Featured Undergraduates: Spring 2020 (I)
B.S. Majors Carley Middleton, Nick Kruse and Joseph Brown, Society of Physics Students Officers, at PhysCon 2019.
Carley Middleton, Nick Kruse and Joseph Brown are officers in the UM chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS). All three students (along with other UM faculty and students) attended PhysCon 2019 in Rhode Island.
Carley Middleton and Makena Tisor (undergrads) (front row). Joseph Brown (undergrad), Jake Bennett (assistant professor) and Anil Panta (grad student) (back row).
Carley is the president of SPS. She is a senior B.S. major and a teaching assistant in our astronomy labs. Nick is the SPS treasurer. He is a junior B.S. major and one of the current awardees of our flagship Lewis Scholarship. Joseph is the SPS secretary. He is a senior B.S. major minoring in computer science. His senior research project involved the study of the Bjerknes forces between bubbles produced by high intensity focused ultrasound in water, and was directed by Dr. Joel Mobley. Joseph presented his research at the 2019 PhysCon in Rhode Island.
At PhysCon 2019, Carley, Joseph and Nick (as well as other students) attended several talks from Nobel Prize laureates and participated in workshops where they learned about the application of physics in real world situations. They also met students from other colleges and universities and with whom they discussed ways to improve SPS chapters.
The SPS meets on a weekly basis to plan events which include outreach events (and of course, eat pizza!). The Spooky Physics Night Halloween demo show and the Science Field Day are two of the biggest outreach events that the SPS is involved with. All physics students are invited to join the SPS which usually meets on Thursdays in Lewis 104 between 5 and 6 pm.
RECENT STUDENT FEATURES
- Fall 2019 (II): B.A. Major Taylor Cabrera Represents the Department as the 2019 College of Liberal Arts Student Ambassador for Physics.
- Fall 2019 (I): B.S. Majors Radhakrishna Adhikari, Paul Gebeline, Sakul Mahat & Ming Zern Ngoh at the Belle II Summer School.
We encourage all our students to do research with our faculty and staff. Opportunities for great experiences are open to all our students in all our main research areas: atmospheric physics, condensed matter physics, gravitational physics, high energy physics and physical acoustics. Projects are also available in digital electronics as well as other areas. Students in the B.S. program are required to complete 2 credit hours of the physics research courses, Physics 463 and/or 464 and students in the B.A. program are encouraged to participate as well. Students may talk to their academic advisors for help getting started or talk directly to the people in the research areas they are interested in.