Home - Academics - Departments and Programs - Physics & Astronomy - Physics and Astronomy News
Physics and Astronomy News

Latest Posts

28 Presentations of student research in 2016-17

By Jonathan Levine on September 28, 2017

Our students authored or co-authored 28 research presentations at conferences and professional meetings over the past year.

New York 6 Liberal Arts Consortium: Upstate Undergraduate Research Conference & Arts Exhibition, Hamilton College, Saturday, September 17, 2016

  • Alina Sabyr ’19, Saiyang Zhang ’19, Katie Chapman ’19, Ryan Stahlin ’18, The Multi-Decade Optical Light Curve and Microvariability of Blazar OJ 287
  • Nolan Smyth ’18, Supporting the Development of an In Situ Dating Mass Spectrometer
  • Michelle Tebolt ’19, Using Radiometric Dating to Determine the Age of Space Rocks

Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium Student Research Symposium, Wesleyan University, October 15, 2016

  • Sean Corrigan ’18, Gully Formation by Water in Hale Crater, Mars
  • Leah Jenks ’17 and B. Tompkins, High Redshift Galaxy Morphology in the Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields
  • Max Kurzner ’17 and C. Garling, Spectral Classification of Stars by CO Absorption Strength
  • Carolyn Morris ’17 Examining Diffuse Clouds in the Local Interstellar Medium Using Mg II, Fe II, and Mn II Ions
  • Muriel Drexler ’18 and S. Reid, Classifying Stars Behind Dense Molecular Clouds
  • Alina Sabyr ’19, Saiyan Zhang ’19, Ryan W. Stahlin ’18, Katie J. Chapman ’19, and S. Boni, The Multi-Decade Optical Light Curve and Microvariability of Blazar OJ 287
  • Zack Weaver ’17 The June 2016 Optical Flare of the Blazar 3C 454.3

Symposium on Undergraduate Research, Annual Meeting of the Optical Society of America 2016, University of Rochester, NY, October 18, 2016

  • Ishir Dutta ’17 Möbius Polarization of Light
  • Anthony D’Addario ’18 Examining the Structure of Marine Shell Organisms Using Polarized Light
  • Jackson C. Painter ’18 An Enantiomer-specific Discriminatory Force on Chiral Molecules from a Polarization Helicity Gradient
  • Ben Cvarch ’17 Liquid Crystals and Q-Plates

Undergraduate Research Day 2016, Syracuse University, November 12, 2016

  • Ishir Dutta ’17 Biogenic Nanoparticles in Wastewater Treatment
  • Jonah Kudler-Flam ’17 Perturbation Growth in an Early Matter Dominated Era
  • Zachary Weaver ’17 The Dramatic June 2016 Outburst of the Blazar 3C 454.3
  • Leah Jenks ’17 WIMPzilla Production in the Inflationary Epoch of the Early Universe
  • Ben Cvarch ’17 Liquid Crystal Asymmetric Q-Plates and Polarization Singularities in Beams of Light
  • Eric Palmerduca ’17 Effects of Network Topology on Hippocampal Memory Capacity

American Astronomical Society meeting, Grapevine, TX, January 3-7, 2017

  • B. Tompkins, Leah Jenks ’17, D.M. Elmegreen, and B. Elmegreen, Thick Disks and Galaxy Morphology in the Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields
  • Zachary R. Weaver ’17 and Thomas J. Balonek, The Dramatic June 2016 Optical Outburst and Micro-Variability of the Blazar 3C 454.3
  • Thomas J. Balonek, Zachary R. Weaver ’17, Nicholas Didio ’16, Leah Jenks ’17, Carolyn Morris ’17, Ryan Stahlin ’18, Jovana Zagorac ’16Katie Chapman ’19, Brian D’Auteuil ’16Katherine L. Karnes ’17, Joshua S. Reding ’16, Alina Sabyr ’19, Saiyang Zhang ’19, S. Boni, C. Rose, and A. Rilinger, The Optical Variability of the Blazar 3C 454.3 over Three Decades from the Colgate University Foggy Bottom Observatory

American Physical Society April 2017 meeting, Washington, DC, January 28-31, 2017

  • Jonah Kudler-Flam ’17 and the HAWC Collaboration, Improving Light Collection Efficiency in HAWC Detector Tanks

48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands, TX, March 20-24, 2017

  • F.S. Anderson, Jonathan Levine, Nolan J. Smyth ’18, Michelle Tebolt ’19, and T.J. Whitaker, Multianalytical Science with the CODEX In-Situ Dating Spectrometer

31st Annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, April 6-8, 2017

  • Jessica O’Malley ’17 and Rebecca Metzler, Barnacle Exoskeleton Formation

Hudson River Undergraduate Math Conference, Westfield State University, MA, April 8, 2017

  • Jonah Kudler-Flam ’17 Aggregation Models on the Sierpinski Gasket Graph

AEESP Research and Education Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, June 20-22, 2017

  • J. Smeraldi, Linda Y. Tseng, Ishir Dutta ’17, and D. Rosso, Naturally occurring nanoparticles in water resource recovery facilities

Senior research projects 2016-2017

By Jonathan Levine on September 28, 2017

Members of our senior class investigated an impressive range of research topics in the past year.

Louis Agro ‘17

“An Investigation of Nematic Liquid Crystals Through Surface Anchoring and Birefringence Measurements”

Shane Buchanan ‘17

“Breather Vortex Interactions in Josephson Junction Ladders”

Zachary Cleary ‘17

“Investigating Magmatic Processes on San Cristóbal, Galápagos Through Analysis and Modeling of Newly Acquired Gravity Measurements”

Ben Cvarch ‘17

“New Approach to Creating Monstar Singularities Using Asymmetric Q-Plates”

Ishir Dutta ‘17

“Biogenic Nanoparticles in Municipal Wastewater Treatment”

Joel Friedman ‘17

“Examining Bifurcations in Systems of Coupled Oscillating Josephson Junctions”.

Leah Jenks ‘17

“Gravitational Production of Superheavy Dark Matter in the Inflationary Epoch of the Early Universe”

Katherine Karnes ‘17

“Optical Spectroscopy of the Moon, Jupiter, and the Galilean Moons”

Jonah Kudler-Flam ‘17

“Effects of Low-temperature Reheating on the Matter Power Spectrum”

Max Kurzner ‘17

“Starspot Parameter and Numerical Uncertainty Determination for AA Tau: Towards Understanding How the Stars Got Their Spots”

Katharine Lukaszewicz ‘17

“Low Cost Solar Tracking in Uganda”

Chris Martinez ‘17

“Manipulation of Microscopic Objects with an Optical Tweezer”

Carolyn Morris ‘17

“A Technical Study of the Residual Bulk Image in the FLI PL1001 CCD”

Jessica O’Malley ‘17

“Barnacle Exoskeleton Formation”

Eric Palmerduca‘17

“Effects of Network Topology on Hippocampal Memory Capacity”

Catherine Sawyer ‘17

“How hard can it be? Examining the micro-hardness of the shell-adhesive-shell boundary of the Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica)”

Zachary Weaver ‘17

    “The June 2016 Optical and Gamma-Ray Flare of the Blazar 3C454.3 and Optical Micro-Variability”