• Faculty Highlights/Research
• Outreach Activities/Highlights
• Alumni News
• Graduate/Undergraduate
• Staff News
• What's New

• Advisory Board
• Faculty Directory
• Undergraduates/Graduates Receiving Degrees
• Liberal Arts Staff Recognition
• Alumni Update Form

Faculty Highlights/Research

Amitava Bhattacharjee

Thomas Boggess

Tom Boggess has been appointed to a second three-year term as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.
Prof. Boggess was invited to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Educational Consortium of the Directed Energy Professional Society held August 18 in Albuquerque, NM. The theme of the meeting was "Attracting and Educating the Brightest Students to Contribute to Directed Energy Research and Development," with the purpose of formulating strategies for dealing with current and projected critical shortages of scientists and engineers trained in the area of laser technology.

Michael Flatté

Tom Boggess and Michael Flatté received a two-year $301,000 grant award from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories to investigate novel semiconductor materials. Their research will focus on understanding the optical, electronic, and structural properties of materials comprised of thin layers of different semiconductors. The work will be conducted in collaboration with Texas A&M University.

Michael Flatté has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure.

Louis Frank, Carver/James A. Van Allen professor of physics, has been elected to the Editorial Board of Space Science Reviews.

John Goree

John Goree is taking part in an experiment to be placed on the International Space Station. Prof. Goree is a Co-Investigator on the Plasma Kristall Experiment (PKE) which is believed to be the first physical sciences experiment on the International Space Station. The first crew is expected to occupy the space station late this year. On December 12, 2000 a Russian Progress rocket will launch and upload the PKE. The experiment is currently scheduled to be performed this winter. Details about the upcoming experiment on the International Space Station can be found at Prof. Goree's web site at http://www.microgravity.net/.
This year's American Physical Society's calendar features the plasma physics research of Prof. Goree with a glossy photo titled "Shock Wave in a Dusty Plasma." The calendar was distributed to the 42,000 members of the APS.

Donald Gurnett

Donald Gurnett and his research group are preparing to start the data analysis phase of the European Cluster II mission, which is a reflight of the failed Cluster I mission that was destroyed in the explosion of an Ariane 5 rocket on June 4, 1996. The four identical spacecraft were designed to orbit in close formation around the Earth and were successfully launched in pairs on July 16 and August 9, 2000, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Shortly after launch, the spacecraft were successfully maneuvered into their final orbit configuration which consists of a 57-hour, polar orbit with a perigee of 17,200 km and an apogee of 120,600 km. The objective of the Cluster mission is to study small-scale plasma structures in Earth's magnetosphere.
The Cluster project at the UI represents about 14 years of work and $6.6 million in NASA funding. The data analysis and mission operations phase of the project is expected to provide NASA funding for at least a period of three years at a level of around one million dollars per year. The four UI instruments, which comprise the only U.S. experiment aboard Cluster II, were designed and built at The University of Iowa. The science and operations team at the UI consists of Prof. Donald Gurnett, Prof. Robert Mutel, Prof. Steven Spangler, Prof. Craig Kletzing, Richard Huff, Jolene Pickett, and Donald Kirchner. Of particular interest for the UI investigation are four-point, long-baseline radio interferometry measurements that will be made for the first time in space. These measurements have the potential of giving important new information on the angular motion and size of various terrestrial and astronomical radio sources, as well as being able to resolve the wave packet geometry and propagation velocities of naturally occurring plasma waves, something that is not possible with a single spacecraft.

Richard Ignace received a three-year grant (in collaboration with Prof. J. Bjorkman of the University of Toledo) from NSF entitled "Probing Circumstellar Envelopes with Gravitational Microlensing." Prof. Ignace received observing time (with Prof. J. Brown and Dr. L. Oskinova of the University of Glasgow) to study evolved hot massive stars called Wolf-Rayet stars with XMM-Newton, a European X-ray satellite. Prof. Ignace has also co-authored a popular level book entitled, "Discovering the Universe" (London: Philips) with Prof. R. Prinja at the University College-London that is expected to appear in the summer of 2001.

Paul Kleiber

Paul Kleiber and Tom Boggess have been elected to three-year terms as divisional representatives to The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts Faculty Assembly.

Craig Kletzing

In February, Craig Kletzing was one of five University of Iowa faculty members awarded a 2000 Faculty Scholar Award. Prof. Kletzing will study waves associated with the aurora borealis by using measurements from a sounding rocket launched from Alaska in 2002 and laboratory measurements made with the Large Plasma Device at UCLA. As a Faculty Scholar, he is released from half of his respective teaching, advising, administrative and service responsibilities for three years. The award takes the form of a developmental assignment for one semester each year. Prof. Kletzing gave a Saturday Scholar presentation this fall entitled, "The Auroral Borealis: Nature's Lightshow in the Sky."

Robert Mutel received a grant from the National Science Foundation to upgrade the telescope in the Iowa Robotic Observatory. The grant is to develop a turnkey robotic observatory system with a companion curriculum that can be used for both college and high school students. Information on this research, known as Project Rigel, can be found on the internet at http://denali.physics.uiowa.edu/rigel/.

Charles Newsom

Charles Newsom has been appointed a Research Fellow at the Univ. of Texas Memorial Museum in recognition of his continuing contributions in paleontology.

Wayne Polyzou has been elected a member of the executive committee of the Few-Body Systems and Multiparticle Dynamics Group (GFB) of the American Physical Society.

In January, Mary Hall Reno was selected as a Dean's Scholar in The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts. The Dean's Scholar award recognizes excellence in teaching and supports the professional growth of faculty members. Prof. Reno plans to use the award for travel to meet with collaborators and attend conferences and workshops. Through this award, she would also like to help other researchers to travel to the UI, so students and faculty may learn firsthand about the most recent findings in the field of particle physics, especially in neutrino physics.

Jack Scudder

Jack Scudder has been cited in the media for his recent experimental documentation of the elusive process of magnetic reconnection. This process initiates an interconnection between the sun and the earth that ultimately causes the charged particles to enter our atmosphere near the magnetic poles making the auroras. Prof. Scudder's observations have provided the first direct evidence of this initiating process that was predicted thirty years ago.

Fred Skiff has been promoted to the rank of Professor.

James Van Allen, Regent Distinguished Professor, remains active in his research with Pioneer 10. The University of Iowa instrument on Pioneer 10 continues to provide valuable data on the intensity of cosmic rays in the heliosphere as solar activity approaches its 11-year cyclic maximum. Between January and July 2000, the intensity declined by about 10 percent, signaling the delayed arrival of increased turbulence in the solar wind and showing that the spacecraft is still inside the heliosphere. The heliocentric distance of the spacecraft is now beyond 76 AU in the antapex direction and is increasing at the rate of 2.6 AU per year (Van Allen and Randall). A new paper, "On the modulation of galactic cosmic ray intensity during solar activity cycles 19, 20, 21, 22 and early 23," by Van Allen was published in the August 15th edition of Geophysical Research Letters.
A documentary entitled, "James Van Allen--Flights of Discovery" has also been produced about Van Allen and his research over the years. Information on this documentary can be found on the internet at http://www.jamesvanallen.com/.