Prof. Yun-Shik Lee’s group has their most recent paper featured as an editor’s pick in Applied Physics Letters. Link to Paper Link to the Editors Picks
Another URISC Award for OSU Physics !
Congratulations to a physics major Alexander Quinn who received an Undergraduate Research, Innovation, Scholarship and Creativity (URISC) Award for Fall/Winter 2016-2017 sponsored by the OSU Research Office. Alex (pictured while performing experiments) will work with Prof. Oksana Ostroverkhova on a project titled “Investigating Xylindein, a Fungus-Derived Pigment, as a Candidate for use in Sustainable Optoelectronic Devices”. Alex is planning to graduate in the Spring of 2017 and continue his education as a graduate student in physics. His longer-term plan is to work in the area of sustainable materials and renewable energy.
Physics Alum Scott Clark is one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 for 2016
Scott Clark, B.S. 2008, was named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 in 2016:
After graduating from OSU (where he earned 3 BS degrees in Physics, Math, and Computational Physics), Scott went on to a Ph.D. in Mathematics at Cornell, worked for Yelp, and then started his own company called SigOpt.
Thanks to Janet Tate for the news!
Physics visits Clover Ridge Elementary
Scientists from the Physics Department visited the first grade classes (about 100 students) at Clover Ridge Elementary School. Atul Chhotray and Davide Lazzati used solar telescopes to give students an introduction to astronomy. Nicole Quist, Jacob Bigelow and Ethan Minot used an assortment of interactive demos to explain the amazing things we can do with air. From pushing a sail boat with giant air molecules, to floating on a hover craft. Nicole: “Raise your hands if you want to say something.” Student: “That was awesome!”
Graduate student Hiral Patel wins Best Poster Prize at CLEO 2016 from the Optical Materials OSA Group
Hiral Patel and Kyle Vogt are Physics Ph.D. students in the Graham Lab. Both contributed to a major conference called CLEO in San Jose (4,600 attendees) that is sponsored by APS, OSA and IEEE. Kyle presented his paper as a talk. Hiral’s poster received the highest traffic and the most votes, and the Optical Society of America awarded her the “Outstanding Student Poster Presentation Award” from the OSA Optical Material Studies Technical Group.
Physics major wins URISC Award !
Congratulations to a physics major Graham Founds who received an Undergraduate Research, Innovation, Scholarship and Creativity (URISC) Award for Summer 2016 for his project titled “Optical Tweezers-Based Probing of Charge Transfer in Organic Semiconductors at Microscopic Scales” ! The URISC program is a university-wide competition of undergraduate proposals sponsored by the OSU Research Office. Graham’s proposal was among 8 compelling undergraduate proposals that were selected for funding. Graham (pictured below) has been a member of Organic Photonics and Optoelectronics Group led by Prof. Oksana Ostroverkhova at OSU Physics department since September 2015. With the URISC funding, he will continue working with Prof. Ostroverkhova over the summer towards demonstrating a new experimental technique for measuring charge transfer between molecules with elementary charge resolution. Graham is planning to graduate in the Spring of 2017 and to continue his education as a graduate student in physics. His longer-term plan is to join the US Air Force laboratories as a research scientist.
SURE Science Scholarships
The Department of Physics is proud to announce that four undergraduate students are recipients of the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience in Science (SURE Science) Scholarships. Jeremy Meinke will be working in Prof. Weihong Qiu’s Lab to determine how OsKCH2 –a nanometer-sized biological motor protein– moves on the filamentous microtubule track using high precision single-molecule microscopy. Mirek Brandt and Ikaika Mckeague-McFadden will be working in Prof. Matt Graham’s Lab on the novel electronic and optical properties of two-dimensional and organic materials. Katelyn Chase will be working in Prof. Bo Sun’s lab to develop microfludics endothelium-on-chips devices for studying the collective endothelium shear stress sensing during embryo development. Many thanks to the College of Science and to the scholarship donors that made theses full-time summer-Science research scholarships possible.
Transit of Mercury
On May 9th, Mercury transited the Sun and the crack physics solar telescope team (Randy Milstein and Jim Ketter) took a chance on a break in the clouds and set up 3 telescopes in the quad. The sky cleared and over 40 people stopped by to see the transit before it ended right before lunch. If anyone has a photo taken at this event, send it along and we will post it.
Science Pub with Gravitational Waves
On April 12, Physics cohosted the Science Pub at the Old World Deli.
Shane Larson of Northwestern University/Adler planetarium ( BS Physics 1991) presented the latest news on gravitational waves from the LIGO experiment to over 170 enthusiastic attendees after a pub quiz that no-one, including Shane and Physics Chair Heidi Schellman got 100%. VP for Research Cindy Sagers won a prize for being one of 3 people to get 8/10!
Shane’s talk is posted at This location.
Shane Larson Science Pub Talk
Shane Larson, who got his BS degree from Oregon State in 1991 is giving a Science Pub about the LIGO discovery of gravitational waves at Old World Deli 6-8PM on April 12. People interested in slides from his talk can find them at:
