MAY 2008

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Friends of the College of Science at Weber State University:

Welcome to the May 2008 issue of the College of Science E-Newsletter. The College of Science uses this format to highlight one department or program each month, as well as other information that we feel you might find helpful in the weeks ahead. The E-Newsletter goes out to faculty, staff, and friends of the College of Science who may be interested in what is happening in the College of Science each month.

In this issue you will find:

If you would like your name on the distribution list, please send an e-mail to Dean Dale A. Ostlie ( mailto:dostlie@weber.edu ). In addition, if you have announcements pertaining to the College of Science that you feel should be included in future e-newsletter articles, please don't hesitate to send your suggestions. We may or may not be able to include them, but we certainly welcome any and all suggestions.

****************************************************************************************************

Physics Program Review. Every department in the College of Science carried out a 5-year program review. A team of distinguished reviewers, consisting of Dr. Paula Szkody of the University of Washington’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. Mark Riffe of USU’s Department of Physics, Dr. Dan Bedford of WSU’s Department of Geography, and Dr. Laine Berghout of WSU’s Department of Chemistry toured the Physics Department and interviewed faculty, staff, and students. The review team’s report concluded that "The major strength of the department is the excellent faculty that are dedicated to providing the best physics education possible for undergraduates. … The Physics curriculum is a second major strength. The curriculum includes all of the standard core Physics courses as well as some that students at other undergraduate institutions frequently do not have the possibility to take. … A third major strength is the emphasis the department places on undergraduate research. This involvement of students (both inside and outside of the Physics Department) allows them to experience science in a way that encourages problem solving and creativity far beyond what textbook and lecture alone can accomplish."

Physics Open House. On March 18 the department held its second Open House. Some 1400 people from the community came to WSU to see the "Circus of Physics" and "Spinning Objects, Electricity, and Cats!" demonstration shows, and the evening included opportunities to listen to talks by Physics faculty, see a demonstration from WSU’s High Altitude Ballooning Team, play laser ricochet, learn about nano-technology, measure the metal content (including lead) of household items, and watch astrophysics demonstrations and planetarium shows – and much more! The Physics faculty and majors all worked hard to make this a very successful event.

Outreach. This year (so far) more than 16,000 people have visited the department’s Layton P. Ott Planetarium. In one month, more than 2200 students came to the planetarium on field trips. The planetarium is producing its own shows and selling them nationwide with content tailored to each state’s core curriculum. Physics faculty continue to visit schools and provide their students with enrichment activities in science. Dr. Adam Johnston collaborated with the Ott Planetarium and the Ogden City School District to create the "Ottreach: Science in the Parks," a summer program in conjunction with Ogden’s free lunch program for children in the city’s parks. Students and faculty traveled to the parks with science demos, activities, and toys. More than 1300 children explored the world of science.

Undergraduate Research. Nine physics majors presented their research at WSU’s Fifth Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium and Celebration. Samantha Balaich (mentored by Shane Larson) presented "PASCAL: An Experiment in High-Altitude Ballooning;" Jordan Brocious (mentored by Colin Inglefield) presented "Mapping of GeSbTe Thin Film Electrical Properties with Conductive AFM;" Eric Eilander and co-authors (mentored by Colin Inglefield) presented "Atomic Force Microscopy of Mineral Surfaces;" Tim Davis (mentored by John Sohl) presented "Embedded Microcontrollers for Diode Laser Monitoring and Control;" Rachel Glenn (mentored by John Sohl) presented "A Study on the Horse’s Hoof During Extreme Deceleration;" John Metcalf (mentored by Shane Larson) presented "High Altitude Ballooning Site Selection;" Isaac Myers (mentored by Dan Schroeder) presented "Understanding Colligative Properties;" Stan Nielson (mentored by John Armstrong) presented "Mapping Water Ice in North Polar Regions of Mars;" and Rhett Zollinger (mentored by John Armstrong) presented "Stable Orbits for Extrasolar Planets." In addition, Jordan Brocious and Dr. Inglefield (and co-authors) presented "Mapping of GeSbTe Thin Film Electrical Properties with Conductive AFM" at the Four Corners section meeting of the American Physical Society.

Arrivals and Departures. A brand new future physicist arrived in Dr. Michelle Arnold’s home. Alexis Kathryn Nigro was born to Michelle and husband Kirk Nigro on February 24, and she and her parents are doing fine. Dr. Shane Larson is leaving the department to join USU’s physics department. We look forward to collaborating with him on our high altitude ballooning project. The department has hired Dr. Ben Anger, this year’s Outstanding Graduate Student in the University of Utah’s physics program, as a one-year visiting professor. Dr. Michael Webb, an adjunct professor of physics, will also be departing.

Advancements. Dr. Colin Inglefield and Dr. Adam Johnston have been promoted to the rank of Professor. Dr. Michelle Arnold and Dr. Stacy Palen have been awarded tenure and have been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.

Awards. Dr. Brad Carroll is a 2008 recipient of Weber State University's Presidential Distinguished Professors award. The award recognizes outstanding WSU faculty members who demonstrate the highest quality of teaching, scholarship, research, and community service. Dr. Colin Inglefield was selected as the College of Science’s Endowed Scholar, a position he will hold for the next three years. Dr. Adam Johnston and Dr. Stacy Palen were two of the five finalists for the Crystal Crest Master Teacher award.

Farhang Amiri. Dr. Amiri co-authored (with Dr. Rondo Jeffery, physics emeritus professor) a paper titled "The Phase Shift in the Jumping Ring." The paper has been accepted for publication in The Physics Teacher. Dr. Amiri presented talks at the Idaho/Utah section meetings of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) titled "Is the energy released in fission processes a nuclear energy?" and (with Dr. Galli) "Videos of Physics Demonstrations." Dr. Amiri presented a talk, "Elementary Particles," for the Physics Open House, and was a member of the "Ask a Physicist" panel.

Farhang Amiri and Ron Galli. Dr. Amiri and Dr. Galli have finished their multi-year project of creating two DVDs, "Physics Demonstrations," of movies of short physics demonstrations. These DVD will be distributed by PASCO worldwide, and will be used by physics teachers at both the high school and college levels. Dr. Amiri and Dr. Galli also made a poster presentation, "Videos of Physics Demonstrations," at the national meeting of the AAPT.

John Armstrong. Dr. Armstrong co-authored a paper titled "Survey of TES high albedo events in Mars' northern polar craters" in Geophysical Research Letters (with co-author Stan Nielson, a WSU undergraduate. Dr. Armstrong was co-author (with Dr. Mike Hernandez of the Department of Geosciences) of a paper titled "Development of the Interdisciplinary GIS Program at Weber State University: Its Growing Impact on Undergraduate Research," in the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly. This paper presents an overview of Weber State’s GIS program, and discusses some of the novel, multi-disciplinary research and education projects being explored at Weber State. Dr. Armstrong gave three invited talks: "The Search for Earth" at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT; "The Hunt for Planetary Meteorites on the Moon" at a Montana State University physics seminar, and "The Search for Earth" at a Brigham Young University physics seminar. Dr. Armstrong was awarded six grants to support his research, both from WSU sources and NASA’s Astrobiology Institute. At the Physics Open House, Dr. Armstrong presented "The Search for Life Beyond Earth." Dr. Armstrong organized the Physics Open House.

Michelle Arnold. Dr. Arnold was in charge of revising the department’s lower division labs this year. She was awarded four grants to support her research, both from WSU sources and from the National Institute of Environment Health Sciences, a division of the National Institute of Health. Dr. Arnold is a member of an international collaboration that is establishing standards for measuring the amount of lead contamination in bones using x-ray fluorescence. Dr. Arnold presented "Things are not always as they seem" at the Physics Open House, where she tested household items for their metal content.

Brad Carroll. Dr. Carroll published three book reviews in Science Books and Films, and gave a seminar on "Good Vibrations and Stellar Pulsation" at Idaho State University in Pocatello. Dr. Carroll gave a talk on "Einstein and Picasso: New Notions of Space and Time" in conjunction with the play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" presented by the Department of Performing Arts, and presented "The Incredible Expanding Universe" at the Physics Open House, and was a member of the "Ask a Physicist" panel.

Ron Galli. Dr. Galli continues to create "Galli Cats" out of springs and metal rods to demonstrate the physics of how cats always land on their feet. The Galli Cats are distributed worldwide by Educational Innovations, Inc. Dr. Galli also worked with a student on a project involving the visualization of chaotic physics. He presented a paper, "Ideas for Teaching Introductory Physics - Two Examples," at a meeting of the Idaho/Utah section of the AAPT. Dr. Galli gave a demonstration show on "Spinning Objects, Electricity, and Cats!" at the Physics Open House. Dr. Galli’s and Dr. Amiri’s project of creating two DVDs, "Physics Demonstrations," of movies of short physics demonstrations was described above.

Colin Inglefield. Dr. Inglefield and Dr. Matyjasik of the Department of Geosciences received a grant from the Bingham Research Award program (for collaborative research) to continue their study of mineral surfaces altered by processes associated with global climate change. This summer Dr. Inglefield will travel to Sydney, Australia and contribute two talks to the International Conference on Electronic Materials. Dr. Inglefield was half of the "Circus of Physics" demonstration team at the Physics Open House, and was a member of the "Ask a Physicist" panel.

Adam Johnston. Dr. Johnston continues to co-host Science Education at the Crossroads, receiving its 2nd year of NSF funding, and is working on a book on professional development derived from these conferences. He taught "Foundations of Science" for the first time last Fall, part of the newly revised science teaching programs. Dr. Johnston Interviewed U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-03) Billy Collins in November; the interview, entitled "Brick by Brick: A conversation with Billy Collins," will be published in Weber: The Contemporary West this fall. Dr. Johnston presented 3 papers at international conferences this spring; 3 invited colloquia; 1 invited keynote address in May for the National Academic Advising Association's regional meeting in Park City. Dr. Johnston was on sabbatical during Spring 2008. Dr. Johnston was the other half of the "Circus of Physics" demonstration team at the Physics Open House.

Shane Larson. In China at the 2nd International Summer School on Gravitational Wave Astronomy in China, Dr. Larson spent three weeks teaching some 60 students from around the world. Dr. Larson co-authored seven papers: "A report on the second Mock LISA Data Challenge," "Spurious acceleration noise in spaceborne gravitational wave interferometers," "Selection effects in resolving galactic binaries with LISA," "An overview of the second round of the Mock LISA Data Challenges," and "Report on the first round of the Mock LISA Data Challenges," all in Classical and Quantum Gravity; "Gravitational wave bursts from the Galactic massive black hole" in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; and "Hands-on Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Extracting astrophysical information from simulated signals" in The American Journal of Physics. Another paper, "Specific angular momentum of extrasolar planetary systems," co-authored with Dr. Armstrong and physics major Rhett Zollinger, has been submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Dr. Larson also gave two invited talks: "Whispers from the Cosmos: Seeing the Universe in Gravitational Waves" at a national meeting of the AAPT; and "Songs from the Milky Way: our galaxy in low frequency gravitational waves" at USU’s physics colloquium. Dr. Larson also presented "Harmonic Searches for Eccentric Gravitational Wave Binaries" at a meeting of the American Physical Society. Dr. Larson was awarded five grants both from WSU sources to support his research. Dr. Larson is leading the HARBOR project, the department’s High Altitude Ballooning Team, which will launch for the first time in May. At the Physics Open House Dr. Larson presented "The Search for Life Beyond Earth," and the HARBOR team presented a talk about their project.

Stacy Palen. Dr. Palen and Michael Malmrose (physics graduate) submitted "A New Method for Finding Tertiary Companions to Eclipsing Binary Stars in the MaCHO Database" to Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The paper is now being revised for publication. Dr. Palen and co-authors published "An Atlas of [NII] and [OIII] Images and Spectra of Planetary Nebulae" in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement. The second (and final) year of the PLANET project, funded by a NASA grant of one-million dollars, is coming to an end. The grant funded projects in three areas: the improvement of the department’s scientific analysis and visualization capabilities, the development of K – 8 planetarium curriculum modules, and local and regional outreach. Dr. Palen presented a talk, "The Great Observatories," at the Physics Open House, and was a member of the "Ask a Physicist" panel.

Dan Schroeder. Dr. Schroeder participated in a workshop at Argonne National Lab on computation in the undergraduate physics curriculum. The group that organized the workshop, called PICUP (Partnership for Integrating Computing into Undergraduate Physics), has invited Dr. Schroeder to participate in the next stage and implement some of the suggestions. Dr. Schroeder gave a physics colloquium at Boise State University: "Electron-Positron Collisions, Past, Present, and Future." At the Physics Open House, Dr. Schroeder was a member of the "Ask a Physicist" panel and coordinated the "Virtual Physics" room.

John Sohl. Dr. Sohl received a patent on the Firefly lighting system, a portable shelter lighting system. The funding was under contract from a local company (RSGA). Dr. SohI was the lead author on a Hemingway Collaborative grant; the funds will be used to create an improved/new spectroscopic resource facility for the College of Science. Dr. Sohl was selected by the WSU Innovation Research Initiative and awarded reassigned time in Spring 2009 to work on a system using photonics to monitor air filters. He is also continuing work on a weapons-of-mass-destruction area warning light system and a natural disaster traffic control lighting system. Dr. Sohl presented "Lasers: The Light Fantastic" at the Physics Open House, and was a member of the "Ask a Physicist" panel.

Walther Spjeldvik. Dr. Walther N. Spjeldvik participated in the January 2008 United States Particle Accelerator School in Santa Rosa, California under the auspices of Fermi National Laboratory and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He was in part sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and NSF grants to the school. The subject matters were: [1] laboratory techniques in synchrotron radiation, and [2] generation of terahertz radiation via magnetically steered relativistic electron beams. He also has several abstracts accepted for presentation at the July 2008 COSPAR Symposia in Montreal, Canada in collaboration with scientists in Russia, the USA and Brazil. These subjects entail: (1) Positron Distributions in the Earth’s magnetosphere, (2) Estimates of antiproton accumulations in planetary magnetospheres, comparing Earth and Saturn, (3) Russian spacecraft Coronas-F detection of X-ray Emission from the Nocturnal Terrestrial Atmosphere, and (4) Empirical Connection of Space Radiation Weather and Terrestrial Weather at Middle Latitudes.