|
ALUMNI NEWS ITEMS April 2008 Dr. James Berryman (BS: Physics – 1969) has been selected as an Outstanding Referee for 2008 for the journals of the American Physical Society. This continues a long tradition in that, as an undergraduate, Jim was also selected as the Outstanding Senior in Physics at KU in 1969. March 2008
Lee I. Britt (MS: Physics –1978) obtained his PhD ("Low Energy Glass Capillary X-ray OPtics With Applications to X-ray Lithography"). He is currently working in the Physics Department at Grambling State University in Grambling, LA. Jan Kurzidim (MS: Physics – 2005) is working with the Soft Matter Theory Group at the Center for Computational Materials Science Institute for Theoretical Physics, Vienna University of Technology, in Vienna, Austria. John Clark (MS: Physics – 2004) is still working with the National Guard. He and his wife Jennifer now are the proud parents of a new baby boy. He weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz and was 19 inches in length. Congratulations John and Jen! Stuartt Corder (BS: Astronomy, Math, Physics – 2001) has completed his Ph.D. in Astronomy at Cal Tech and has accepted a Jansky Fellowship at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, VA. Stuartt also became the proud father of Vivian Helene Corder, 10lbs 1.5oz, 23inches. Nathan De Lee (BS: Astronomy, Physics – 2002) has completed his Ph.D. in Astronomy at Michigan State University and has accepted a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Florida to work with Dr. Jian Ge on the SDSS-III Marvels planet search. Nurur Rahman (PhD: Physics- 2004), after spending a few years at IPAC in Pasadena, has accepted a postdoctoral appointment with Dr. Alberto Bolatto of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Jeremy Tinker (BS: Astronomy, Physics – 1997) has completed a postdoctoral appointment at the Kavli Institute at the University of Chicago and is moving on to a 5-year fellowship at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics. Humberto Campins (BA: Astronomy – 1977) will be spending his upcoming sabbatical in Spain and France. Josh Meyers (BS: Astronomy, Math, Physics - 2005), currently a grad student at Berkeley writes that “last August I got engaged to a classmate I met when I first came to Berkeley. Her name is Jennie Guzman and she does research with Bose-Einstein condensates. We're hoping to get married sometime in the summer of 2009. My studies are going well; I'll be done with classes this semester. Hannah Swift (BS: Astronomy, Math, Physics- 2006) and I have both been working hard on constructing proposals for Hubble and Keck programs which were due earlier this month. It's beginning to look like my thesis work will involve spectroscopy of z >~ 1 galaxies; determining ages/metallicities and from that deriving cosmological constraints.”
David Tholen (BS: Astronomy, Physics – 1978) is continuing the connection between Kansas and Pluto started by Clyde Tombaugh. The March issue of the Astronomical Journal has his paper about a first crack at measuring the masses of the new satellites Nix and Hydra via the mutual perturbation method and he and his collaborators have just submitted an HST proposal for Cycle 17 observations of the system. Judy Shau-yuh Yu (BS: Astronomy, Math, Physics, Computer Science - 2003) is completing her Ph.D. in Space Physics from the University of Michigan this year. She writes that "after graduation I have a couple of offers to join start-ups in the local area. I might do that for a while. You could say I am taking an unconventional route, but I want to get away from academic research for a bit." Scott Randle (BS: Astronomy - 1987) "I am currently working at the McCauley division of Cessna Aircraft Company designing and certifying propellers. It is a lot of fun to complete the aerodynamic design of a propeller for a particular application, have the propeller manufactured at our manufacturing facility, measure the performance of the propeller during flight tests, and finally participate in the certification of the propeller." January 2008
September 2007 Scott W. Chambers (PhD Physics, 2003) writes that he is currently working as a Research Scientist for the Northrup Grumman Group. He and his wife Yuka now have two beautiful children and are having a great time in Indiana. schambers101@comcast.net May 2007 Tamara Payne ( MS Computational Physics & Astronomy, 1989) writes that she has relocated to Maui, Hawaii, and is doing more on sensor development and integration as part of her position with Boeing, LTS working with the AMOS project. She is expanding her
Don Payne (BS ASTR 1986)(third from left) and Dan Long (BS ASTR, EPHX 1987) (standing) enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with the Sloan Survey Observer (left) and a researcher at Lowell Observatory with connection to NPOI (right) in this photo sent along by Don. Don's corrected email address is donpayne@narrascape.com. The Spring 2006 newsletter for the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University notes that Kevin Kohlstedt (BS Engineering Physics 2004) was awarded a competitive DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. Kevin is in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Northwestern. September 01, 2006
Hannah
Swift (BS: Astronomy, Math, Physics 2006) writes
" Life so far here has consisted of getting myself unpacked and
finding my way around town. I flew in last Tuesday and have spent the
past few days buying furniture, going to the grocery stores, and the
like. My room is finally unpacked and I have included a couple of pictures
below.
My first day of orientation was today, consisting of a new student
mixer and a review session for the classical physics prelim exam we
will take on Saturday. This semester I'll be taking a course on Quantum
and one on Electrodynamics. I'll be teaching Physics 8B, which is Electricity
and Magnetism for non-majors; well, I won't really be teaching, I'll
be leading two discussion sections for the ~600 person 8B lecture.
The weather here (Berkeley) is great; it stays in the 60s and 70s pretty
much all the time. It is a little foggy in the morning, but is bright
and sunny all afternoon. Remaining on my list of things to do is get
a bike (and of course study for prelims); my roommate (Josh Meyers)
has been great at letting me borrow his car to go to the store (as I
don't have a car up here). I live about a mile and a half from campus,
so it'll be a nice bike ride (uphill there, but downhill on the return
trip every day)." Daniel Nunes (BS: Astronomy, Physics 1997) and Jackie Milingo (BS: Astronomy, Physics 1993) both visited Tucson during June and, while in the city for professional reasons, each stayed with Steve and Jeannette Shawl for a few days. Steve and Jeannette are happily entrenched in the great southwest and invite any alumni who visit the area to contact them for a stopover, if interested. Michael Willis (BS Astronomy 1996) returned to the KU campus for a visit to see how the school and Lawrence have changed after 10 years away. Mike is living in Redwood City, CA and happily working as an R&D Engineer for LORAL Space Systems. Delora Tanner (MS: Computational Physics & Astronomy 2004) writes to inform everyone of the birth of her second daughter, Emilee, on June 1. Emilee weighed in at 7lb, 15oz. and a length of 19.5 inches. Older sister is Becca and husband Matt are doing fine. Delora is still with Raytheon in Tuscon, "designing, testing, analyzing and simulating software algorithms for ABM sensors. Very interesting and rewarding." JUNE 1, 2006 Josh Meyers (BS: Astronomy, Math, Physics 2005) sends the following update. "I'm finally finishing my first year as a grad student at Berkeley and I thought I'd give you a short update. Classes here have been outstanding in spite of being incredibly demanding. I took two semesters of Quantum Mechanics, 1 semester of E&M and 1 semester of General Relativity. I just handed in my 20-page GR take-home final yesterday. I've had the opportunity to teach both semesters and I loved it. I led 2 hour discussion sections twice a week for 5 different groups of students, mostly pre-meds. We talked mostly about classical mechanics, but I would occasionally go off on tangents into more interesting physics. And I passed my prelims in January! Everything is going well. I'm joining the Supernova Cosmology Project group over the summer, and I get to go observing at Keck later this month. I'm so excited to finally put some of my astronomy knowledge to use in research. I don't know precisely what I'll be doing... probably some spectroscopy. Next semester I'll probably take some graduate astro courses too." MAY 10, 2006 Jason
Craig (BS: Physics, Astronomy 1995) writes that he has completed his
first year of employment at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. “My job
is to produce 3D animations of significant JPL missions and ensure their scientific
accuracy. I work with skilled modelers and animators on a team called ‘Solar
System Visualization’. Since I have been here I have worked on Deep Impact,
MRO, MER, and Cassini. I have met the head scientists and engineers and translated
their requests into concrete, scientifically accurate animations based on the
actual spacecraft data kernels.” Links to projects Jason has been involved
with include:
a) Animations of a 3D flythrough of Valles Marineris (http://themis.asu.edu/valles_video) b) animations for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which arrived at Mars on Friday, March 10, (Go to the JPL/NASA homepage at jpl.nasa.gov. The image you see of the spacecraft pointing to Earth is Jason’s, part of our ten minutes of animations you can get at http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/video/index.html#MROLaunchMOI under "Animations". It can be downloaded in four parts or altogether, or even for your video Ipod.), c) animation of the ice/water venting on Enceladus(moon of Saturn) that was a big story early in March, making the nightly news on ABC, NBC, CNN, and also Nightline. You can see the clip at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/cassini/enceladus-20060310/index.cfm. Jason’s team did the shot of Enceladus venting and of Cassini approaching Enceladus. Jason can be reached
via email at jcraig411@yahoo.com Jackie Milingo (BS: Astronomy, Physics 1993) has accepted a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Gettysburg College starting in Fall 2006. Jackie is currently on the faculty at Franklin and Marshall College, just down the road from Gettysburg. For now, Jackie can be contacted at jmilingo@fandm.edu March 15, 2006 Ed Sion (BA: Astronomy 1968, MS: Astronomy 1969) was featured in a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing his research presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington in January. Ed, a longtime fan of Kansas and KU, has been on the faculty of Villanova, another well-known basketball power, since 1975. The article can be accessed at this site. James Liebert (BA: Astronomy, Math, Physics 1968), Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, has been granted an associateship by the United Kingdom's Royal Astronomical Society, an honor bestowed upon only three individuals worldwide each year. Jim, who researches the evolution of stars, also works in the relatively new field of substellar objects, also known as brown dwarfs or "failed stars." He assembled a team to locate these stars, which cannot shine by their own nuclear power and must be found using infrared and deep optical surveys. In the past 10 years, Jim and his team have located most of the substellar objects in the galaxy. The full press release announcing this honor may be found at this site. Steve Hawley (BA: Astronomy, Physics 1973) writes from his current position as Director of Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science, Johnson Space Center, NASA - Houston, TX. "Our organization is the space science group at JSC. We do cosmochemistry, martian and lunar surface science, orbital debris modeling and risk assessments. We also do image analysis for Shuttle and Station and earth observations from manned spacecraft as well as develop/assess architectures for future exploration missions and, in particular, how to do science. Currently we are doing preliminary assessments on the Stardust comet samples returned on January 15th. We actually have the flight hardware in our building and are analyzing the first particles. Very preliminary data show that the particles are consistent with the composition of chondritic meteorites which are thought to be the oldest meteorites. We also are working to clean and preserve the Genesis samples of solar wind that were contaminated when the spacecraft crashed a year ago." Stan
Dyck (BS: Astronomy 1989) writes from his current home, Seattle, where
he spends his time writing software. "I'm enjoying the 'West Coast Lifestyle'
with my wife Laura. In our case, this involves lots of outdoor activities:
hiking, skiing, rock climbing, kayaking, and so forth. We're both very happy
here. January 15, 2006 Charles A. Eklund (PhD: Physics 1975), Chief Technology Officer for ITT Industries' Advanced Engineering and Sciences Division, has received the company's prestigious Engineered for Life Award for his work on the development of new products and services. For more than 25 years, Chuck has helped in the development, implementation, and testing of new products and services vital to the nation's security. His work on ballistic missile defense and chemical and biological detection have allowed ITT to maintain a leadership position in the marketplace and secure numerous government contracts. Most importantly. Eklund's work has helped protect citizens and miltary personnel of the United States from hostile attacks. Kurt Dominik (BS: Astronomy, Math, & Physics 1992) and Todd Pellman (BS: Physics 1995, Math 1997) are working as Java programmer and Unix system programmer at Argus Health Systems in downtown Kansas City. Katie Green (MS: Physics 2005) has been an intern for Fall 2005 at Science Service, writing articles for Science News, where she had a major feature story in the Nov. 26 issue. But now she says "I found myself a full-time, non-internship job. I got that gig at Technology Review. I'll be writing for their website as the information technology writer. And I'll be moving to San Francisco. I'm quite excited about the whole ordeal!" Brian Thomas (PhD: Physics 2005) wrote a joint letter with two biology professors to the Washburn University Review criticizing recent Kansas State Board of Education science standards revisions. The letter is accessible at this site. |
Some of the members of the Supernova Cosmology project in 2007: background (photo by Roy Kaltschmidt) from left; front row, David Rubin, Saul Perlmutter, Josh Meyers, Hannah Swift; standing: Tony Spadafora, Kyle Dawson, Rahman Amanullah, Nao Suzuki, and Kyle Barbary.
