Physics News

Mark Moog spent his summer studying particle physics with professor Jerry Gilfoyle.  The two began their work together after Mark’s freshman year at UR.  Mark used the University of Richmond supercomputer cluster to run simulations of a possible future experiment at the CEBAF accelerator at Jefferson National Laboratory in Newport, VA.  The simulations address whether the experiment would be able to accurately measure the form factor of the neutron at high energies.  In addition to his work at Richmond, Mark also traveled to Jefferson lab to help monitor the accelerator during ongoing experiments there.   This fall, Mark travels with professor Gilfoyle to a national physics conference in Oakland, California to present the results of their work. 

Brian Mahoney will graduate this year with degrees in both chemistry and physics.  His research has been in the chemistry department with Wade Downey, and he spent his summer developing a new way to synthesize propargylic alcohols.  These compounds are frequently used as starting points for further sythesis of drug compounds by the pharmaceutical industry, and Brian has worked to make the sythesis faster and more economical.  Brian began working with professor Downey during his freshman year.  This fall, he will present his work at a chemistry conference in Nashville, TN. 

Junior Alex Cooke, together with sophomore Adam Hake, spent his summer doing research with professor Ovidiu Lipan in biological physics.  Alex, a physics major, has been emersed in wet-lab molecular biology this summer, which has whetted his appetite for the study of genetics in the biology department.  He currently plans to major in interdisciplinary physics with a concentration in biology.  He has been studying iron uptake system in the bacteria E. Coli, which is usefule for understanding the general problem of iron regulation in cells.  He will continue his research with professor Lipan this year.

Sophomore Matt Jordan spent his summer working with professor Jerry Gilfoyle to analyze the systematic uncertainties in measurements taken at the CEBAF particle accelerator at Jefferson National Lab.  They are are part of a large, international collaboration studying the structure of the deuteron particle, and the results of their experiments will ultimately be used to test current theoretical models of nuclei.  The bulk of their work was performed here at UR on the physics department’s powerful supercomputer cluster.   Matt began working with professor Gilfoyle during his freshman year.  Their research continues this academic year, and in October the two will travel to to present their work at a conference in Oakland California.

Physic major Nat Mason did research over the summer with professor Ovidiu Lipan in the field of Biological physics.  Nat is working on the heat shock system in mammalian cells. He is looking for ways to undderstand the response of the cells to a double heat pulse. This research will open new perspectives on heat shock memory (thermotolerance).  Nat has worked with professor Lipan since his first year, and continues his research this fall.

Sophomore Adam Hake spent his summer doing research with professor Ovidiu Lipan in biological physics.  Although Adam has been emersed in wet-lab molecular biology, he is also highly interested in the theoretical aspects of biological systems.  He has been studying iron uptake system in the bacteria E. Coli, which is usefule for understanding the general problem of iron regulation in cells.  He will continue his research with professor Lipan this year.

Haoxuan (Jeff) Zheng started research in Ted Bunn’s research group during his freshman year and continued during the summer afterwards.  He examined theoretical models of dark energy, the mysterious phenomenon that is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate.  He used observations of supernovae, the microwave background radiation, and other observations to see what limits we can place on the physical properties of dark energy.

Ben Rybolt worked in Ted Bunn’s research group during the summer of ’08 and during the school year before then. His work has focused mostly on testing methods for diagnosing and removing contaminants from maps of the cosmic microwave background radiation. He presented his work in a poster at the summer 2008 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis.

Brent Follin has worked in Ted Bunn’s research group for the summers of 2007 and 2008, focusing on issues related to the construction of MBI, a new telescope being constructed for observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Along with Peter Hyland (U. Wisconsin and McGill U.), Brent and Ted solved an important problem related to finding the best possible design for this sort of telescope. Brent presented preliminary results in a poster at an American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis this summer, and we just submitted a paper for publication. Ted wrote a bit more about this in his blog.

Austin Bourdon has worked in Ted Bunn’s research group for the past two summers, examining a bunch of possible explanations for some unexplained features in maps of the cosmic microwave background radiation. He presented his work in a poster at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Denver this summer, and he is coauthor on a paper recently submitted to the journal Physical Review D. Bunn wrote more about this on his blog, and you can see the paper here.

Cosmin Pancratov ’10 is first author on a series of three articles just published in the journal Computing in Science and Engineering.  The articles describe the optimization of a numerical routine used for image analysis, work done with physics professor Matt Trawick, computer science professor Kelly Shaw, and Jake Kurzer ’10, all coauthors.  Cosmin and Jake both began doing research with Trawick during their freshman year.