Student Achievements 2005-06

Congratulations to Our Graduates for 2006

  • Justin Stimatze
  • Ryan Morrison
  • Jeremiah Ruesch
  • Andrew Fisher
  • Jacob Baker

Arloe Anania-Murray Scholarship Recipients 06-07

  • Justin Dhooge

Michael McGie Service Award Recipient 06-07

  • Brendan Diamond

Paul G. Hewitt Scholarship for Future Physics Teachers Recipient 06-07

  • Tiara Norris

Floyd English Scholarship Recipients 06-07

  • Terry McAfee

Summer Internships 2006

  • Tiara Norris and Brendan Diamond earned a Research Experience for Undergraduates internship in the Department of Astronomy at San Diego State University.
  • Joe Gran will be a teaching assistant for a course entitled "Science & Engineering" at the Center for Talented Youth at John Hopkins University. This program works with students of the highest academic ability and offers them challenging educational opportunities that develop the intellect, encourage achievement, and nurture social development.

Other Students Achievements of Note

  • Justin Stimatze gave a presentation entitled "Numerical Modeling of Magnetic Island Structure in High- NSTX Plasmas" at the Society of Physics Zone 18 Meeting, March 31st and April 1st, 2006, at California State University, Sacramento. At the same conference, Brendan Diamond talked on "Modeling of Magnetically Coupled Rotors" and Andrew Fisher spoke about "Calculating Clebsch-Gordon Coefficients"
  • At the 47th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, October 24-28, 2005, in Denver, Colorado, Justin Stimatze presented a poster, "Numerical Modeling of Magnetic Island Structure in High- NSTX Plasmas." He also presented the same poster at the 2005 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting, November 3-6, 2005, Seattle, Washington, where it was awarded a Superior Ribbon.
  • Andrew Fisher gave a talk entitled, "Cooling Properties of Beverage Containers" at the American Association of Physics Teachers Northern Calif. Section Fall Meeting, on November 4-5, 2005 at California State University, Chico, CA. Brendan Diamond and Tiara Norris presented "Modeling of Magnetically Coupled Rotors" at this meeting and at the American Association of Physics Teachers National Winter Meeting, January 21-25, 2006, in Anchorage, Alaska.
  • Justin Stimatze and Joel Amato earn a Marsh White Award and Blake Lilly Award from the National Society of Physics Students for improvements to the Annual Pumpkin Drop.
  • Brendan Diamond was elected Associate Zone Councilor for Zone 18 of the Society of Physics Students.
  • Tiara Norris earned a $500 CSUC Undergraduate Research Award for her project, "Magnetically-coupled rotors," which she will work on with Dr. Ayars.
  • Our chapter of the Society of Physics Students won its sixteenth national Outstanding Chapter Award.

Faculty Achievements 2005-06

Dr. Eric Ayars published "Fake Papers as Investigation Prompts" in the journal Physics Education 40:550-555. He also presented a talk entitled, "Use of Python in the Introductory Computational Physics Course" at the American Association of Physics Teachers National Summer Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah held August 1-4, 2005.

Dr. Xueli Zou published "Conductor and Insulator: A QuickTime Movie" in in the October 2005 edition of The Physics Teacher. Along with several others she presented, "Student Perceptions of Physics by Inquiry at Ohio State," at the National Conference of Physics Education Research in Salt Lake City, Utah in August 2005. This work will be published in Proceedings of National Conference of Physics Education Research 2005. At the same conference she, along with others, shared, "Student Assessment of Laboratory in Introductory Physics Courses." It too will appear in the Proceedings of National Conference of Physics Education Research 2005. In addition, Dr. Xueli Zou earned a three year National Science Foundation grant for $92,00 to study "Using Formative Assessment to Develop Introductory Physics Skills."

Dr. David Kagan was published twice in The Physics Teacher. A paper entitled "Detecting the Hard Drive on an IPod" was in November 2005 and his letter "Upright Homopolar Generator" appeared in February 2005. He earned the Myles Tracy Outstanding Student Organization Advisor Award. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of The Physics Teacher and the Advisory Board for Basic and Applied Academies of Research.

Ricardo Chavez, Stephen Cheng, Eric Dietz, and Xueli Zou presented their poster "The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment in the Introductory Physics Lab" at the College of Natural Science Poster Session in April 2005.

Dr. Philip Gash published a paper entitled, "So You Thought a Glass Thermometer Measured Temperature?" in the May 2005 edition of Fusion, the Journal of the American Glassblowers Society. In addition to hosting the Fall Meeting of Northern California/ Nevada Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers in November 2005, he presented a talk at the spring meeting in Palo Alto last April, "The Dynamics of a Spring-Pendulmn: The Effective Mass of a Vibrating Spring."

Dr. Chris Gaffney spoke on "Boltzmann's Light Engine" at the Fall Meeting of Northern California/ Nevada Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers in November 2005. Together with Lynda Klein, he lead the California Science Project of Inland Northern California 2005 Summer Institute: Physics and Chemistry of Weather and Climate.