A physics-engineering double major senior, Vincent received a Summer Computational Physics Fellowship from Los Alamos National Lab. Vincent’s senior thesis advisor Rebecka Tumblin said Vincent was a brilliant and motivated physicists/programmer.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Brandon Brown publishes “Sharing our Science” (MIT Press)
Brandon Brown (Ph.D., 1997, Tate group) recently published, “Sharing our Science: How to Write and Speak STEM,” (2023, MIT Press). For more details, see https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546959/sharing-our-science/; the book is already garnering great reviews! Brown is Professor of Physics at the University of San Francisco. This is his 3rd book, following a biography of Max Planck and a history of the Apollo Project from the perspective of its engineers. Prof. Brown will visit OSU Physics in Spring 2024 to share his ideas on science communication in our colloquium series.
Emeritus Professor Kenneth Krane and his wife, Paula, received Distinguished Service Award
Emeritus Professor of Physics Kenneth Krane and his wife, Paula, are recipients of this year’s Distinguished Service Award from the OSU College of Science for the many scholarships and endowments the couples have made to support students across the university. Read more at https://science.oregonstate.edu/impact/2022/10/distinguished-service-award-supporting-experiential-learning
Pedram Esfahani received Phd in Physics
Dr. Esfahani successfully defended his thesis: Three-dimensional cancer cell migration under mechanochemicalguidance
Congratulations!
Physicist named as Science Faculty Scholar
Dr. Walsh received College of Science Faculty Scholar award for recognition of his exceptional contributions to his discipline and Oregon State University. This is a three-year titled endowed position. See more details at https://internal.science.oregonstate.edu/faculty-and-staff-awards/college-science-whiteley-faculty-scholar-teaching-excellence-award-and-osu
Physics students won prestigious awards
Nima Laal received 2022-2023 Larry W. Martin & Joyce B. O’Neill Endowed Fellow in the College of Science.
Isak McGieson received DOE Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program award.
Congratulations to both!
Physics faculty honored at College Awards Ceremony
It was a banner day for Physics at the College of Science Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, February 22, 2022 (lots of twos, too).
Liz Gire won the Frederick H. Horne Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching Science. A master innovator in teaching, Liz earns accolades for her skill in communicating difficult topics and her ability to pitch physics at the right level for her students. A student wrote, “Her level of dedication to the genuine support and inclusion of the students in her courses is something I’ve never seen in an educator before. She backs that up with her skill and experience in education and communication that makes difficult content still accessible and enjoyable to learn.” Read more at the College of Science Impact Magazine.
Matt Graham was presented with the Industry Partnership Award for his work on harnessing waste heat. Matt has worked with several companies over the past several years on projects that have led to Ph.D. theses for his students.
Davide Lazzati earned this year’s Milton Harris Award for his outstanding work in the field of high-energy astrophysics. His pioneering considerations of electromagnetic signatures of neutron star mergers hav produced some of the most detailed predictions of compact binary mergers, perhaps one of the most exciting topic in astrophysics in the past decade. Read more at Impact Magazine.
Heidi Schellman is this year’s Gilfillan Awardee. The F.A. Gilfillan Award for Distinguished Scholarship honors faculty members in the College of Science whose scholarship and scientific accomplishments have extended over a substantial period of time, especially faculty whose research careers have had a significant impact on his or her field. Heidi’s work in neutrino physics is just part of her work leading to 700 peer-reviewed publications and an h-index of 113. She has contributed to several well-known scientific collaborations and currently serves in a leadership position for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). Read more at Impact Magazine.
Physics has four Faculty Senators
Four of the twelve faculty members representing the College of Science in the OSU Faculty Senate are from Physics. Liz Gire, Yun-Shik Lee and KC Walsh began their three-year terms in January 2022, joining David McIntyre, who completes his current term in December 2023. https://senate.oregonstate.edu/current-year-membership
Join the OSU Physics Team – We’re Hiring!
We invite applications for 2 tenure-track faculty positions, with anticipated start dates in September 2022.
We’re hiring in the areas of Physics Education Research and Astrophysics.
Here are the official job postings:
PER: https://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/109976
Astrophysics: https://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/109615
Davide Lazzati wins OSU Impact Award for Outstanding Scholarship
Congratulations to Prof. Davide Lazzati , Head of Physics, who garnered the 2021 Impact Award for Outstanding Scholarship at OSU’s University Day Award ceremony on September 14th. Davide was cited for his ground-breaking work on gamma-ray bursts and neutron star mergers.
Davide and his co-workers were the first to correctly predict the electromagnetic signature of the binary neutron star merger GW170817, which was first detected through gravitational wave emission and faint gamma ray emission, then across the electromagnetic spectrum from optical to radio through various follow-up observations. This was the first event of its kind, and ushered in the era of “multi-messenger astronomy.” Lazzati & co. had laid the theoretical groundwork for this prediction over the years, most recently with two papers published before the observation of GW170817 [1,2].
After the observation of GW17081, he published the explanation for how a binary neutron star could result in the observations made. The puzzling part of the observation was that the gamma ray burst observed accompanying GW170817 was faint, and it was unclear how such faint emission could be used to associate GW170817 with a binary neutron star merger model for gamma ray bursts; the latter are observed to be very luminous and involve highly relativistic emission. Lazzati realized that a structured highly relativistic jet surrounded by slower and less energetic material produces afterglow emission that brightens characteristically with time, exactly as was observed in GW170817. Furthermore, he showed how to constrain the geometry of the jet and surrounding material using the observational data. This confirmed a single origin/explanation for short gamma ray bursts and binary neutron star mergers [3].
The nominators noted Davide’s impact not only on science, but also on students through his teaching and mentorship. His astrophysics research program draws many students. Two of his most successful graduate students are McNair Fellow Tyler Parsotan, who also received a NASA FINESST grant and is now a postdoc at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland; and Black student leader, Isabel Rodriguez who graduated with an M. S. in Physics and received the Harriet “Hattie” Redmond Award for her groundbreaking work to improve diversity in Physics and beyond. He has also mentored over a dozen OSU undergraduate research dissertation projects and undergrads enthusiastically line up to join his research group.
The full list of award recipients is on the Awards Day website at https://universityday.oregonstate.edu/award-recipients.
[1] D. Lazzati, D. Lopez-Camara, M. Cantiello, B. J. Morsony, R. Perna, J. C. Workman, “Off-axis Prompt X-Ray Transients from the Cocoon of Short Gamma-Ray Bursts,” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 848, L6 (2017) (https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.01468)
[2] D. Lazzati, A. Deich, B. J. Morsony, J. C. Workman, “Off-axis emission of short γ-ray bursts and the detectability of electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave-detected binary mergers,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 471, 1652 (2017) (https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.01157)
[3] D. Lazzati, R. Perna, B. J. Morsony, D. Lopez-Camara, M. Cantiello, R. Ciolfi, B. Giacomazzo, J. C. Workman, “Late Time Afterglow Observations Reveal a Collimated Relativistic Jet in the Ejecta of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817,” Physical Review Letters, 120, 241103 (2018) (https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03237).