Graduate students in The University of Mississippi Department of Physics and Astronomy have been busy this month, bringing home awards from conferences across the state.

Seven graduate students presented their research at this year’s annual meeting of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences in Hattiesburg two weeks ago. Somayeh Taghizadeh’s poster on Development of Brain Tissue Mimicking Phantom (pictured top, left) won the second place award in the competition.

Last week Mohammad “Reza” Afrough presented his work at the 7th Annual Research Symposium organized by the UM Graduate Student Council and won the first place award in the Physical and Life Sciences poster category with Development of a Tilt-free seismometer for Advanced LIGO (pictured bottom, left).

Fifteen graduate students went to Starkville last Saturday for the second annual joint UM-MSU Physics Graduate Student Association Research Symposium. There were two poster awards and both went to UM students, Reza Afrough  and Nilmini Karunarathne. Of the five oral presentation awards, the first and one of the two tied for second place went to UM students, Maryam Landi and Sunethra Dayavansha.

The Henry E. Bass Basic Acoustics Summer School (BASS) brings undergraduate students, distinguished Research Scientists of the National Center for Physical Acoustics (NCPA) and Discussion Leaders together to explore a wide variety of topics in physical acoustics and engineering. BASS will give students opportunities to do research directed by experts, exploring topics that are not ordinarily encountered in the undergraduate experience.

The focus of BASS is on intermediate and advanced undergraduate students (must have completed sophomore year). A limited number of undergraduate students will be selected. Each student will be assigned a research advisor and a research topic for the program. The student will work in the lab, attend organized lectures, and participate in discussion groups.

Participants provide their own transportation to and from The University of Mississippi. There is no registration fee. Participants will receive a $3,000 stipend and dormitory housing, if needed.

The Program will be held June 3, 2019 to July 26, 2019. Program information will be provided to all those who request the application form.  Complete applications for the 2019 BASS must be received no later than  March 1, 2019.

Application forms may be requested from this link: BASS 2019 Application, The application and four required attachments must be emailed to mbp@olemiss.edu. The deadline for submission is March 1, 2019. Please see https://ncpa.olemiss.edu/bass-2019/ for more details.

Almost one year has passed since the announcement of the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves, a historic “ripple in space-time” that proved Einstein right and opened a new field of astronomy.

To celebrate the first anniversary of LIGO’s detection, The Department of Physics and Astronomy invites the public the world premiere of the short film documentary “LIGO Detection” at Lewis Hall on February 6 at 6:00 PM.

In this, the third film about LIGO by filmmaker and visiting scientist Kai Staats, he investigates what unfolded between the incredible detection of merging black holes on September 14, and five months later, February 11, 2016 when LIGO announced the detection of merging black holes to the world.

LIGO Detection is the first documentary film released about the detection event of September 14, 2015. It features interviews with LIGO Scientific Collaboration members from Caltech and MIT, the voices of more than twenty LSC members who share their personal story of the day of detection, and the Media Event in D.C. as LIGO scientists explain the function of the detectors.

Doors open at 6:00. Light refreshments will be served. Show ends at 7:00 PM.
Free admission.