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What's New

New Telescope Up and Running

In May the Rigel telescope, a complete turn-key robotic telescope system for use in undergraduate education, became operational. Located at the Winer Observatory in Arizona, the Rigel project consists of a 14.5 inch f/14 Cassegrain telescope, large-format CCD camera, filter wheel, spectrometer, dome, and weather station. A companion curriculum is being developed allowing instructors to integrate Rigel observations into astronomical laboratories. Rigel's primary use will be in undergraduate education and research; however, parts of the curriculum will be suitable for high school courses as well as advanced undergraduate research projects.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Rigel Project is a joint effort with the University of Iowa and Torus Technologies.

For more details on the Rigel telescope project, check out the web site at http://phobos.physics.uiowa.edu/.

Internal Space Physics Review

In early October, the Department's space physics program will be reviewed by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The review committee consists of two external reviewers (Lennard Fisk and Eric Becklin) and one internal reviewer (Robert Linhardt). Robert Linhardt is a UI professor with appointments in the College of Pharmacy, and the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Eric Becklin is Professor of Astronomy at UCLA, and Chief Scientist and Director Designate of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). Lennard Fisk is Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences at the Univ. of Michigan. He is also the former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Science.

The review will look at the present state of the space physics program and find ways to insure its future success.

First Annual OSTC Symposium Held

This fall the UI Optical Science and Technology Center (OSTC) held its first annual symposium entitled, "Exploring the Applications of Optics." Topics of discussion included spintronics and control of quantum processes, photodissociation spectroscopy for chemical dynamics, commercial and military applications of diode lasers, noninvasive blood glucose sensing, and noninvasive detection of cancerous tissue. The program included special guest lectures from Michael Feld, (Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and UI College of Engineering alum, Dr. Roger Hoppe, (Vice President, Decade Optical Systems Inc.).

CLAS Alumni Fellow Visit

Dr. Robert McGrath has been named an Alumni Fellow of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and will be visiting the Department October 3-4.

Since graduating from Iowa he has had a distinguished career in experimental nuclear physics, eventually becoming Director of the State University of New York (SUNY) Nuclear Structure Laboratory and has been instrumental in management of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a major experimental facility in nuclear physics. He is currently the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at SUNY, Stony Brook, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1968. At SUNY he has also held appointments as Acting Provost, Deputy Provost, Associate Provost, Associate Dean (Physical Sciences and Mathematics Division), and Director of the Nuclear Structure Laboratory.

QuarkNet 2002

This summer, the Department was again host to the QuarkNet workshop program for physics high school teachers. Attendance nearly doubled this year from the previous workshop held in 2000, with 19 participants and 2 lead teachers. The two and a half week workshop brought together high school teachers from across the state of Iowa who learned new ways to improve the student's learning experience by incorporating high-energy physics concepts into their classroom curriculum. This year's workshop included field trips to the University of Northern Iowa and Fermilab, laboratory experiments in high-energy physics, as well as equipment demonstrations for use in the classroom. The QuarkNet program is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, and administered by the Fermi National Laboratory in Batavia, IL.