What's New

Summer REU Program

The Department was host to ten undergraduate research student participants in the first summer of a three year National Science Foundation sponsored Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site. The students came from a variety of institutions: the University of Michigan, MIT, UI, Grinnell College, Swarthmore College, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, St. Ambrose, Radford University, Carnegie-Mellon, and North Georgia State College and University.

The purpose of the ten-week program was to give undergraduates an opportunity to do meaningful yet manageable research projects. The projects ranged from the theoretical (Elizabeth Golovatski's "Models of Electron Tunneling in Semiconductor Devices" supervised by Prof. Michael Flatté) to experimental (Jerome Fung's "Measurement of the Charge of a Particle in a Dusty Plasma" supervised by Prof. John Goree) to observational (Raelin Schneider's "Luminous Blue Variable Stars" supervised by Prof. Cornelia Lang).

The research work was supplemented with trips to Fermilab and to the North Liberty radio telescope which is part of the Very Long Baseline Array. Students also participated in a program on Communicating Science to the Public, led by Jessica Renaud. The final presentations and comments by the students attested to how much they gained from the Communicating Science program.

APS Nicholson Medal for Human Outreach

Established in 1994 by the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Plasma Physics and the Forum on Physics and Society, the Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Service has been renamed the Nicholson Medal for Human Outreach. Created in honor of Prof. Dwight Nicholson's caring attitude and scientific mentoring of students, the renamed award will be given to physicists who excel in mentoring and motivating physics students, who inspire scientific development in students and junior colleagues, and who create interest and involve the public in advancements in physics.

Because the APS is no longer in a position to fund the Nicholson medal, a $40,000 fund-raising campaign is currently underway to collect donations to make the medal a self-supporting endowment. Donations, which are tax deductible, may be sent to Darlene Logan, Director of Development, American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740.

For more information on the Nicholson Medal and a list of previous winners, go to the APS web site at www.aps.org/praw/nicholso/.

Distinguished Public Lecture Series

The Distinguished Public Lecture Series was very successful in its inaugural year. The five talks, three from external speakers and two from our own department, were very well attended by the local community. Lecture topics included the origin of the universe, the search for water on Mars, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, nano-science and technology, and neutrinos. This year's lectures promise to be just as exciting, with the first being given October 9th by Dr. Edward Stone in recognition of Van Allen Day. His talk entitled, "James Van Allen: From Explorer 1 to the Edge of Interstellar Space," will be given at 4:00 pm in Macbride Auditorium. The lectures, normally held monthly on a Tuesday evening at 7:30 pm in Van Allen Hall, are supported from funding provided by the UI Office of the Vice President for Research. For information on previous and upcoming lectures, visit the web site at www.physics.uiowa.edu/lecture_series/.

QuarkNet 2004

Twelve high school teachers from Iowa participated in this summer's one-week QuarkNet workshop at the University of Iowa. The QuarkNet program, supported by NSF and the Department of Energy, brings together high school students and teachers to conduct high energy physics research at universities and labs throughout the country. Some of this year's workshop activities included analyzing data that was generated using a muon telescope, working on a video project using Vernier's Data Logger Pro to analyze videos and make measurements, and a field trip to Fermilab to tour several of the fixed beam experimental areas. Participants also made arrangements for this school year to get the muon telescope to several high schools throughout the state.

The QuarkNet CMS Research Program also supported several teacher-student fellowships for three months during the summer. Participants included students John Stroh and Zak Rajput and teachers Peter Bruecken and Chris Like from Bettendorf High School, and student Kausteya Roy from Urbandale High School. Their work involved research with quartz fiber radiation damage, data analysis and preparation of quartz fiber samples for testing at Argonne National Lab, using the Iowa virtual control room for HCAL beam testing, and development and testing of the PPAC gas detector for the SLHC HE upgrade and CMS heavy ion ZDC detector option.