Physics Blog

As promised, I have one more post from my recent research trip to Vienna, Austria.  First, a confession which will act as a bit of a spoiler, I had never heard of supernumerary rainbows until Dr. Leary joined the College and used a picture of one he had seen in…

After several years of being department chair, I am very much enjoying being on research leave this year.  A research leave is an opportunity for Wooster faculty to take a semester or a year just to focus on our research, without any teaching, committee work, or other kinds of administrative work….

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve just recently returned from a research trip to Vienna, Austria.  I was there for two and a half weeks, and fortunately, I had plenty of time to see some sights!  I first visited Vienna when I was in college and on a whirlwind…

Lankford One of Seven Finalists for American Physical Society’s Apker Award WOOSTER, Ohio – Maggie Lankford, who graduated summa cum laude from The College of Wooster this past May, was selected as one of seven finalists for the American Physical Society’s LeRoy Apker Award, known as the preeminent honor for undergraduate research in…

I’m excited to report that Maggie Lankford, who graduated summa cum laude this year as a Wooster physics major, has been selected as a finalist for the American Physical Society’s LeRoy Apker Award– known as the preeminent honor for undergraduate physics research in the United States!  Maggie received this recognition for work reported in her Senior Independent Study…

We had a fun and productive summer research program again this summer!  We were fortunate last fall to be awarded an REU site grant from the National Science Foundation, so that enabled us to enlarge the program from the size that it has been for the last few years.  We…

It was a beautiful weekend for Commencement this year.  With the record number of majors (20 physics majors!!) graduating, we tried hard to get some group photos, but of course we knew it was hopeless to get absolutely everyone looking into a camera all at the same time. Sunday of…

In addition to the outreach events in April, we also had a lot going on to finish up Senior IS — the senior research project or thesis that all Wooster students complete. You might think that IS Monday is the end of IS, but after handing the thesis in, students…

Whew!  So much happened here in April, I’m just barely catching my breath now! Prepping an egg for its trip to the ground. We had two great outreach events early in April.  The second weekend of April was the Expanding Your Horizons event, with a variety of science workshops for 5th & 6th…

During the week before spring break, I had the opportunity to visit the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) on a research collaboration.   OIST is a graduate university in Japan that accepts only Ph.D. candidates in the sciences, and is located on Okinawa, a subtropical island in the East China Sea,…

I was honoured to attend the APS meeting in Baltimore between 14-19 March. The meeting was amazing—though I found myself oscillating between: “I get this” to “Umm… I think I understand some of what they are talking about” to “Really? What are they talking about?”. Overall, a five star rating,…

Dream a Little Dream of Physics – Fulfilling a Dream at the World’s Largest Meeting of Physicists I don’t dream small. Ever since I was a young girl, I dreamed of a bright, big future for myself. Framed on my desk at school is a picture I drew from the…

Whew! It’s been a while since I have been at the March Meeting for the full week, and I definitely reached information overload.  But before signing off, I wanted to summarize Day 5, Friday! There were a number of interesting choices in the morning, but I chose to go hear…

I knew when I posted the Day 1 update from the March Meeting that it would be pretty hard to keep up daily updates, and I was right!The students arrived on Tuesday morning, and Drew did a great job with his poster at the Tuesday afternoon poster session Drew ready…

I spent only part of Day 4 at the meeting in Baltimore.  After some sessions in the morning, I got to tour some of the Johns Hopkins engineering facilities and hear more about the research that Elliot Wainwright is doing there. Then I took the train down to Washington DC in…

I’m at the March Meeting in Baltimore this week — Day 1 was today, which is so appropriate since it is both Einstein’s birthday and Pi Day!  They were giving away pie at the APS booth in celebration. The March Meeting is the largest gathering of physicists in the world,…

Chaos Among the Stars by Caroline Huang Title: Simple nonlinear models suggest variable star universality Authors: John F. Lindner et al.,

Over the past century or so humankind has achieved remarkable feats of science and engineering – at a cost. The impact that our innovations have on the environment has become exceedingly clear. As we progress toward better and faster ways to travel we need to be cognizant of the efficiency…

This summer I have been working with Dr. Chris Crawford at the University of Kentucky. We have been trying to design a cosine theta coil, which is a magnetic coil that has a uniform magnetic field on the inside, but no field on the outside. Beyond this, we also wanted…

Greetings!  I have recently returned from a semester-long research leave, thanks to Wooster’s generous faculty leaves program.  During my leave, I split my time between Wooster and the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford in the United Kingdom, in addition to a week-long conference in Prague, Czech Republic. In Wooster, I continued work in my lab with Clare…