. In the upcoming
year we plan to initiate a new professional master’s degree in
Nanoscience, and we will focus on ways to build collaborations that will
enable new research and education programs and provide a multitude of
opportunities to our students and faculty. We also plan on building a
strong network for the Friends of ASU Physics. To continue the
message Ms. Thagard delivered to our recent graduates at convocation, I
invite you to let me know how we can contribute to your passion for
science, or help find ways to take risks to begin new endeavors or to
continue learning and discovering new science. |
Happy Holidays
from ASU Physics!
ASU Physics
celebrates the holiday season and the end of a successful semester at
the annual Holiday Open House on December 5th.
ASU faculty
member Carl Covatto (left) visits with new Associate Professor Robert
Ros. Ros will join the staff starting on January 1st and his research
will focus on experimental biophysics.
The annual event
drew a pretty big crowd consisting of students, faculty, staff, friends
and family of ASU Physics.
ASU Physics
Chair, Robert Nemanich and his wife Mary enjoy the festivities.
What does a physicist want for Christmas?
Ernst
Bauer, Distinguished Research Professor:
“Free,
undisturbed time to catch up on all the things which have piled up
during the year: publications, reports, referee reports, cleaning up the
office so that I can find things.”
Nicole Herbots, Emeritus Professor of
Materials Physics:
“Any
17inch + flat-screen, 100 Gbites, > 2.7 GhZ laptop will do nicely too.”
Peg Stuart, Department Manager:
“A large unrestricted NSF award to study inert matter on a remote (but
well provisioned) Pacific island that does not have access to
PeopleSoft.”
What physics principle is demonstrated particularly
well during the holidays?
Sabrina Mathues, Undergraduate Programs
Coordinator:
“Newton’s
First Law of Motion: A holiday shopper in a state of uniform spending
tends to remain in that state of spending unless the credit card company
calls.”
Tyler
Glembo, Graduate student:
“Entropy! Just look at all the craziness!” |
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REU program
broadens student experience
Andrew Gamalski is
an under-graduate student in ASU Physics working with Professor
Michael Treacy. Both share their thoughts on a recent research
experience for undergraduates (REU) Andrew attended at Carnegie
Mellon and the impact that research holds for the environment.
Andrew Gamalski:
Between June 3rd and August 11th of this year, I attended a
summer REU at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the Materials
Science and Engineering Department (MSE). I studied how ceramic
materials such as barium titanate, strontium titanate, and
mixtures of the two could use UV radiation to split water
molecules to get hydrogen gas. However, measuring the amount of
hydrogen gas is difficult to accomplish. Instead we ran the
reactions in a silver nitrate solution. The light reactions
caused the silver metal to accumulate on the surface of the
sample in regions of theoretical hydrogen gas production. We
used an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to take images of these
ceramic samples before and after the reactions. In order |
to interpret the AFM images, I wrote computer
program which used the AFM topographical data to compute global
silver height and density averages. Overall I found that the
mixture of barium and strontium titanate had the most silver
deposited on the surface.
Roughly twenty students participated in this program.
Half of the students were from Carnegie Mellon and the others
attended different universities. All of the students were very
friendly and sociable. We usually relaxed on Saturday nights at
a local student’s home. Since multiple REU’s were going on
simultaneously CMU would host large events such as
barbeques and ice cream socials that would bring all the
students together. Another activity the REU students would
attend was Friday movie night. On a hill right next to campus,
the city would host a Friday movie night where different movies
would be played on a very large projector screen. It was a lot
of fun.
Attending this REU was an excellent experience for me and I
would certainly recommend it to anyone who has an open summer
and an |
interest in scientific
research. You simultaneously conduct excellent research, check
out a new college campus, and meet new friends.
Professor Treacy:
Hydrogen shows much promise as a high energy density fuel,
but there are many problems to overcome. The biggest problem is
that it takes energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen
in the first place. In fact, thermodynamics tells us that it
will cost more energy than we get back out. Andrew’s work was
applying a clever idea, at the nanoscience level, to construct a
catalytic material that uses sunlight to break down water into
is constituents. This means that the hydrogen production did not
need fossil fuels and generates almost no carbon emission in the
process. It is still early days, but ideas like this may end up
contributing to alternative low carbon footprint fuels in the
future.
For more information on Professor Michael Treacy and his
research group, please visit
our web site. |
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