THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF … · THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY...

T H E D E PA RT M E N T O F P H Y S I C S AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F I L L I N O I S AT U R B A N A - C H A M PA I G N • 2 0 0 5 N U M B E R 2

Brian DeMarco and Paul Kwiatwere among the 18 young physics

researchers selected as finalists in aglobal competition to participate inAmazing Light: Visions for Discovery,an international symposium inspiredby and honoring the leadership andvision of Charles Townes, winner ofthe 1964 Nobel Prize in physics. The young scientists—chosen from a field of 89 applicants and all lessthan 40 years of age—presented theirinnovative research at the symposium,which was held October 6–8, 2005,on the campus of the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. The symposiumbrought together renowned scholarsand researchers, including 20 Nobellaureates, to explore the extraordinarychallenges of 21st century physics and cosmology.

The “Young Scholars” competitionfocused on exploring and advancinginnovative research in physics andastronomy. The 18 finalists presentedresearch papers at the symposium,whose major themes were inspired byand derived from Townes’ own ideasand questions. Special emphasis wasplaced on investigating new, deepdiscoveries about the nature of reality,as well as for developing powerfulnew technologies that, like the laserfor which Townes shared the NobelPrize, could open up new domains of scientific research.

DeMarco won first place in the“Quantum Physics” category for hispresentation on “Quantum Simulationusing Ultra-cold Atoms,” whichdescribed his research aimed atrealizing quantum simulation usingatoms trapped in an optical lattice.Before coming to Illinois in 2003,DeMarco held a National ResearchCouncil Fellowship at NIST, where he worked on quantum informationexperiments using trapped atomicions—work that resulted in some of

DeMarco and Kwiat “Amazing Light” WinnersEverything

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS

Interview with Nithaya Chetty,President-Elect of the SouthAfrican Institute of Physics

the first experiments demonstratingthat scalable quantum computing ispossible in the trapped ion system. In 2004, he received the prestigiousYoung Investigator Award from theOffice of Naval Research, one of only26 such awards made in all branchesof science and engineering that year.In 2005, he was recognized with aNational Science FoundationCAREER Award.

Paul Kwiat’s presentation, “TheEntanglement Revolution,” received

continued on page 15

Editor’s Note: It’s been 15 years sinceNithaya Chetty completed his PhD inphysics at the University of Illinois. Aphysics professor at the University ofKwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, Chettyis currently president-elect of the SouthAfrican Institute of Physics.

Tell us about your childhood, whenyour interest in physics began, andthe individuals who encouraged andinfluenced that interest.I grew up in rural Natal province onthe east coast of South Africa duringthe height of the Apartheid system,the country’s policy of racialsegregation. I am of Indian descent,and my forebears arrived in SouthAfrica as indentured laborers whoworked on the sugar cane plantations.

When growing up, I wasaccustomed to knowing my place inthe social order. For example, shopentrances and public amenities—

beaches, parks, schools, and transportsystems—were separated according to race.

At that time, the choice careersamongst non-whites were medicine,law, and teaching, which enabledgraduates in these fields to practice in their own separate communities.Opportunities outside these usualchoices were few and, in some

Paul Kwiat, Charles Townes, and Brian DeMarco at the Amazing Light Symposium inBerkeley, California.

Phot

o by

Pau

l G. K

wia

t

Phot

o by

Bri

an D

eMar

co

At 6 p.m. on Tuesday, August 16, 2005, the DeMarco group (graduate students Matt White and Matt Pasienski, post-doc Hong Gao, and Professor Brian DeMarco)took these images of Illinois’ first atomic Bose–Einstein condensate. The figure shows asequence of absorption images; the temperature of the 87Rb gas decreases as the labelsincrease from “1” to “12.” The BEC first emerges at Image “4” (around 150 nK and300,000 atoms), and the thermal gas disappears in the final two images.

third place in the “InnovativeTechnologies” category. Kwiatdescribed his work on “entanglement,”considered to be the quintessentialfeature of quantum mechanics. By using lasers as a source for photons,his research group systematically studies how quantum systems react to manipulation, interaction withthemselves, and measurement. Inaddition to investigating individualphotons, the researchers also createpairs of entangled photons, allowingthem to study the rudiments ofquantum computing, realize perfectlysecure encryption via quantumcryptography, and provide extremelyconvincing evidence that the universedoes not obey classical laws.

In January 2001, Kwiat joined theIllinois physics faculty as the secondJohn Bardeen Chair. He has donepioneering research on quantuminterrogation, quantum erasure, andoptical implementations of quantuminformation protocols.

A fellow of the American PhysicalSociety and the Optical Society ofAmerica, he is a primary inventor ofthe world’s two principal sources ofpolarization-entangled photons fromdown-conversion, which have beenused for quantum cryptography, dense-coding, quantum teleportation,entanglement distillation, and mostrecently, optical quantum gates. n

Illinois’ First Atomic BEC

2 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2005 NUMBER 2

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

We are well into the newacademic year and there is

much to report. Generally the news is good, but the future has manyuncertainties. The most exciting newsis that a stellar cast of six new facultymembers joined the department thisfall. You can read about them in thisissue of the newsletter. Regrettably, wewill lose two senior faculty membersmid-year, and two retirements at theend of this academic year are certain.Change is normal.

Another piece of good news is thatJoe White, who became the 16thpresident of the University of Illinoison January 31, 2005, is making hismark. He has launched acomprehensive, system-wide strategicplanning initiative to identify wherewe want to be in 2010 and what wemust do to get there.

Symbolically, the White admin-istration took flight on September 22at a gala inauguration ceremony. The Marching Illini led the processionof nearly 500 students, faculty andstaff members, alumni, and 90representatives of other Americanuniversities and learned societies, all clad in academic regalia, from theIllini Union to Krannert Center forthe Performing Arts. President White’sinaugural speech was what weneeded—frank about the challengeswe face, given decreasing state supportand uncertainties in federal funding,and uplifting about the University’sgreat strengths and enormouspotential.

Freshman physics major enrollmentsare up for another year and our newgraduate class exceeded our targetagain this year. Despite our efforts

to bring in a slightly smaller-than-normal class, to correct for unexpectedincreases in acceptance rates in recentyears, the reputation of our graduateprogram brought us another largeclass.

Lastly, I have decided to step downas department head and retire inAugust 2006, which will mark mycompletion of 6 years as head and 39 years as a member of the faculty. A national search for my successor will begin soon, and there is everyreason to expect the new head will beidentified no later than April 2006 andbe in a position to take over in August.I encourage you to send yourrecommendations for candidates forthe next person to lead our remarkabledepartment to Interim Dean IlesanmiAdesida. n

Letter from the Head

Jeremiah D. Sullivan

and sort of went nuts,” said Neils. He said that performing the secondyear was one of his fondest memoriesof his time in the band.

Within a few weeks of thatperformance, the group even recordedan album called “Goodwin Road” in the basement of a band member’shouse in Urbana. “We sold about 50 copies of it and actuallyautographed a couple,” Wiemeyersaid.

Smith said the third year’sperformance “wasn’t quite as magical.”The members were busy with workingon their theses and didn’t have as

much time to devote to the group,Neils said. “Honestly, the third year, it went down a bit,” said Wiemeyer.“A group similar to ours went onbefore we did, and stole our thunder a little!”

As members began graduating andleaving the university, the groupdisbanded.

Smith is still at the university as apostdoctoral research associate for theMaterials Research Laboratory. Untilthis summer, he was playing in a hardrock and funk group called RodeoGirl Collective that played mostlycover songs at local bars like the Iron

Post. Currently his two-year-olddaughter keeps him too busy to play in a band.

Bonetti is a research scientist in the Low Temperature Science andQuantum Sensors Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Neils is designing cryogenicinstruments for Quantum Design in San Diego, California.

Wiemeyer is a research scientist atTechnology Service Corporation in Los Angeles and worked as an extra on the made-for-TV movie “18 Wheels of Justice.”

In addition to his position as anassistant professor at Lake ForestCollege in Lake Forest, Illinois, Kim is also the founder, president, andCEO of Palindrome Skateboards.

Sheehy is a research associate in thephysics department at University ofColorado at Boulder.

Although they have been apart forseveral years now, the members stillhave found memories of their time inthe group. Wiemeyer recalled a timewhen a first-year graduate studentapproached him in the hallway asthough he were some kind of celebrity.Neils’ fondest memory is the time they spent hanging out at Smith andBonetti’s house, nicked named “theDog Pound,” writing song lyrics andmaking fun of each other.

About the possibility of a reunion,Smith said that he wouldn’t want tonecessarily go on stage but gettingback together to play would be fun.“That’s Tae’s dream, I’m sure,” he said. n

For more information about Conduction Band, as well as song lyrics and performance videos, visit the group’s website atguava.physics.uiuc.edu/~tae/conductionband.

BY DAN PETRELLA

For several years at Physical Revue,the annual Physics talent show

held each December, a group ofgraduate students who calledthemselves The Conduction Band stole the show.

Tony Bonetti and Dylan Smithstarted the band after playing togetherin another short-lived group. Bonettijoined the earlier group, in whichSmith played bass, when it got a newsinger and some of the other membersquit. The group didn’t last muchlonger.

Smith and Bonetti decided to put a group together for the PhysicalRevue in 1997. “Tony and I hadn’tplayed out for a while and we wereitching to do that,” Smith said.

The group’s line-up for the first yearincluded Smith on bass and backingvocals, Bonetti on drums and backingvocals, Dan Sheehy on guitar andbacking vocals, and Bill Neils on lead vocals.

“They asked me if I wanted to sing.I told them to keep looking. If theycouldn’t find anyone else, I would stepin,” said Neils, who began singing in a church choir and sang in choirsthroughout high school and college.

The band, whose name comes fromthe energy band theory of solids, took popular songs and rewrote thelyrics to relate to physics. Their songsincluded “Seminar Daze” (based on “Purple Haze”/Jimi Hendrix),“Stayin’ Alive” (“Stayin’ Alive”/TheBee Gees), and “Take Qual an’ Fail”(“Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”/Louis Prima).

“We tried to choose songs that boththe grad students and the facultywould appreciate,” said Smith. They tried to select a mixture of oldand new songs and ones that wouldappeal to a wide audience, like songsby The Beatles and the Brian SetzerOrchestra.

“We would hear a song and think offunny physics lyrics for the chorus,”Neils said. “Then we’d sit around andlisten to each others’ ideas. If we couldcome up with lyrics for the entiresong, it was a go.” Neils noted thatthey wrote a physics version ofAC/DC’s “You Shook Me All NightLong” but it was never performedbecause some group members thought it was too racy.

The group was pleased with theresponse it received from the firstperformance. “The audience reactionwas great,” Neils said. Brian Wiemeyer,who joined the group on trumpet,

keyboards and backing vocals thesecond year, recalled being in theaudience for the band’s firstperformance. “The first year, when I was actually in the audience, it was electric,” he said.

Sheehy left the group after the firstyear and Yung Tae Kim took over on guitar and backing vocals.

The group’s members agree that the second year was the peak ofConduction Band’s career. “The secondyear, we already had a little cultfollowing, and the reaction was even greater,” Wiemeyer said. “Peopleremembered us from the previous year

Whatever happened to…For one night a year they were stars

“Goodwin Road”

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2005 NUMBER 2 3


Music of the Spheres, Part 2BY CYNDI PACELEY

From classical to barbershop to pop,Daniel Bahr, Becky McDuffee,

and Matthew Gordon join their fellowPhysics colleagues featured in theSpring 2005 issue of Physics IllinoisNews in singing music’s praises.

Daniel Bahr, currently pursuing a PhD in condensed matter physics—specifically in low-temperaturesuperconductivity—recently sang thedifficult counter-tenor part of TheCoronation of Poppea in a University of Illinois School of Music productionat Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Poppea—written in 1642—wasClaudio Monteverdi’s last opera and

considered hissuprememasterpiece, a work thatcombines tragicand comicelements withdeep characterdevelopment.The earliest operato be based on

historical figures, it relates the story of a beautiful courtesan who schemes tobecome empress of Rome during Nero’s reign.

“It was definitely my mostchallenging role to date, but I enjoyedit immensely,” Bahr said. “There wasan amazing amount of music tomemorize.”

Growing up in Rochester,Minnesota, Bahr was surrounded by music. His parents listened toeverything from Anne Murray to Willie Nelson, played the piano, andencouraged their children’s musicalinterests. Singing since the age of 7,Bahr began in a community boys’ choir and continued as a member of the Southeastern Minnesota HighSchool Honors Choir. Led and inspiredby Rick Kvam, Southeastern’s voiceteacher, the group won a young artists’ contest in Vienna.

“Dr. Kvam was an incredibleteacher,” Bahr recalled.

“He holds both a medical degree anda master’s in music conducting fromHarvard,” Bahr said. “At that time, he combined the two by working part-time in a hospital emergency room while teaching at Southeastern.”

Bahr emulated his instructor beyondmusic by earning a triple major(physics, music performance, andmathematics) undergraduate degreewith honors from Luther College inDecorah, Iowa.

“At the outset, I was a pre-med andmusic major, but my heart wasn’t inmedicine,” he added. “After switchingto physics and getting the triple major,I told my father that he got his tuition’sworth from Luther College,” Bahrjoked.

While pursuing his undergraduatedegree, he completed a rigorous 10-week research program in plasmaphysics, conducted over two summers

at Indiana University, PrincetonUniversity, and the University of San Diego.

At the U of I, Bahr is in his fourthyear and working with Dale VanHarlingen. He recently passed hispreliminary exam and will soon begindesigning and building a scanningSQUID microscope as part of researchto make observations on magnetic fields at near absolute zero temperatures.

“In observing vortices formed bymagnetic fields piercing thesuperconductor, we can gain magnetictopography information of differentsymmetry structures in unconventionalsuperconductors,” Bahr explained.

He hopes to pursue a job in industryor a postdoctoral fellowship followingcompletion of his doctorate in roughlyanother three years.

Becky McDuffee, a 20-year Physics staffsecretary, joined the Champaign-UrbanaSweet Adelines in 1979. Shetransitioned from a member of thechorus to serving as the group’s assistantdirector for 15 years. Nearly six yearsago, she became director of the 24-member chorus in the communityof Danville, 35 miles east of C-U.

Though the directorship roleprohibits her from singing with thegroup, she readily cites a performance at the 2004 regional contest as her most exciting show.

“It’s the finest compliment a groupcan receive when the audience startssmiling and clapping before theperformance is even over,” McDuffeesaid.

Their final song garnered threeovations (one standing). They have alsoearned the prestigious “most improvedchorus” award, and McDuffee won thenovice director award in her first year.

Apart from Sweet Adelinescompetitions, another cherished honorwas leading the singing of “HappyBirthday” at Professor and NobelLaureate John Bardeen’s 80th birthdayparty.

“That was pretty memorable—leading physicists in vocal tribute to Professor Bardeen,” she said.

A native of Champaign who earnedan associate’s degree in music fromParkland College and a bachelor’s degreein rhetoric from the U of I, McDuffeeconfesses to being “a ham” her entirelife. Surrounded by parents and siblingswho sang, she joined a high schoolchoir and, later, a church choir. She became hooked for life, however, when she sang in a barbershop quartetas a teenager.

“I realized that in addition to ourshared interest in music, these werepeople I liked to be with,” she recalled.“That’s why I found Sweet Adelines so appealing—it combined singing,camaraderie, and razzle dazzle.”

Now in its 60th year, Sweet AdelinesInternational boasts a membership of nearly 30,000 women in 1,200registered quartets and 600 choruses in most of the 50 states, as well as inAustralia, Canada, England, Finland,Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand,

Scotland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Chicago and St. Louis are particular

hotbeds of barbershop, and this enablesMcDuffee to easily bring in vocalcoaches from around the region for one- or two-day training sessions. As itdoes for others around the country, thisadditional tutelage helps her groupmaintain the high quality standards

required before a quartet or chorus isgiven Sweet Adelines performing rights.

“Being a chorus director is definitelyabout watching people grow anddevelop, both personally and vocally,”she added.

There is even a physics aspect tobarbershop music, McDuffee said.

“Barbershop is sung a capella withfour voices, ideally matching resonanceand vowels, and singing intervals somathematically exact—Pythagoreantuning—that the frequencies line upand create harmonics,” she explained.

These harmonics mean that whilefour notes are being sung, one or moreadditional notes above them—andsometimes, one or more notes below—can be easily heard.

“Lining up your voice with threeothers and ‘ringing’a chord hooks manya singer to barbershop,” she added.

Matthew Gordon’s newest musicalcomposition is “Finish Your ThesisOratorio in B-Minor,” a self-titled workthat explains why he hasn’t been singingmuch lately.

When his schedule allowed music to fill more of his free time, Gordon’sinterests included performing pop and classical, as well as composing.

Most recently, he sang in theChampaign-Urbana area with a bandcalled “Lost Episodes,” covering 1960sand 70s tunes originally made famousby the likes of Elvis Presley, Bob Seger,and Van Morrison, along with those ofcontemporary artists such as Chris Isaakand Santana. Prior to that, he sang with the U of I Chorale.

“I found performing with the Choraleextremely challenging, since mostmembers of the group are choralconducting majors and I’m strictly anamateur,” Gordon said. “During myfirst semester with them, we performedall 25 movements of Rachmaninoff ’sVespers, which, above and beyond thetechnical requirements, is quite amarathon,” he added.

His pursuits turned to composition in the past year when he wrote a 10-minute musical, “Uraniborg,” aboutthe life of Danish astronomer TychoBrahe. The piece made its debut as part of the Penny Dreadful Players’ 10-minute play festival in 2004.

Originally from the north Chicagosuburb of Glenview, Gordon’s firstexposure to music performance waspiano lessons, including a brief forayinto the then-popular “Suzuki method,”which he abhorred. He abandonedpiano for drums in the school band,and began singing in a junior highschool choir.

He studied voice with a privateteacher while in high school andperformed in the concert and jazzchoirs, as well as in madrigal and acapella groups.

While earning a bachelor’s degree inphysics at Princeton University, Gordonexplored both pop and Jewish liturgicala capella groups and continued trainingwith a vocal coach.

Following graduation from Princeton,he worked as a systems integrator forGeodesic Systems in Chicago. Hecompleted a master’s in physics at the U of I and is currently pursuing a PhD.

He is now working with Paul Selvinto develop new applications of single-molecule fluorescence to biophysics.

“It’s a very fast-moving, exciting field these days, and I’ve done someinteresting work, both in genomics and proteomics,” Gordon said.

“We recently filed for a patent on a method for determining generichaplotypes by observing single DNAmolecules,” he added.

He hopes to graduate within the next year and to pursue a postdoctoralfellowship. n

Becky McDuffee anchors her barbershopquartet, Off Senter. From top, Lu Senter,Anita Edge, Betty Lightfoot, and BeckyMcDuffee.

Daniel Bahr

BY CYNDI PACELEY

Former students of ProfessorEmeritus Donald M. Ginsberg

will be pleased to know the engagingscholar is still writing and publishing.

His current literature, however,doesn’t involve the results ofcondensed matter physics research; thelatest work, At the Edge of a Dream,features 125 poems composed since

Ginsberg’s retirement in August 1997.It expands on his earlier book ofpoetry, Sunbeams Fall, published in2002.

“My poems comment on everydaylife, with its rapid changes and itsfrequently amusing peculiarities and paradoxes,” Ginsberg noted.

With titles ranging from “The Voice”to “Speeding Down the Highway” andchapters allocated to both humorousand serious topics, such as physicsobservations, word games, hobbies,and friends, At the Edge of a Dream isenjoyable reading for the physicist and non-physicist alike.

And true to character for a facultymember frequently cited among thoseUniversity of Illinois teachers ranked as“excellent” by their students, Ginsbergeven included homework—partialpoems for the reader to finish or tobegin.

Ginsberg credits a charismatic highschool English teacher with impartinga love of words and poetry.

“She showed genuine enthusiasm for her subject, and that enjoyment was contagious,” he recalled.

Excelling in all subjects, Ginsbergattended Chicago’s Hyde Park HighSchool for three years before enrollingat the University of Chicago, whichaccepted students after two, three, orfour years of secondary education. Hefirst earned a bachelor’s in liberal artsbefore tackling a second undergraduatedegree in physics. A year later, hecompleted a master’s in physics, all at



Observations on Life in Rhyme and Meter

In a uniquely U of I product, 2003 Nobel Laureate Anthony Leggett is “January” in the

Big Brains on Campus 2006 calendar, produced by the Beckman Institute for Advanced

Science & Technology. The calendar features artistically enhanced brain scans of 14

campus faculty, students, staff, and administrators, while providing information about

various brain regions and functions that each person uses in his or her work. Leggett’s

brain scan focuses on the regions of the brain that contribute to ingenuity.

“This project allows us to bring together our technology and our people to underscore

the incredible brain power we have on this campus and the cutting-edge resources we

have at Beckman,” said Tracey Wszalek, associate director of the Institute’s Biomedical

Imaging Center. “It’s an opportunity to showcase magnetic resonance imaging research

by personalizing the science.”

The Beckman Institute cultivates groundbreaking, interdisciplinary research in three

scientific and technologically relevant areas: biological intelligence, human-computer

intelligent interaction, and molecular and electronic nanostructures.

Calendars are available for purchase online at www.beckman.uiuc.edu/bigbrains.html.

The Department of Physics also has a limited supply of calendars; write to Celia Elliott

([email protected]) if you’d like to purchase one. The cost is $14.95 plus mailing.

Recently featured on Paul Harvey and in the Chicago Sun-Times, Boston Globe, St. Louis

Post-Dispatch, Washington Post, and Miami Herald, as well as on ABC, CBS, and Yahoo

News, the calendar has also been publicized in Canada and Australia. With this much

attention, they’re sure to sell out quickly, so don’t delay in placing your order. n

Now That’s Using Your Neurons!

Chicago, and headed to the Universityof California, Berkeley for his PhD.

Involved in a superconductivityproject at Berkeley and with a thesis on the same topic, Ginsberg was wellacquainted with the work of Professorand Nobel Laureate John Bardeen atthe University of Illinois.

As he finished his doctorate, he was invited to join the U of I faculty. He remained for 38 years and, alongthe way, served as graduate thesisresearch adviser to 36 students whoearned PhDs. During his career, he was named a Fellow of the AmericanPhysical Society, was twice honored as an A.P. Sloan Foundation ResearchFellow, and received a PostdoctoralNational Science FoundationFellowship for research in Cambridge,England.

He was also awarded the Daniel C.Drucker–Tau Beta Pi Eminent FacultyAward in 1992, and joined the eliteranks of those named a UniversityScholar in 1994–95.

It was his most recent professionalhonor that was also the mostsignificant. The 1998 Oliver E.Buckley Prize, which Ginsberg sharedwith U of I colleague Dale VanHarlingen, along with John R. Kirtleyand Chang C. Tsuei of IBM, rewardedtheir seminal work using phase-sensitive experiments in theelucidation of the orbital symmetry of the pairing function in high-Tc

superconductors.

Ginsberg and Van Harlingen joinedthree other distinguished Illinois Physicsfaculty—two-time Nobel Laureate JohnBardeen, National Medal of Sciencewinner Harry Drickamer, and NationalAcademy of Science Comstock Prizewinner Charles Slichter—who have also won the prestigious Buckley Prize.

Ginsberg retired nearly a year and a half after first being diagnosed withParkinson’s disease. One of his largestfrustrations with the condition is that itended his ability to play the flute—anavocation he began at age 55.

“I had my first music lesson about 50 years late, but I enjoyed playing and was very happy to perform in the Parkland College Orchestra,”Ginsberg said.

His second poem, “Pianissimo Don,”made light of his abilities and capturedhis self-described style of play: “a flutistwho never plays forte.”

Ginsberg recently began a regimen of physical therapy and has seenimprovement in his Parkinson’ssymptoms. And more good news: he is busy with new poems in preparationfor his third book.

Like its two predecessors, the thirdtome will no doubt express in rhymeand meter the author’s philosophy oflife—enjoy our beautiful universe, sharea laugh, and try not to stub a toe onevery chair you pass. n

Editor’s Note: If you would like to order a copy ofAt the Edge of a Dream, email Professor Ginsbergat [email protected].

Oscillations Electromagnetic

Oscillations electromagnetic

I send you with signals of love,

Generated by motions frenetic

Of electrons, by laws from above.

The message flies on as by magic,

At the maximum possible speed.

If my meaning were lost, ’twould be tragic;

Let no one my signals impede.



Protein molecules form minute, gatedpores in cell membranes to let things

pass through—water and ions like saltand potassium, for example.

The proteins open and close thechannels they form in a way that letsenough through to do the job, but nottoo much, which would damage theintegrity of the cell.

It is a basic biological process going on in cells inside us all the time and inevery other type of cell, so vital that its

breakdown can contribute to manydiseases, and many drugs to treat diseasestarget it.

“The way you think and feel and seeare all nerves firing and nerves firing arebased on these ion channels,” Universityof Illinois Professor Paul Selvin saidrecently.

He also pointed to research doneelsewhere where slight modifications in ion channels of fruit flies left themneeding very little sleep, and caused them to die much earlier.

The protein channels “are oftremendous physiological and clinicalsignificance,” he said.

Now, Selvin, a biophysicist, and UIresearcher David Posson are sheddinglight on the way the proteins open andclose their channel gates and may settlesomething of a scientific controversy.

Proteins work by moving and takingshapes, and some scientists have proposedthat they make a major shift, for aprotein, in acting like a switch or plungerto regulate the gates.

But in an article in the journal Nature,released today [August 11, 2005], Posson,Selvin and colleagues say the proteinsappear to move very little and changeshape even less.

Selvin said scientists who haveexamined the process previously used atechnique called X-ray crystallography,which basically freezes the proteins inorder to study them.

But that technique may affect aprotein’s state itself and influence theresults, the UI researchers contend. In contrast, they’ve developed a methodof looking at the molecules in action.

“That’s a big advantage of ourtechnique,” Selvin said.

Posson, who finished his doctoral work at the UI this year and is now apost-doctoral researcher in Selvin’s lab, used a specially modified scorpion toxin

that naturally binds to so-called Shakerpotassium ion channels. The toxinmolecule includes a tiny dye marker thatfluoresces, or glows, green when excited by a laser.

Since the researchers know the toxinattaches outside the top of the proteinchannel, the marker gives them a baselinefrom which to measure the changes in thepart of the protein that serves as a gate.That part is marked with a differentcolored dye.

The UI researchers manipulate theelectrical voltage across the cell, in this case a frog egg, where they’ve injected theproteins, which causes the gate to open and close.

They excite the dye markers and usetheir fluorescence to track the distance theprotein gate moves from the scorpion toxinand the degree to which it changes shape.

“The change in distance was much,much less ... than expected” based onprevious research using X-raycrystallography, Posson said. They also saw no evidence of a sizeable change in the protein’s shape or position.

The results are similar to another study, also published in Nature, that Selvinand colleagues released in 1999. But theaddition of the scorpion toxin, whichwasn’t available then, improves theexperiment and enhances the findings.Selvin said it’s possible the fluorescentmarkers could affect the results as well. But he said UI researchers tested differentchemical compositions and checked theelectrical properties of the proteins beforeand after looking for any effects and found none.

UI scientist Pinghua Ge, ChristopherMiller at Brandeis University and PanchoBezanilla at UCLA contributed to thestudy. The research was funded by theCarver Foundation, the National ScienceFoundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The study gets at the nature of theprotein’s movement, but how the wholeprocess works is still an open question on which Posson plans to focus next.Selvin also wants to look at mechano-sensitive channels, which are channels that appear to open and close based on pressure on the cell membrane asopposed to electrical voltage. n

Phot

o by

Van

da B

idw

ell/T

he N

ews G

azet

te

Protein Movements Re-evaluatedResearchers Look at Channels With New Technique Alfred O. Hanson, 1914–2005

Alfred Olaf Hanson, 90, an emeritus professor ofphysics, died July 2 in Urbana.

Born September 26, 1914, on his father’s homesteadfarm near Braddock, North Dakota, he was the son ofNorwegian immigrants. He recalled that, as a boy, hecollected buffalo bones on the farm and observed circles of stones which secured Sioux teepees.

He married Elizabeth Marie Miller on May 16, 1942, inColumbia, Missouri. He is survived by his wife and their

four children: Andrew Jorgen Hanson of Bloomington, Indiana; Donald FarnessHanson of Minneapolis, Minnesota; Ardith Hanson Field of Colorado Springs,Colorado; and Craig Demorest Hanson of Rochester, New York; and by fourgrandchildren.

Professor Hanson received his elementary education in a one-room country school in Emmons County, North Dakota. After his family moved to Grand Forks,North Dakota, in the mid-1920s, he attended high school and college there, earninga BS in education at the University of North Dakota in 1936. He was a high schoolscience teacher in Pine River, Minnesota, in 1936–37, but returned to the University of North Dakota as a teaching assistant in mathematics, obtaining an MA in sciencein 1938. He then enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a graduatestudent in physics. In 1942, he received his PhD in physics under the direction ofR.G. Herb and remained at the University of Wisconsin van de Graaff generatorlaboratory as an employee of the secret, wartime, atomic-bomb Manhattan Projectuntil April 1943, when the two Wisconsin van de Graaff generators—and most ofthe staff working with them—were moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to continuethe neutron measurements needed in design of the atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945,Hanson was in charge of a small ground experiment at the New Mexico Trinity-Northsite, 10,000 yards from ground zero, when the first atomic bomb test shot wasdetonated.

In January 1946, with his wife and young son, Andrew, he moved from LosAlamos to the University of Illinois as an assistant professor of physics to begin his long and distinguished career in academic experimental nuclear physics. At thattime, Donald Kerst’s 20-MeV betatron at the University of Illinois produced thehighest energy x-rays in the world, and Professor Hanson, with colleagues, usedthem to investigate the structure of, and especially the size of, atomic nuclei.

In 1948, Professor Hanson was joined by E.M. Lyman and M.B. Scott in a seminal electron scattering experiment, which was celebrated 35 years later by a commemorative conference held in Urbana.

By 1950, a much larger betatron, capable of producing 300-MeV electrons and x-rays, had been constructed at Illinois. In a sense, the earlier betatron was used to investigate how atomic nuclei are constructed from protons and neutrons, whilethe larger machine was used to study the structure of the protons and neutronsthemselves. Using this new capability, Professor Hanson’s group performed a seriesof elegant experiments that laid the path for others to follow.

In 1967, when support for the 300-MeV betatron was being terminated, he beganexperimental work with a new kind of electron accelerator, a microtron, which, usinga superconducting linear accelerator, produced much more intense electron beams.

In his career at Illinois, Professor Hanson directed 18 students to their doctoraldegrees in physics.

In 1955–56, ProfessorHanson was a FulbrightScholar in Turin, Italy, wherehe assisted in setting up abetatron laboratory there. On July 27, 1956, havingpreceded his family back tothe United States, Hansonmet them on the docks inNew York City as theydisembarked from the shipthat had rescued them fromthe ill-fated voyage of theAndrea Doria. Again, in 1960,he served as a Fulbrightlecturer—with the betatrongroup in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Professor Hanson spent a sabbatical at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1961–62 and, in 1965, managed a high-energy experiment there.

He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of Sigma Xi.Other activities included service with the National Research Council sub-committeeon neutron measurements and standards, 1948–50; committee for the review ofnuclear programs of the National Bureau of Standards, chairman 1965; co-chairman,with Peter Axel, of the Gordon Conference on Photonuclear Reactions, 1959.

Professor Hanson was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, was activewith the Boy Scouts, and enjoyed hiking, canoeing, and camping with his family. In retirement, he joined his wife in several Earthwatch expeditions and in co-stewardship of the Tomlinson Pioneer Cemetery Savannah-Prairie Remnant, now a dedicated Illinois State Nature Preserve in Kerr Township of ChampaignCounty. He conducted the first prescribed burns of the Urbana Park District’s (later much expanded) Meadowbrook Propagated Prairie. n

Prof. Paul Selvin, left, and graduate student David Posson work with an electro-physiologymicroscope they use to look at frog egg cells injected with proteins they study, in a laboratory at the University of Illinois’ Loomis Lab.

BY GREG KLINE, NEWS-GAZETTE STAFF WRITER

Reproduced by permission of the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.Permission does not imply endorsement by the newspaper. Article wasoriginally published on August 11, 2005.

Al Hanson at the controls of the U of Wisconsinvan de Graff (“long tank”) generator, imported towartime Los Alamos.



Six New Faculty Call Physics Illinois Home

Summer 2005 brought a flurry ofremodeling and moving to Loomis

Laboratory of Physics as the departmentmade room for six outstanding newfaculty members: Peter Abbamonte(MS ’94, PhD ’99), AlekseiAksimentiev, Raffi Budakian, NadyaMason, Jose Mestre, and SmithaVishveshwara.

Peter AbbamonteA condensed matter experimentalist,Peter Abbamonte received his PhD inphysics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999, afterobtaining a bachelor’s degree in physicsfrom the University of Texas, Austin, in 1992. He was a National ScienceFoundation Fellow in the MaterialsScience Centre at the University ofGroningen, the Netherlands, and avisiting scientist at Brookhaven NationalLaboratory from 1999 to 2001. He received postdoctoral training inbiophysics at the Laboratory of Atomicand Solid State Physics, CornellUniversity, from 2001 to 2003, wherehe developed new concepts for studyingattosecond phenomena, in particularenergy transfer in photosyntheticmembranes, using x-ray scattering. He worked as an assistant physicist atthe National Synchrotron Light Sourceat Brookhaven National Laboratory and as an adjunct assistant professor atSUNY, Stonybrook, from 2003 toAugust 2005, when he joined theDepartment of Physics as an assistantprofessor. His research interests includeresonant soft x-ray scattering andinelastic x-ray scattering;unconventional superconductors andhigh Tc superconductivity; andelementary processes in condensedmatter that occur on the attosecondtime-scale.

Aleksei AksimentievAlek Aksimentiev is a theoretical andcomputational biophysicist interested inmolecular motors, mechanical proteins,F-ATP synthase; high-throughput DNAsequencing, silicon biotechnology,

Department News

nanosensors; membrane transport, ionchannels, and biomolecular modeling.He received his PhD in chemistry cumlaude from the Institute of PhysicalChemistry, Warsaw, Poland, in 1999,after completing a master’s degree inparticle physics at the Ivan Franko LvivState University in his native Ukraine in1996. He received postdoctoral trainingat the Materials Science LaboratoryR&D Center of Mitsui Chemicals,Tokyo, Japan, from 1999 to 2001, when he joined the Theoretical andComputational Biophysics Group at theUniversity of Illinois as a postdoctoralresearch associate. He accepted theposition of assistant professor of physicsat Illinois in August 2005.

Aksimentiev’s recent work includes acollaboration with experimentalists andtheorists in electrical engineering andphysics at Illinois, who are exploring the use of nanometer-diameter artificialpores in ultrathin silicon membranes to sequence single molecules of DNAunder physiological conditions. Inprinciple, the chemical sequence of aDNA molecule can be determined byanalyzing the electrical signals producedby the molecule as it squeezes throughthe nanopore in the membrane. UsingMOSFET fabrication technology, a low-noise amplifier is being integrated with ananopore, enabling rapid detection andamplification of the electric signalsresulting from the DNA-nanoporeinteraction.

Raffi BudakianPart of the team that first imaged thespin of a single defect in glass (Nature430, 329–332 [2004]), Raffi Budakian’sresearch focuses on developing ultra-sensitive spin detection techniques forsingle spin imaging and quantumreadout. His current research includesdesign and fabrication of micro-machined silicon cantilevers for sub-attonewton force detection;development of spin detection/manipulation protocols that enable force detection at the thermal limit;imaging single dopants and defects insemiconductors; spin control via activefeedback; and combining magneticresonance force microscopy (MRFM)with electron nuclear double resonance(ENDOR) for high sensitivity nuclearspin detection.

Budakian earned his bachelor’s,master’s, and PhD degrees in physicsfrom the University of California, LosAngeles. From 2002 to 2005, he was a

visiting scientist at the IBM AlmadenResearch Center in San Jose, California,where his research focused on detectingthe spin of a single electron usingMRFM. The long-term goal of thiswork is to achieve three-dimensionalsub-surface imaging of atomic structure,a capability that would transform ourunderstanding in areas ranging from thedetermination of protein structure tothe characterization of buried interfacesin semiconductor devices.

Nadya MasonA person of enormous energy, NadyaMason found an outlet in her earlieryears as a gymnast in Houston, trainingwith the legendary Bela Karolyi andbecoming a member of the U.S.National team. Mason received herbachelor’s degree in physics fromHarvard University in 1995 and herPhD in physics from StanfordUniversity in 2001. Prior to joining ourfaculty, Mason was a junior fellow ofthe Harvard Society of Fellows, whereshe collaborated with Professors CharlesMarcus and Michael Tinkham onprojects related to both carbonnanotubes and nanostructuredsuperconductors.

A condensed matter experimentalist,Mason will focus on how electronsbehave in low-dimensional, correlatedmaterials, where enhanced interactionsare expected to give novel results. She isparticularly interested in the effect ofreduced dimensionality and correlationson electron coherence, the control ofwhich is relevant to a variety of systems,including quantum communication,information storage, and qubit controlin quantum computers. Mason willexploit modern fabrication techniquesto make and study a variety ofnanostructures, such as quantum dots and wires, as well as arrays ofsuperconducting dots.

Jose MestreJose Mestre received bachelor’s and PhDdegrees in physics from the Universityof Massachusetts in 1974 and 1979,

respectively. He has spent his entirecareer to date at the University ofMassachusetts, rising rapidly throughthe ranks from research associate to fullprofessor. He came to Urbana in August2005 as a full professor of physics andof educational psychology. Althoughtrained as a nuclear physicist, hisacademic interests evolved more than20 years ago to the questions of howstudents learn physics. He is adistinguished scholar of physics learningand arguably the most highly regardedresearcher in the field of physicseducation in the United States. He has adapted tools from cognitive andeducational psychology to investigateforefront issues in the development ofscientific knowledge and how it isconveyed in instruction, and he bringsgreat strengths and new perspectives tothe physics education research group atIllinois. His research interests focus on cognitive processes pertaining tolearning science, the role andinteraction of language in problemsolving, and the use of technology inscience and mathematics education.

Smitha VishveshwaraA condensed matter theorist with wide-ranging interests, SmithaVishveshwara received her bachelor’sdegree in physics magna cum laude fromCornell University in 1996, and herPhD in theoretical physics from theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara,in 2002. She served as a postdoctoralresearch associate with Paul Goldbartand Tony Leggett in Physics at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2002 to 2005,working on tunneling and fractionalstatistics in quantum Hall systems,Aharonov–Bohm effects in carbonnanotubes (Science 304, 1132–1134[2004]), and critical dynamics incharged superconductors. She joinedthe department as an assistant professorin August 2005.

Vishveshwara’s research interests spana broad range of topics in theoreticalcondensed matter physics, and shemaintains strong collaborative ties withexperimentalists. Over the next fewyears, she plans to extend ongoingprojects and to expand her research intoproblems involving ultracold atomstrapped in optical lattices, electronicproperties of single-walled nanotubes,and exotic features of quantum Hallstates. n



BY JODI HECKEL

When physics Professor ZhiqiangMao left his home in Metairie,

Louisiana, and his lab at TulaneUniversity the day before HurricaneKatrina hit, he faced losing valuableresearch time.

Now he’s at the University of Illinoisand ready to start work again.

“This is the ideal place for me,” Maosaid. “If I couldn’t stay here to continuemy work, it would have a huge impacton my research.”

Mao is on campus at the invitation ofMyron Salamon, a UI physics professor,associate dean in the College ofEngineering and director of theEngineering Experiment Station.Salamon and Mao are part of a smallgroup of scientists worldwide who workwith a family of materials based onthree elements and study theirfundamental physical properties.

Mao is an expert in growing thematerials in an optical floating zonefurnace—a furnace that focuses a beamof light on material to melt it and forma crystal. The furnace provides thenecessary superclean environment forgrowing the compounds, which aresensitive to impurities. And the UI isone of a half-dozen places in thecountry with such a furnace.

Salamon had never met Mao beforehe arrived in Champaign-Urbana, butSalamon knew Mao’s work and is oneof several UI researchers who have usedsamples grown by Mao. When thehurricane hit New Orleans, Salamonthought of Mao and tried to e-mail himto offer him a place to work. Hecouldn’t reach Mao by e-mail but

From his perspective, the Universityof Illinois has been very good to

Lewis (Lonnie) Edelheit and his wife,Susan. So when an opportunity aroseto show his appreciation, Edelheiteagerly stepped forward with financialsupport for the Physics Department.

His gift creates the L.S. EdelheitFamily Endowed Fund in BiologicalPhysics, which will be used for anannual graduate fellowship to the beststudent in biological physics (theory or experiment).

“I had three key reasons for givingback and for choosing the biologicalphysics area in particular,” Edelheitsaid. “I’ve been pretty fortunate in mylife and realized just how much I owedthe U of I for my circumstances,” hecontinued. Above and beyond hiseducation, he also met his wife of 40 years while at the U of I.

Recognized as one of GE’s leaders inmodern-day medical imaging, Edelheitliked the idea that the fund wouldreflect his career’s work—that ofstudying and refining the interaction of radiation with the human body.

As the holder of a PhD in solid statephysics who works in industry, he was

also concerned about the divergent pathsof physics and industry.

“It seemed that the biotechnology areawould be a great place to bring physics and industry closer together, and that isanother goal of the fellowship,” he added.

“We will award the fellowship to astudent who has already demonstratedoutstanding research ability and whoshows great promise for makingsubstantial contributions to the biologicalphysics field,” said Jeremiah Sullivan, headof the physics department.

The award will free the student fromother responsibilities to allow him or her to make maximum progress during thefellowship year, completing the PhD asearly as possible.

An obvious assist to recruiting topstudents, the fellowship will benefit aphysics faculty adviser as well.

“In working with the award recipient, thefaculty adviser will have the opportunity toexplore new ideas in promising areas thatare not yet funded,” Sullivan added.

“In this way, the Edelheit name will beassociated with those students who aremost likely to have a significant impact onbiological physics. Winning the fellowshipaward will provide assistance at a critical

New Gift Benefits Biological Physics

tracked him down through his formeradviser at Penn State.

“My first thought was to send a checkto the Red Cross, and I did that,”Salamon said of his reaction to news of Hurricane Katrina. “But I thought, is there anything I can do as a colleagueto help the people we know? We knowwhat Dr. Mao does. We read his papers.We compete with him. If we can’t beathim, we’ll bring him up here. It seemednatural, if he came here and we had afurnace, we’d all benefit from it.”

“My concern is we have youngscholars early in their careers, and this is a big disruption” for them, he added.

When Mao left New Orleans with hiswife, Yu Wang, and their 10-year-olddaughter Alice, they drove toHouston—and what is usually a five-hour trip took 15 hours because ofheavy traffic flowing out of NewOrleans. They stayed with a friend, who also took in one of Mao’s graduate

Physics Welcomes Displaced Professor

students and his family, and anotherfriend and his family. Mao said 11people stayed in the one-bedroomapartment for a week.

Then Mao and his family flew toNorth Carolina to stay with relativesand decide where he would go fromthere. He had offers to work atuniversities in Japan, the UnitedKingdom and at Florida StateUniversity. But he wanted to stay in the U.S. and Florida State couldn’taccommodate his graduate students.

So he arrived at the UI a little over a week ago. The UI is providing freehousing to Mao and his two graduatestudents at its Orchard Downscomplex, an office and a modestamount of supplies for Mao, use of thefurnace, and the privileges of UI faculty,such as being able to use the bus systemfor free. Tulane is still paying his salary.

When he arrived, the local chapter ofthe American Red Cross helped Mao

and his wife get prescription refills andit provided hepatitis shots, vouchers forclothing, a voucher for a night in ahotel and some supplies. It also helpedthem with enrolling their daughter inschool.

“We didn’t expect we’d receive somany helps,” Mao said.

Alice is attending King ElementarySchool in Urbana, which has a Chineselanguage program, much to Mao’sdelight. The family speaks Chinese athome, but Alice will be able to work onher reading and writing skills at King,he said.

Mao has received some good newsfrom home, as well. A friend checkedhis house in Metairie and found minorwater damage from a leak, but it wasnot flooded and a tree that fell in theback yard missed the house.

“My lab is probably OK,” he added.“The damage may be very minimal. My lab is on the fifth floor, so itshouldn’t be flooded.”

He’ll have no access to his samples or data there for some time, but “I canreproduce the samples very quickly,” he said. “We’ve ordered the chemicals. I think we can start our work right away when we receive those chemicals.

“The research atmosphere iswonderful, just wonderful,” Mao said ofhis impression of the UI. “I feel I’m solucky. My house is undamaged. I got so many helps from the University ofIllinois and Professor Salamon. I reallyappreciate all these helps.” n

Reproduced by permission of the Champaign-UrbanaNews-Gazette. Permission does not imply endorsementby the newspaper. Article was originally published onSeptember 24, 2005.

juncture in their careers,” Sullivan noted.Credited with helping to lead General

Electric into the medical imaging sector,Edelheit’s personal impact on the field has been far-reaching and profound. His contributions have been recognized byhis election to the National Academy ofEngineering and receipt of the George E.Pake Prize of the American PhysicalSociety. He is also a Society fellow.

In a career that spanned 33 years—allbut six in various capacities with GE—Edelheit championed the field of medicalimaging. He served as the first projectmanager for a computed tomography (CT)scanner and went on to oversee GE’semergence in the medical electronicsmarket, today heralded as one of thecompany’s most successful enterprises.

At his retirement in 2002, he directed theSchenectady, NY-based GE Research andDevelopment Center, one of the world’slargest and most diversified industriallaboratories. He concluded his career asGE’s senior vice president for corporateresearch and development, as well as amember of the company’s corporateexecutive council.

After earning an undergraduate degree in engineering physics and master’s and

doctorate degrees in physics from theUniversity of Illinois, Edelheit began hiscareer as a physicist at the GE R&DCenter, where he made significantcontributions to all-video fluoroscopic x-ray systems and to fast-scan, “fan-beam” computed x-ray tomographyscanners.

His patent (#4,063,097) covers theconcepts for GE’s first CT x-ray system, a major advance in medical imaging he helped to pioneer through his ownseminal scientific contributions andthrough his leadership of engineers andscientists from a wide range of technicaldisciplines.

Edelheit credits his three UI degreeswith providing important knowledge inthe broad nature of physics and theability to think about complex systems—electrical, mechanical, computer, andmathematics.

“I would have been hard pressed tofind an area that called on complexsystems analysis more than that ofmedical imaging,” he said. n

Phot

o by

Joh

n D

ixon

/The

New

s-G

azet

te

Tulane University physicsProfessor Zhiqiang Mao,left, joined by Universityof Illinois physics ProfessorMyron Salamon,demonstrates an opticalfloating zone furnace at the UI's MaterialsResearch Lab in Urbana.



Nelson Receives PrestigiousAward from IEEE

Wayne Nelson (MS ’59, Physics; PhD ’65,Statistics) received the 2005 Lifetime

Achievement Award from the Reliability Society ofthe Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers(IEEE). After receiving a bachelor’s degree fromCaltech, Nelson earned a master’s degree in physicsand completed all work for his doctorate except forthe thesis. In 1962, he switched to statistics andreceived his PhD from Illinois in that field in 1965.Nelson remarked, “As a statistical consultant onengineering applications of statistics, I have found my physics background invaluable.”

Formerly a statistical consultant with the General Electric Research andDevelopment Center for 25 years, Nelson now consults and offers courses forcompanies, professional societies, and universities. He recently spent four monthsin Argentina on a Fulbright Award, doing research and lecturing on analysis ofproduct reliability data.

The Reliability Society award recognized Nelson’s many innovativedevelopments of practical methods for analysis of reliability and accelerated test data, his effective and knowledgeable teaching of thousands of reliabilitypractitioners, and his skilled consulting, which lengthened the life of hundreds of clients’ products—including toasters, heart pacemakers, car and jet enginecomponents, and aluminum siding.

In addition to this most recent honor, Nelson is a Fellow of the IEEE, theAmerican Society of Quality, and the American Statistical Association. He alsoearned the American Society for Quality’s Shewhart Medal in 2004 for histechnical leadership. n

Gendron Tapped to HeadWoodward Governor

Thomas A. Gendron (BS ’83) became presidentand chief executive officer of Rockford, Illinois-

based Woodward Governor Company, effective July 1. He was also elected to the company’s board of directors.

Only the sixth person to lead Woodward in its 135-year history, Gendron had served for more than14 years in both the aircraft and industrial businesses,providing leadership in sales, marketing, businessdevelopment, and product support management. He was named president and chief operating officerin September 2002 after serving as vice president of

the industrial controls division. Prior to joining the company, he held positionswith Sundstrand Corporation and Thermotron. “Tom has been the primaryarchitect of our business strategy, which has delivered results and continues to bevery successful. Along with his years of experience at Woodward, Tom will besupported by an established team of senior executives as he begins his tenure asCEO,” said John A. Halbrook, Woodward’s chairman of the board.

Woodward is the world’s largest independent designer, manufacturer, andservice provider of energy control solutions for aircraft engines, industrial enginesand turbines, power generation, and mobile industrial equipment. The companyserves global power generation, transportation, process industries, and aerospacemarkets from locations worldwide. n

Alumni NewsAlumnus Bill Edelstein Honored with AIP Prize

By providing detailed pictures from the depths ofthe living body, magnetic resonance imaging

(MRI) has saved many lives and dramaticallyincreased knowledge of human anatomy, particularlythe brain. More than 22,000 scanners worldwidenow perform some 60 million scans annually. Butwithout the ingenuity of an industrial physicist andhis colleagues, magnetic resonance would not havemade its sudden jump in the early 1980s from a toolfor esoteric laboratory research to a widely availablemedical technology. For his pioneering developmentsin the commercialization of high-resolution MRI for

medical applications, Physics alumnus William A. Edelstein (BS ’65) received the2005/2006 American Institute of Physics Prize for Industrial Applications ofPhysics.

Edelstein joined the General Electric Corporate Research and DevelopmentCenter in Schenectady, New York, in 1980. He spent the next 21 years makingkey contributions to MRI science and technology and the development of GE’sMRI systems. While Edelstein retired in 2001 from GE, he remains active as an independent scientist and consultant and a visiting scientist at nearbyRensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is also a senior research associate at CaseWestern Reserve University, where he has done theoretical research on shieldingpulsed gradient fields to reduce eddy-current-induced acoustic noise.

After receiving a PhD from Harvard University, Edelstein was a postdoctoralresearch fellow at Glasgow University, working on gravitational wave detection.He moved to Aberdeen University, also in Scotland, as a research fellow from1977 to 1980, and was part of a pioneering effort to develop MRI. There, hecollaborated in constructing one of the first whole-body scanners and was theprimary inventor of the “spin warp” imaging method still used in all commercialMRI systems.

After joining GE in 1980, his early analysis and experimental work on MRIsignal-to-noise ratios helped establish what was then high field 1.5-T (64-MHz)imaging and its commercial feasibility. Edelstein was part of the team thatproduced the first 1.5-T image and spectra of the head. He collaborated in thedevelopment of the rf “birdcage” imaging coil that operated successfully at 64 MHz and built a version that made the first 1.5-T whole-body image.

Recently at GE he elucidated the sources and pathways of acoustic noisegenerated in MRI systems and assembled an experimental system havingsubstantially reduced noise. He is continuing that work as an independentscientist and consultant in collaboration with university and industrial partners.

Edelstein is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), and a Fellow of the International Society of MagneticResonance in Medicine (ISMRM). He was awarded the Gold Medal Prize fromISMRM in 1990, and in 1991 was named a Coolidge Fellow, GE’s highestcorporate scientific honor. He joins fellow Illinois alumni Charles H. Henry(PhD ’65) and Joseph E. Killpatrick (BS ’55, Electrical Engineering) as winnersof the AIP Industrial Applications of Physics Prize. n

In keeping with its proudtradition of having the bestparty at the APS Marchmeeting, the PhysicsAlumni Association willhost a reception for alumni and friends at the 2006 meeting inBaltimore. Mark yourcalendar for Tuesdayevening, March 14, 2006,and check your meetingprogram for room location.

Professor Charlie Slichter and John Carlisle (PhD’93), a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory,reminisce at the 2005 APS Illinois AlumniReception in Los Angeles.

Phot

o by

Dom

Ric

ci

Save the Date!Physics Alumni Association “March Meeting” Reception

Calling all Nuclear and Particle Physicists!The physicists of Illinois are organizing the2006 Conference on the Intersections ofParticle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2006),which will be held May 30 to June 3 at WestinRio March Beach, Puerto Rico. The conferencewill explore the “intersections” between particleand nuclear physics in an environment whereboth communities can meet and share. Go tocipanp.physics.uiuc.edu for details.



Physics undergraduates Laura Book,Guy Bresler, Dan Dorris, and Andrew

McCormick have been named 2005 Barry M. Goldwater Scholars, the onlyUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaignstudents to receive the award this year.This prestigious national scholarshipcompetition recognizes outstandingacademic performance and demonstratedpromise in scientific research. The BarryM. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellencein Education Program was established byCongress in 1986 to honor Senator BarryM. Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman,including 30 years of service in the U.S.Senate. The purpose of the Foundation isto provide a continuing source of highlyqualified scientists, mathematicians, andengineers by awarding scholarships tocollege students who intend to pursuecareers in these fields.

Laura Book, who graduated fromUniversity High School in Urbana, is ajunior in physics. Her goal is to earn aPhD in astrophysics and do research at a national laboratory or university,concentrating on theoretical astrophysics.She has been working with CharlesGammie since Summer 2004 on thepropagation of photons in curvedspacetime near spinning, uncharged black holes. She spent the past summerdoing research at the SmithsonianAstrophysical Observatory in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

Guy Bresler, also a graduate ofUniversity High School, transferred to Illinois from Princeton University aftera successful 2003 summer REU projectwith George Gollin, where he worked on a Fourier series kicker for the TESLAdamping ring. He is a dual major inelectrical engineering and engineeringphysics, and he intends to earn a PhD inelectrical engineering. His ultimate careergoal—conduct research and teach at theresearch university level focusing onwireless communication, coding theory, and/or cryptography.

Dan Dorris, a member of the theoreticalastrophysics and general relativity

undergraduate research team supervised byFrederick K. Lamb and Stuart L. Shapiro,continues a solid tradition of Goldwaterwinners in the group, joining alumni PatrickDraper (BS ’05), Randall Cooper (BS ’03),Harish Agarwal (BS ’02), David Webber (BS ’02, MS ’03), Jared Mehl (BS ’01), EricEngelhard (BS ’00), and Kevin Huffenberger(BS ’00) as winners of this prestigiousaward. Dan is a junior in engineeringphysics from Leroy, Illinois. He plans toobtain a PhD in theoretical physics and jointhe professoriate in physics at a majorresearch university.

Andrew McCormick is a Chancellor’sScholar from Charleston, Illinois—a dualmajor in physics and mathematics. He hasworked with Professor Thomas Junk on the CDF experiment at Fermilab (Summer2003) and with Dr. Achim Franz on thePHENIX experiment at Brookhaven NationalLaboratory (Summer 2004). He alsoworked for a semester at Illinois on thedetector test stand for the PHENIX muontrigger upgrade at Brookhaven. Andyreceived a grant to present his work onPHENIX at the 2004 fall meeting of theDivision of Nuclear Physics of the APS in Chicago. He plans to earn a PhD inphysics and conduct research in the field of quantum mechanical physics, with anemphasis on discoveries to engineer new devices and methods.

The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a fieldof 1,091 mathematics, science, andengineering students who were nominatedby the faculties of colleges and universitiesnationwide. Of the Scholars, 165 are men,155 are women, and virtually all intend toobtain a PhD as their degree objective.Twenty-seven Scholars are mathematicsmajors, 239 are science majors, 45 aremajoring in engineering, and 9 arecomputer science-related majors. Many of the Scholars have dual majors in a variety of mathematics, science,engineering, and computer disciplines. n

Physics Sweeps 2005 Goldwaters

Student News

Undergraduates Yongsun Kim, Hye Ryong (Hazel) Kim, andAaron Veicht have been workingwith Professor Matthias GrossePerdekamp on the upgraded muon trigger for the PHENIXexperiment at the RelativisticHeavy Ion Collider at BrookhavenNational Laboratory. All threewere selected to present theirresearch at the specialundergraduate research conference held in conjunction with the American PhysicalSociety’s Division of Nuclear Physics annual meeting September 18–22 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the Kapalua Resort on the island of Maui. The DNP’s “ConferenceExperience for Undergraduates” allows undergraduate students who have conductedresearch in nuclear physics to present their results and to interact with one another andwith the larger community. About 75 U.S. students received travel support toparticipate this year. n

Students Present at Undergraduate Research Conference

Phot

o by

Haz

el K

im

BY CYNDI PACELEY

Passion, determination, andpersistence are at the core of

Alfred Hubler’s teaching excellence,and these habits figure prominently in the success of his research group as well.

Hubler is consistently named to the campus list of faculty ranked asexcellent and, each semester for thepast two years, all eligible graduatestudents associated with his complexsystems research group were also onthe list. But the accolades don’t endthere.

In the past seven years, fivemembers of his research groupreceived the Physics Department’sScott Anderson Award in recognitionof outstanding teaching assistants.

The National Science Foundationalso took notice, underwriting severalcomplex systems research projects andnaming Hubler principal investigatorof a recently concluded three-yearstudy of adaptation to the edge ofchaos and critical scaling in the self-adjusting perioxidase-oxidase reaction.

At the center of this attention is a scholar whose personal love oflearning influences his students’ quests for knowledge.

“As a high school student, I wasfascinated by seemingly unsolvableproblems, such as predictingearthquakes and volcanic eruptions,traveling faster than the speed of light,and philosophical questions aboutdefining knowledge and intelligence,”Hubler said. “I became interested incomplex systems because the beauty of the experiments appealed to me—examining fractal river networks,turbulent flows, dynamics of swarmsof birds and fish.”

As director of the Center forComplex Systems Research, Hubler’scurrent study focuses on systemidentification with nonlinearresonances and optimal control ofadaptive and non-adaptive noisychaotic systems using the Chuaoscillator. His article, “PredictingComplex Systems with a HolisticApproach,” appeared in Complexity,the field’s leading journal, in 2005. He also co-authored a paper onformation and structure of ramifiedcharge transportation networks in anelectromechanical system (PNAS 102,536–540 [2005]). These join Hubler’smore than 100 published works. He also helped originate an annual

complex systems conference in 2000and has chaired its organizingcommittee each year.

He is a master at translatingresearch findings to the classroom—and his students’ evaluative commentsprove it.

One such remark: “Professor Hublerdoes an excellent job of conveyingvery difficult subject matter using realworld examples, traditional teachingtechniques, and computerprogramming.”

Other student observations include:“Professor Hubler wanted to makesure his students learned” and

“Interesting and enthusiastic lectures;he is highly skilled in using computertechnology as a tool for instructionand research.”

It’s easy to see why “energetic” and “enthusiastic” are descriptorsfrequently found in students’evaluations of his teaching. By hisown admission, Hubler is passionateabout originating and imparting newideas. He creatively applied theprinciples of nonlinear resonance todevelop an intuitive, interactive Web-based software package used to teach avariety of university science courses,both at the University of Illinois andaround the world. Dubbed“CyberProf,” the software analyzesstudent homework problems in realtime and provides individualizedfeedback to each student.

Although his most recent researchresults are the fabric of his graduatecourses, Hubler also weaves researchfindings into the curriculum of hisBehavior of Complex Systems class—one of the University’s small-sectionDiscovery courses for freshmen. Toencourage their interest in physicsbeyond the classroom, he also strivesto involve undergraduates in research.

His own education was completedin his native Germany, capped byearning a PhD, summa cum laude,from the Department of Physics at the Technical University of Munich.After a postdoctoral fellowship at theUniversity of Stuttgart, Hubler cameto the U of I as a visiting assistantprofessor in 1989. The following year,he was named an assistant professorand the associate director of theCenter for Complex SystemsResearch, which he now directs.Hubler served as a Toshiba ChairProfessor at Keio University in Tokyo in 1993/94. n

Defining the Art of Teaching

Members of the Hublergroup of outstandingteachers. From left,back row: VadasGintautas, EilaStiegler, Alfred Hubler,Anne Hanna, GlennFoster, and Peter Fleck.Front row: Jian Xu,Davit Sivil, ChrisStrelioff, and TimWotherspoon.

Photo by Darren Wright



Every year, the “Physics on-the-Campus Luncheon” on the last

Thursday in April provides a venue for us to celebrate the

achievements of our student scholars. The luncheon, which is

supported by the Physics Alumni Association (PAA), was held this

year on April 29 at the Illini Union. Many of the prizes that are

awarded each year have been made possible by the vision and

generosity of the department’s faculty, alumni, and friends. In this

section, we highlight some of these remarkable students as they

begin their physics careers. Joining the University of Illinois Alumni

Association automatically makes you a member of the PAA, and a

portion of your dues supports Physics activities such as POTCL.

Endowed Student Awards

FELIX T. ADLER

FELLOWSHIP

Dan Chitwood and KazutakaNakahara shared the 2005 Felix T.Adler Award, which recognizesoutstanding work by a graduatestudent in nuclear physics. Dan, who is advised by David Hertzog, is involved with the precisionmeasurement of the positive muonlifetime in the µLan experiment atthe Paul Scherrer Institute inSwitzerland. He earned a bachelor’sdegree from the University ofMissouri–Rolla in 1999. With hiswife Jessica, he is the proud father of Malia and Kieontai.

Kaz Nakahara is studying parity-violating electron-proton scattering in the D0 experiment at the ThomasJefferson National Accelerator Facilityin Newport News, Virginia. Histhesis adviser is Douglas Beck. Henotes, “When I was an undergrad [atCarnegie Mellon University], I had tomake a choice between majoring inphysics, chemistry, philosophy, orhistory. In hindsight, I made theright choice.” Professor Adler would agree.

The Adler Award was endowed by the family and friends of the lateFelix T. Adler, a theoretical nuclearphysicist who was instrumental inmaking Illinois into a center forreactor science and engineering in the 1960s.

ERNEST M. LYMAN PRIZE

The 2005 Ernest M. Lyman Prize,which is awarded to the outstandingsenior physics student, was presentedto Wing Ho Ko (BS, ’05), aninternational student from HongKong majoring in physics andmathematics. In addition to theLyman Prize in physics, Wing Horeceived the MathematicsDepartment’s H. Roy Brahana Prize,which is presented to the “graduatingsenior with the most exceptionalundergraduate mathematics career.”

Wing Ho, who was also a BronzeTablet Scholar, was a regular on thePhysics Van crew and participated inthe Van’s “Snoozeum” at the Museumof Science and Industry in Chicago in February.

The award is named for Ernest M.Lyman, who served on the faculty for 36 years. In addition to makingseminal contributions to experimentalnuclear physics—he was a worldexpert on electron scattering—Lymanmaintained great interest in teachingundergraduate physics.

SCOTT ANDERSON AWARD

The 2004/05 Scott AndersonOutstanding Teaching AssistantAwards, which recognize superlativeperformance in teaching by graduatestudents, were awarded to TamaraGossman for her work in Physics 111in the Spring 2004 semester and toPeter Fleck for his Physics 213, 214contributions in the Fall 2004semester. Both Tamara, a Physics Van veteran, and Peter are superbclassroom instructors who are regularson the University’s “Incomplete Listof Teachers Ranked as Excellent byTheir Students.”

Peter, a graduate of Friedrich-Alexander UniversityErlangen–Nürnberg in 2000, isworking in Alfred Hubler’s group on microscopic hardwareimplementations of artificial neuralnetworks. He wrote of his success inteaching, “I would especially like tothank Professor Jim Wolfe for hiscontinued kindness and support.”

Tamara (BS ’03, Animal Science), a veterinary medicine student, oftenfinds herself answering the question,“Why physics?” Her answer, “Whynot! It’s fun!” She goes on to say, “I really enjoy working with thestudents. And I really enjoy workingin this department. I think it getstaken for granted a bit, but theatmosphere here is just amazing! I don’t think that there’s anotherdepartment anywhere on campus

with such a positive and proactiveattitude towards teaching. (Believeme—I have experience with a lot of other departments.) It’s such apleasure for me to be able to be a partof it!” (Editor’s Note: Tamara becameeven more a part of Physics in Marchwhen she married graduate studentand fellow Physics Van veteran TimMcArdle.)

The award is named for Physicsalumnus Scott Anderson (MS ’37,PhD ’40), who founded AndersonPhysics Laboratories in Urbana in1944. A creative and prolificentrepreneur, Anderson developedmetal halide lighting systems that are used worldwide. It was throughAnderson’s initiative as president ofthe Physics Alumni Association andhis generous philanthropy that theAnderson Award was endowed.

RENATO BOBONE AWARD

The Renato Bobone Award, whichrecognizes the year’s outstandingEuropean graduate student based onacademic achievement, was awardedfor 2005 to Kalin Vetsigian ofPlovdiv, Bulgaria. A 2000 graduate ofMIT, Kalin is working with NigelGoldenfeld on the role of horizontalgene transfer in microbial evolutionand the evolution of the genetic code.

This award was created by Physicsalumnus Renato Bobone (PhD, ’60),a student of Hans Frauenfelder’s, whospent his entire career (1960–1987)at the General Electric Knolls AtomicPower Laboratory in Schenectady,New York. When he endowed theaward in 1985, Bobone wrote:“Interest in physics and the educationI have been privileged to receive inItaly, first, and then in this country,have carried me over many obstaclesand will be with me ever. I look onthe award as another bridge betweencountries already joined by many tiesof people, culture, and friendship.”

JOHN BARDEEN AWARD

The John Bardeen Award is givenannually to recognize outstandingresearch achievements in condensedmatter physics or the physics ofelectronic devices by a physicsgraduate student. The 2005 awardwas presented jointly to SergeyFrolov, an experimentalist, and Eun-Ah Kim, a theorist.

Sergey, who graduated from theMoscow Institute of Physics andTechnology in 2000, is working withthe Van Harlingen research group onferromagnetic Josephson pi-junctions.He is interested in their fundamentalproperties as well as their applicationsfor quantum computers. About histime in Urbana, Sergey says, “I enjoythe Illinois Physics graduate programa lot. I like the atmosphere, thescience, the people. It has been bothchallenging and stimulating to studyand work here.”

Eun-Ah, a 2000 graduate of SeoulNational University, is concentratingon quantum Hall tunnel junctions,

Luttinger liquid physics, quantumcoherence effects, and fractionalquantum numbers. Her thesis adviseris Eduardo Fradkin. In her sparetime, Eun-Ah loves to exploredifferent ethnic cuisines and aboutother cultures through cooking.

HARRY G. DRICKAMERFELLOWSHIP

The 2005 Drickamer Fellowship waspresented to Joseph Altepeter, whosethesis adviser is Paul Kwiat. Harry G.Drickamer, for whom the DrickamerFellowships were named, was adistinguished member of theDepartments of Physics, ChemicalEngineering, and Chemistry atIllinois. Drickamer’s work led toadvances in the understanding of themolecular, atomic, and electronicproperties of matter and provided thetools to study these properties withgreater detail and precision.

Joe started his research with Kwiatas an undergraduate in the quantumoptics laboratory at Los AlamosNational Laboratory, where heworked on the first experiment todemonstrate the existence of two-particle “entangled” quantum statesthat were immune to certain forms of decoherence, the essential noiseprocess that is the bane of quantuminformation processing. At Illinois, hedevised a novel compensation schemeto achieve a new world record inentangled photon production, nearlyan order of magnitude better thanprevious sources. As a graduatestudent, Joe has also formalized andextended his characterizations of theprocesses that affect entangledphotons. This work resulted in thefirst implementation of a method tocompletely characterize all quantumprocesses. Says Kwiat, “Joe iscontinuing to push the frontiers of research in quantum informationprocessing, and I am confident thathe will one day he will be one of thetrue leaders in our field.”

JORDAN S. ASKETH FELLOWSHIP

Alexandros Gezerlis was selected toreceive the 2005 Jordan S. AskethFellowship, which recognizes thework of an outstanding Europeangraduate student. Alexandros enrolledat Illinois in 2003, after graduatingfrom the National TechnicalUniversity of Athens in electrical andcomputer engineering, “although Ialways knew that what I really wantedto do was physics.” He is working oncomputational studies of Fermi gaseswith Vijay Pandharipande.

The Asketh fellowships wereendowed by the late Jordan Asketh to fund “graduate study grants” forstudents in the fields of physics,chemistry, and medicine. To honorhis Greek heritage, Asketh specifiedthat, whenever possible, thesefellowships should be awarded tograduate students of Greek descentwho are pursuing advanced degrees at the University of Illinois.



RICHARD K. COOK

SCHOLARSHIP

The 2005 Richard K. CookScholarship, recognizing a meritoriousundergraduate engineering physicsstudent at the end of his or hersophomore year, was presented toAaron Veicht. In addition to hisformal studies, Aaron has worked with Matthias Grosse Perdekamp onthe design and simulation of a driftchamber for a resistive plate countertest stand being built for the muontrigger upgrade of the PHENIXdetector at the Relativistic Heavy IonCollider at Brookhaven NationalLaboratory.

The scholarship is made possible bythe generous gift of Richard K. Cook(PhD ’35), who spent his entire careerat the National Bureau of Standards(now the National Institute ofStandards and Technology [NIST]).Dr. Cook specialized in ultrasonicsand acoustics.

LAURA B. EISENSTEIN AWARD

Laura Book, who also received aprestigious Goldwater Scholarship,was named the Laura B. EisensteinAward recipient for 2005. TheEisenstein Award recognizesoutstanding undergraduate womenphysics students and is named forLaura B. Eisenstein, a Fellow of theAmerican Physical Society who wasdeeply concerned about the status ofwomen in physics. Eisenstein servedthe Department and the biologicalphysics community with distinctionfrom 1969 until her untimely death in 1985.

A graduate of University HighSchool in Urbana, Laura intends toearn a PhD in astrophysics and pursuea career in research. She is off to agreat start; she has been working withCharles Gammie since Summer 2004on the propagation of photons incurved spacetime near spinning,uncharged black holes. In Summer2005, she worked with Lee Hartmanat the Smithsonian AstrophysicalObservatory in Cambridge,Massachusetts, on time-dependentcalculations of simple accretion diskmodels with an aim toward explainingFU Orionis outbursts. Anothermusical physicist, Laura sings with theUI Concert Choir and plays the violain string quartets with her family.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR

CHANCELLOR’S SCHOLARS

The Chancellor’s Scholars programrecognizes academic excellence byannually selecting the top 100students campuswide, regardless ofclass year or discipline. Physics had arecord number (five!) of Chancellor’sScholars again in 2004/05—PaulDalach (BS ’05), Patrick Draper (BS’05), Irina Marinova (BS ’05), NathanVanHoudnos (BS, ’05), and AmyWaitz (BS ’05).

THREE RECEIVE LORELLA JONES

SUMMER RESEARCH

FELLOWSHIPS

Thanks to the vision and generosityof the family and friends of formerProfessor Lorella M. Jones, threeoutstanding undergraduate studentswere able to pursue hands-onindependent research projects thissummer as part of the department’s“senior thesis” program.

Kyle Arnold, who graduated fromMarmion Academy in Aurora,Illinois, in 2002, is a double major inengineering physics and mathematics.He credits his high school physicsteacher, who was also a researchphysicist at Fermilab, with stimulatinghis interest in physics. He used theJones Fellowship to work with PaulKwiat on quantum informationscience—specifically on developingand testing an optical storage systemfor a quasi-deterministic single-photon source. Kyle is also a memberof the Illini Tae Kwon Do Club andteaches a class in the sport.

Rachel Hillmer, an Urbana HighSchool graduate, spent the summerworking with Federico Capasso atHarvard University, where she studiedthe Casimir force using variousatomic force microscopy techniques.The experience was a revelation forRachel, who discovered a real interestin and flair for experimental physics.

Working with Russell Giannetta,Zane Shi spent the summermeasuring the low-temperaturepenetration depth of the organicsuperconductors κ-(ET)2Cu(SCN)

2

and κ-(ET)2Cu[N(CN)2]Br. Anothermusical physicist, Zane consideredmajoring in piano performance beforesettling on physics. As he explained,“Physics can explain much of theworld around us, but there is stillmuch in physics that we don’tunderstand. I want to solve some of these unknowns to further ourunderstanding of science.”

Lorella Jones was an outstandingtheoretical high-energy physicist. Thefirst woman to attain tenure and a fullprofessorship in the Department,Jones was a superb researcher and adedicated and innovative teacher whowas particularly interested in usingcomputers for physics education. In 1985, she pioneered the use ofcomputerized quizzes for a largeelementary physics course at Illinois—one of the earliest developments of itskind nationwide. She died in 1995.

GUILIO ASCOLI AWARD FOR

EXPERIMENTAL HIGH-ENERGY

PHYSICS

The Ascoli Award is made possible by the generosity of the family andfriends of Guilio Ascoli, a member of the faculty from 1950 to 1986.During his career in high-energyphysics, Ascoli participated in thedesign and fabrication of hardwareand in the development of algorithmsfor data analysis for experiments atCERN, Argonne NationalLaboratory, and Fermilab. The AscoliAward is presented annually to theoutstanding graduate student in high-energy physics. The 2005recipient is James Kraus.

James, who graduated from theUniversity of Toledo in 1999, isworking with Kevin Pitts on theCollider Detector Facility experimentat Fermilab. He worked ondevelopment of high-speed digitalelectronics for the CDF dataacquisition system. He is currentlymeasuring the production rate ofbottom quarks in high-energyproton-antiproton collisionsproduced by the Fermilab Tevatron.

OUTSTANDING SENIOR

THESIS AWARDS

The discretionary funds provided bythe Department’s Excellence inPhysics endowment allowed us torecognize once again two outstandingundergraduates for their work in theDepartment’s “senior thesis” courses.An integrated three-semestersequence, “senior thesis” emphasizescommunications and research skillsand introduces students tofundamentals of scientific ethics,collaboration, and peer review whileproviding the opportunity to dohands-on research. Beginning in2006, thanks to a gift by W. DaleCompton (PhD ’55) and his wifeJeanne, the Robert E. Hetrick (BS’63, MS ’64, PhD, ’69) Prize will begiven to recognize two outstandingsenior thesis students.

Wing Ho Ko (BS ’05), wasrecognized for his theoretical thesiswith Richard Martin on “DiffusionMonte Carlo Method in Few-Electron Systems.” A graduate of theDiocesan Boys’ School, Hong Kong,Wing Ho is now a first-year graduatestudent in physics at MIT.

Zachary Hensel (BS ’05), a graduateof Blue Valley Northwest HighSchool in Overland Park, Kansas, wasrecognized for the best experimentalproject. He worked with ZvonimirDogic at Harvard University on“Chiral Liquid Crystals inSuspensions of Salmonella Flagella”during the summer of 2004. Zach ispursuing a PhD in biological physicsat Johns Hopkins University.

BRISTOW/COMMONWEALTH

EDISON SCHOLARSHIP

Kara Lamb, a sophomore whograduated from Peoria Notre DameHigh School, was presented with the2005 Beryl Bristow/CommonwealthEdison Endowed Scholarship, whichrecognizes an outstanding freshmanor sophomore woman physicsstudent. Kara plans to pursue adoctorate in physics.

The Bristow scholarship wasestablished by CommonwealthEdison to recognize Beryl Bristow’sachievements as part of itscommitment to women in math,science, and engineering. Aftergraduating from Illinois—she was the first woman to receive a master’sdegree in physics from Illinois—Bristow worked for CommEd as adata analyst.

ANTHONY SUMMER

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

Jonathan Wilson and DustinSchwenk, both undergraduates inengineering physics, were selected toreceive the first Philip J. and BettyAnthony Summer ResearchFellowships.

Dustin had a head start onresearch. As a sophomore, heparticipated in the “ResearchExperience for Undergraduates”program at Indiana University, wherehe worked with Caty Pilachowski tounravel the chemical composition ofthe globular cluster Omega Centauri,the most massive and most luminouscluster in the Milky Way. Usingspectrographic data taken by theCerro Tololo InterAmericanObservatory, Dustin determined eachstar’s iron, calcium, aluminum, andeuropium content. His results werepresented at the January 2005meeting of the AmericanAstronomical Society in San Diego.He is currently working with SusanLamb on computer simulations ofgalaxy collisions to elucidate theevolution of dark matter halos.

Jon worked with Alexey Bezryadinon quantum mechanical effects andelectron transport in superconductingnanowires. He got a start in researchlast summer in our own REUprogram, working with Susan Lamb's“Colliding Galaxies” group, using anN-body code to model the collisionof two galaxies having a supermassiveblack hole in their centers of mass.He then switched to fly-byencounters between two galaxies at a large impact parameter and highrelative velocity and comparedsimulation results with astronomicalobservations. Jon is now studying thequantum electronic properties ofgranular thin films with theBezryadin group.

Physics alumnus Philip J. Anthony(MS ’75, PhD ’78) and his wife Bettyprovided summer stipends for Dustinand Jon to pursue their research.



At a gala induction ceremony on October 8 inCambridge, Massachusetts, the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences officiallywelcomed its 225th class of Fellows, includingProfessor of Physics and Astronomy and FortnerEndowed Chair in Theoretical AstrophysicsFrederick K. Lamb. The Academy is an honorarysociety that recognizes outstanding achievementin the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, andhumanities and conducts a varied program ofprojects and studies responsive to the needs andproblems of society. Also in this year’s class aretelevision journalist Tom Brokaw; physicist and

Nobel Laureate Eric Cornell; Harvard Law School dean and former White House officialElena Kagan; Chicago Symphony Orchestra musical director Daniel Barenboim; poet SusanStewart; and genetics pioneer Nancy Wexler.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded during the AmericanRevolution by individuals who contributed prominently to the philosophical foundations ofthe new nation and to the establishment of its government and institutions. John Adams,later to become the second President of the United States, initiated the chain of events thatled to the formation of the Academy. On December 15, 1779, “an Act to incorporate aSociety for the cultivation and promotion of Arts and Sciences” was read in theMassachusetts House of Representatives. On May 4, 1780, the Legislature, “althoughinvolved in all the calamities and distresses of a severe war,” enacted the Charter of theAcademy. Today, Academy projects have focused on the changing nature and needs ofhigher education and research, the well-being of the humanities in the United States andtheir central role in assuring the vitality of our cultural life, the emerging challenges ofscientific and technological advances, geoglobal politics, population and the environment,and the welfare of children. Now in its third century, the Academy continues to mobilize theintellectual resources needed to anticipate, examine, and confront the critical challengesfacing our society.

The Academy’s membership, which is elected, represents distinction and achievement inthe entire range of the intellectual disciplines and professions. Its 4000 U.S. Fellows and600 Foreign Honorary Members are divided into four classes—the physical sciences, thebiological sciences, the social arts and sciences, and the humanities and fine arts. Amongits Fellows are 168 Nobel laureates and 58 Pulitzer Prize winners. Physics faculty GordonBaym, David Ceperley, Hans Frauenfelder, Laura Greene, Miles Klein, Tony Leggett, DavidPines, Charles Slichter, and Dale Van Harlingen are also members of the Academy. n

Fred Lamb Elected to the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences

Faculty News

Gary Gladding wins 2005 Excellencein Undergraduate Teaching Award

A ssociate Head for Undergraduate Programs Gary E. Gladding (BS, ’65) received the2005 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from the American Association of

Physics Teachers for his lasting contributions to undergraduate physics teaching. At theAAPT annual meeting, held in August 6–10 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Gladding gave afeatured lecture, “Reforming Introductory Physics Courses at Research Universities.”

Gladding, an engineering physics alumnus, joined the Department of Physics as anassistant professor in 1973, after receiving his PhD from Harvard in 1971. He is currentlyinvolved in experiments using the silicon vertex detector (CLEO II) at the WilsonSynchrotron Laboratory at Cornell University to study charmed meson decays. Earlier, he made numerous original contributions to high energy experiments at the StanfordLinear Accelerator Center, where he was involved in experiments measuring the decay of B mesons produced in the decays of the Z boson (SLD collaboration) and the initialdetailed studies of particles containing the charmed quark (MARK III collaboration). He also contributed to the first studies of the photoproduction of particles containing the charmed quark at Fermilab.

Beginning in 1996, Gladding led the faculty group responsible for the success of themassive curriculum revision that has fundamentally transformed the way introductoryphysics is taught at Illinois. This effort, spanning six years, has improved physicsinstruction for more than 20,000 science and engineering undergraduate students atIllinois. In addition, the Illinois model has been adopted at Purdue University, theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Washington, Seattle, Chicago State University, Bradley University, and many community colleges throughout Illinois.He now leads the Physics Education Research Group at Illinois(http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/Research/PER/). n

Gary Gladding works on an “interactive example”—a difficult numeric homework problem thatoffers detailed help to guide students to the correct answer. The help sequence proceeds throughthree different stages: a qualitative analysis, a strategic analysis, and a quantitative analysis,using questions that engage students in a Socratic dialogue. Students choose how much help theyreceive and can opt to answer the initial question at any point in the dialogue. Complete sets ofinteractive examples have been introduced into both the algebra-based and calculus-basedintroductory physics courses at Illinois.

Interim Dean Ilesanmi Adesidaannounced June 8 that Center

for Advanced Study Professor ofPhysics Vijay R. Pandharipandehas been named a Donald BiggarWillett Professor of Engineering.Willett Professors are selected bythe College Advisory Committeeon Appointments and ratified by the Dean of the College ofEngineering, the CampusCommittee on EndowedAppointments, and the Provost.The Willett Professorship carriesan annual stipend and has arenewable five-year term.

An internationally recognizednuclear theorist, Pandharipandehas played the leading role in thedevelopment of the nuclear many-body problem. His contributionshave led to a state-of-the-artcomprehensive, quantitative, andreliable theory of nuclei, neutronmatter, and neutron stars, andhave been extended more generallyto quantum liquids. Histheoretical contributions have setthe agenda for experimental work,significantly advancing the use ofelectron scattering as a probe ofnuclear structure. Working withhis graduate students andcollaborators, he has initiated and carried through over severaldecades a successful researchprogram to describe all nuclearsystems in terms of the elementarytwo- and three-body interactions

of the constituent nucleons. His pioneering variational MonteCarlo calculations have become thestandard methods for the field.

In addition to his nuclear studies,Pandharipande has applied hisexpertise to condensed matterphysics, where his research hasincluded Bose and Fermi heliumliquids and drops, includingstructure, response, and elementaryexcitations in liquid helium. Most notably, he predictedstructures subsequently observed in the dynamic response ofsuperfluid 4He and demonstratedthe important effects of theenhancement of the effective mass at the Fermi surface of liquid 3He. n

Pandharipande Named Willett Professor



Thaler Named 2005–06 CAS Associate

Center for Advanced Studyassociates are tenured facultymembers whose proposals areselected in an annual competition.These appointments grant onesemester of teaching release timeto allow the associate to focus on an individual scholarly orcreative project.

Thaler, a high-energyexperimentalist, will use hisappointment to pursue tantalizingquestions at the intersection ofparticle physics and astrophysics.The evolution of the universesince the big bang dependscrucially on the properties of the elementary particles that itcontains. Several interestingpuzzles have attracted Thaler’sattention—the contribution ofneutrinos to the formation ofcosmological structure (stars and galaxies) and the nature of so-called dark matter and darkenergy.

Thaler was one of only 12associates selected from the entire campus for the currentacademic year. n

Van Harlingen Appointed CAS Professor

Professor of Physics and DonaldBiggar Willett Professor ofEngineering Dale J. Van Harlingenhas been appointed a permanentprofessor of the Center forAdvanced Study (CAS). The CASserves as the intellectual nexus of the campus by providing theacademic community withopportunities for top-flightinterdisciplinary scholarship and interactions.

Selected from the faculty on the basis of their outstandingscholarship, the CAS Professors areamong the most highly recognizedmembers of the professoriate. The 24 CAS Professors form thecore of the Center for AdvancedStudy community, meetingregularly for informal lunches andscholarly presentations. They alsoparticipate in a yearly roundtablediscussion of research interests.

Other Physics CAS Professorsare Gordon Baym, NickHolonyak, Jr., Miles Klein(emeritus), Tony Leggett, VijayPandharipande, David Pines(emeritus), and Charles Slichter (emeritus).

Van Harlingen and ThalerAppointed to Center forAdvanced Study

Stelzer Receives Innovation Award“I-Clickers made class fun because I felt like I wasparticipating in the lectures instead of just beingtalked at.”

Assistant Research Professor of Physics Timothy J. Stelzerreceived the College of Engineering’s 2005 BP AmocoAward for Innovation in Undergraduate Instruction for his leadership in the development of the I-Clicker, atwo-way rf communication device the size of a TVremote control that promotes true instructor-studentinteractivity, even in large lectures.

“It encouraged me to think about the material as I was learning it. It alsodemonstrated concepts right on the spot, which helped solidify them for me. It encouraged me to know that even when I got a question wrong, many otherstudents were thinking like me.”

Student response to the I-Clicker has been phenomenal. The Department ofPhysics gives end-of-term surveys in all introductory classes, repeating certainquestions every semester. The questions that we repeat are of the form “Overall,how important was X in helping you to understand the course material?”Students select one response: “essential,” “very useful,” “useful,” “not veryuseful,” and “useless.” Looking at X = lecture, for Physics 101, Fall 2004 (the first time I-Clickers were used in this course), 76 percent of the students said the lectures were very useful or essential—the highest rating ever for “lecture” in this course. For example, in Fall 2003, when Tim Stelzer was also the lecturerbut I-Clickers were not used, the same fraction was 59 percent.

“In a normal class setting I do not like to participate in class, but with the I-Clickers I was able to participate since I did not feel inferior if I answered thequestion wrong.”

In an independent evaluation of I-Clicker use, Dr. Cheryl Bullock, head of educational research, Center for Teaching Excellence, and Laura Hahn,educational specialist, Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign, documented the students’ ready adoption of I-Clickers,their liking of the technology, and their improved learning of physics. n

Charles Gammie, professor ofphysics and of astronomy, has

joined colleagues S. Lance Cooper andPaul Selvin as a Physics Sony FacultyScholar. His three-year appointmentwas effective in August 2005.

“Charles Gammie is a rising star in theoretical and computationalastrophysics and is widely recognizedand one of the top players in his areaof research,” said Head JeremiahSullivan in his recommendation to the Dean. “His research is central tounderstanding the physics that shapedthe development of our universe andunderlies extraordinarily powerfulprocesses that are now being detectedby satellite-based instruments.”

Gammie received his bachelor’sdegree in mathematics in 1987 fromYale University and his PhD inastrophysical sciences from Princetonin 1992. He was a postdoctoral fellowat the University of Virginia from1992 to 1994, and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicsin Cambridge, Massachusetts, from1995 to 1998. He joined the facultiesof physics and astronomy at Illinois in January 1999.

Gammie’s research involvesmagnetohydrodynamics, starformation, and accretion physics. He is a leader in the computer

simulation of astrophysical plasmas,the formation of interstellar clouds,and the collapse of dense clouds toform stars. He was named an NCSAFaculty Fellow in 2001, and hereceived a Presidential Early CareerAward in 2002, the highest honorbestowed by the United States onyoung scientists and engineers.

Funding for the Sony FacultyScholars comes from a long-standingSony endowment to the University ofIllinois. The appointment recognizesoutstanding scholars at the earlystages of their tenured careers.(Eligibility is restricted to associateprofessors or recently promoted fullprofessors.) The Department ofElectrical and Computer Engineeringat Illinois also hosts three SonyFaculty Scholars. n

Inauguration DayB. Joseph White, center, is congratulated by his predecessors, former UI presidents Stanley O. Ikenberry, left, and James J. Stukel, in a September 22 gala in which White was officially inaugurated as the university’s 16th president. The ceremony included greetingsby Edwin Goldwasser, a former provost at Urbana and 55-year Physics faculty member, who also represented Harvard University, his and White’s alma mater. In his inauguraladdress, White promised strong leadership at every level to help the UI achieve “a brilliant future.”

Gammie Named Third Sony Faculty Scholar

The 2005 Arnold Nordsieck Physics Award forTeaching Excellence was presented to Paul M.

Goldbart for his inspired and inspiring teaching—in thebroadest meaning of the word—of graduate students.According to Jeremiah Sullivan, “Paul is a regular on theIncomplete List for his classroom teaching; indeed, one ofmy hardest jobs is coming up with fresh words, semesterafter semester, to commend Paul for his exceptionalteaching. His success is a result of his meticulouspreparation, his creativity, his boundless enthusiasm for

doing physics, and his genuine desire to educate the next generation of scientists.” Goldbart is passionate about classroom teaching, and his coursework is

painstakingly prepared and rigorously vetted. Not only does he meticulouslyprepare the entire course package, complete with comprehensive annotated lecturenotes and extensive homework sheets, but he also rehearses prior to every lecture,so that the “performance” is the best that he can give. In a typical example of hisorganization and clarity, he ticks off his “guiding principles” of teaching:

• “To bring to the fore the essential structure of the subject, whatever it is, so that the technical elements have as natural a framework as possible into which to fit.

• “To be extremely clear and organized—physics is hard enough—without being obscured by the presentation.

• “To require the students to work very hard, but also to think very hard and, thus, really to extend themselves; and, at the same time, to engage the students personally and to help them feel like the vital members of the department that they are.

• “To treat students with the utmost respect—if they don’t understand something, it is because I am not explaining it well.

• “To bring out the idea of science as a human enterprise, conducted by people just like our students. To this end, I try to illuminate my lectures with elements of the history and culture of science.”

One of the things that Goldbart is best known for in Physics is his “office hours,”a regular block of time set aside every week when he meets with the studentstaking his classes, and they work together to solve that week’s homeworkproblems. Typically, some two-thirds or more of the class attends, to workcollaboratively through—often in exhaustive detail—various problems andexercises that Goldbart has chosen with scrupulous care. In his office hours,Goldbart captures the feeling of the centuries-old schola—the kind of learning we associate with Socrates or the medieval university, but seldom with modernU.S. higher education.

Perhaps Goldbart’s skill and dedication can best be illustrated by the pensivecomment that one of his students penciled on the back of an ICES form: “Whilesitting, confused, in other classes, I frequently thought to myself, ‘If only PaulGoldbart were teaching this, I’m sure I would understand.’”

The Nordsieck Award was endowed by the family of former faculty memberArnold T. Nordsieck to recognize his commitment to superlative teaching.Former winners include Dennis J. Kane (BS, ’72), Nigel D. Goldenfeld, GeorgeD. Gollin, and Naomi C.R. Makins. All five winners were able to meet withNordsieck’s son and daughter-in-law, Richard and Gerry Nordsieck, when theyvisited Urbana in September. n



Goldbart “Excellent” Teacher

Stealing the Gold

Paul Goldbart is also a co-editor, with fellow Nordsieck Award recipientNigel Goldenfeld (2002) and Professor David Sherrington (Rudolf

Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, Oxford University), of Stealing TheGold: A Celebration of The Pioneering Physics of Sam Edwards. The bookcelebrates the career of British physicist Professor Sir Sam Edwards, who has led the field of condensed matter physics into new directions, rangingfrom the electronic and statistical properties of disordered materials to themechanical properties of granular materials. The book describes the genesis,evolution and future prospects of the various subfields of condensed mattertheory, written by the leaders of the field (including one chapter authored by Yoshitsugu Oono, and one chapter co-authored by Goldbart andGoldenfeld) along with reprints of a selection of Edwards’ seminal papersthat helped give birth to the subject. The title, Stealing the Gold, comes fromEdwards’ credo for selecting research problems—“The first person in thebank vault steals the gold.”

The book also illustrates the complex “family” of physics—Edwards wasthe PhD adviser of Goldenfeld and Sherrington; Sherrington was the PhDadviser of Goldbart. Edwards’ PhD adviser was Julian Schwinger, who wasalso the adviser of Illinois professors Gordon Baym and Shau-Jin Chang(among many, many others).

Stealing the Gold was published by Oxford University Press (2005) as part of the International Monographs on Physics series. n

Clockwise from top left: Nigel Goldenfeld, Paul Goldbart, Sir Sam Edwards (CambridgeUniversity), and Professor David Sherrington (Oxford University) in New College,Oxford, November 2004.

Physics Van ReunionOne weekend in March, former Physics Van crew

members left behind their day jobs as physics teachers,

engineers, graduate students, and researchers and returned

to Urbana from as far away as Redmond, Washington, and

Tucson, Arizona, for the first Physics Van Reunion. Timing

their visit to coincide with Engineering Open House, the

veterans critiqued the current Van show demonstrations,

ate pizza at Papa Del’s, took the hovercraft for a spin, and

even found time to set off a few soap explosions. For more

photos, see http://van.physics.uiuc.edu/van/reunion/

reunionhome.htm.

Phot

o by

JPa

ul G

oldb

art



instances, simply not permitted. Forexample, I remember being rejected for a bursary position from the AtomicEnergy Board of South Africa becausemy race did not allow me to studynuclear science.

I chose to attend the University ofNatal, a one-time whites-only university,for my undergraduate studies. By thetime I enolled, the government hadrelented slightly, and a quota of 7% waspermitted for people of color. I managedto make the quota based on my highschool results, and then subsequentlyattained first-class passes with certificatesof merit [first place] in each of mysubjects for all four years of studies atNatal. I secured a Fulbright scholarshipwhich took me to the University ofIllinois in 1985.

I was fortunate to have had anexcellent high school physics teacher in Mr. Kiran Maharaj, who made meyearn for a world of science beyond the classroom. I am very grateful toProfessor Roger Raab (a Rhodes Scholarto Oxford), who was the head of physicsduring my undergraduate days and whomotivated and encouraged me to pursuea career in physics. I save my highestpraise for Professor Richard Martin, whosupervised my PhD at Illinois and whois a deep source of inspiration for me,not only in physics but also in terms of human issues. Professor Martin has a profoundly deep understanding andintuition of physics combined with aninordinate amount of patience, creatingfor me a nurturing and supportiveenvironment which enabled me to growas a person and as a physicist during my graduate student days.

My five years at Illinois gave me aglimpse into a different world from thatof my childhood. I was able to meetwith people from all backgrounds, racesand creeds and to interact with them onan equal basis. I had decided long ago to return to South Africa to help changethe society in which I had grown up. I felt the best place to do this was withinthe realm of higher education, though it is ironic that I should return as aprofessor to the very same institutionthat gave me marginal access as anundergraduate student. Still, I wouldrather be here making an incrementalcontribution to improving the humancondition than to enjoy a materiallysuccessful life elsewhere in the world.

Why did you choose the University of Illinois?After completing my BS in physics in1985, I was awarded a Fulbrightscholarship for MS studies. I applied toa number of US universities. During myvacation work in 1984 at the Council ofScientific and Industrial Research inPretoria, South Africa, I met ProfessorCarl Altstetter (Metallurgy, U of I), whostrongly recommended that I go toIllinois. The rest, as they say, is history!

How did you choose your particular areas of physics?I must admit that in 1985 I was initiallyattracted to the glamour of particlephysics. However, with the department’sstrong tradition of world-class solid stateand condensed matter physics, I verysoon saw the advantages of pursuing aresearch career focused on more practicalapplications. Professor Martin’s warmpersonality and superb intellect playedno small part in influencing mydecision. I was his first research student at Illinois.

Today, my field of endeavor is highlyrelevant for the burgeoning materialsindustry in South Africa.

How long have you been on thefaculty at the University of KwaZulu-Natal?I arrived in January 1997 after a shortstint at the University of South Africa inPretoria. Prior to this, I had postdoctoralappointments at the BrookhavenNational Laboratory (1992–1995) andat the Technical University of Denmark(1990–1992). I am currently anassociate professor, and I direct theundergraduate program incomputational physics.

Tell us about the research project you currently find most exciting. Our country is the largest supplier ofnatural diamonds, and the rich diamondfields are in the hands of the de BeersMining Company, which was started byCecil John Rhodes in the 19th century.De Beers also produces artificialdiamonds and other hard materials, such as cubic boron nitride and siliconcarbide abrasives for cutting tools thatare needed in the heavy mining andmetals industries.

My students and I are currentlyworking on a new anisotropiccoarsening theory that is being appliedto anisotropic growth of silicon nitride.Our new theory and computationalscheme is applicable to the study of ahost of other anisotropic systems, suchas silicon carbide.

My quest is to find research problemsof scientific value that will contribute to the understanding of questions ofrelevance to South African research and development.

What is your favorite memory of your time at the U of I?Attending the Thursday afternoonphysics colloquia and meeting with myfriends during tea time at the MRLlounge are cherished memories.

In addition, I enjoyed theCosmopolitan Club and interacting with people from all parts of the worldat a number of events, including skiingat Allerton Park and canoeing at TurkeyRun State Park. I remember very fondlythe great number of dinners at Richardand Beverly Martin’s home, especially at Thanksgiving.

Interview with Nithaya Chetty,President-Elect of the South African Institute of Physics continued from page 1

Have you had the opportunity toreturn to Illinois to take part inresearch or to work with your former professors?I was very fortunate to secure a secondFulbright fellowship for visiting scholarsin 2004. Naturally, I chose to return toIllinois where I spent the fall semesterworking with Richard Martin.

Tell us about the South AfricanInstitute of Physics.I have been a Council member of theSAIP since 2003. I have held theportfolio of Transformation—focused on addressing issues that are of relevanceto the new South Africa democracy, suchas greater access for previouslydisadvantaged black students. I have

also been charged with rewriting theInstitute’s constitution to bring it in line with the new ethos of democracy in South Africa.

I have also served on the SouthAfrican IUPAP committee, which sentme to the General Assembly in Berlin,Germany, as a voting member of theSouth African delegation.

Within the Theoretical PhysicsSpecialist Group of the SAIP, I havebeen involved in hosting the ChrisEngelbrecht Summer Schools series that has brought a number of notable U of I physicists to South Africa,including David Ceperley, RichardMartin, Paul Goldbart, Tony Leggett,and Paul Ricker.

I currently chair the SAIP WorkingCommittee on Computational Physics,whose primary brief is to promotecomputational physics in South Africa.

What do you feel is the organization’sgreatest strength? Greatest challenge?Physics the world over has changed, andwe do not possess the glamour that ourdiscipline enjoyed during the previouscentury. This poses a huge challenge toattract good students and funding.

The SAIP has positioned itself in adevelopmental role in South Africa—this is one of its key strengths. Arguably,the single most important reason whyAfrica lags behind the rest of the worldin terms of development is its lack ofbasic mathematical and scientific literacy

in the mainstream. The South Africanphysics community has championed the cause of scientific development as a vehicle for progress at all levels within society, including educational,commercial, industrial, governmental, etc.

What would you like to achieveduring your presidency of SAIP?I am actively promoting theinternationalization of physics in SouthAfrica. Thus far, the funding regimes inSouth Africa do not recognize the crucialimportance of scientists’ working witheach other on an international basis. I would like to see more foreign postdocsgracing our shores. I would like to have more high quality international

physicists participate in workshops,conferences, and schools in South Africa.At the same time, I want to see moreAfrican physicists, who often toil underdifficult circumstances and in isolation,to spend more time in South Africaestablishing collaborations, using ourlaboratory facilities, and interacting with our international visitors.

I have been involved in theestablishment of the National Institutefor Theoretical Physics from the outset.This will be a fantastic opportunity toensure that the brightest of youngAfrican minds are exposed to the world’sbest physicists. I aim to draw on myIllinois connections to ensure that wehave a steady stream of world-classvisitors to this part of the world.

There are a number of pan-Africaninitiatives that have come to fruitionover recent times: The African Institutefor Mathematical Sciences, The AfricanLaser Centre, The Advanced AfricanInstitute for Information andCommunication Technology, TheAfrican Materials Research Society, etc.More funding is becoming availablefrom the Southern AfricanDevelopment Corporation, NewPartnership for African Development,and the African Union. Under mypresidency, the SAIP will ensure that it plays its role in maximizing the goals of these initiatives. n

David Ceperley and Nithaya Chetty in South Africa


Department of PhysicsUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign215 Loomis Laboratory of Physics1110 West Green StreetUrbana, IL 61801

NON PROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE

PAIDPERMIT # 75

CHAMPAIGN IL

not a place, a habit of mind…

Backward Glance

Backward GlanceIn May 1977, Physics hosted 48 European, Canadian, Latin American, and U.S. physicists at a workshop on Nuclear and DenseMatter Physics. Contemporary developments in the reaction-matrix and variational theories of quantum fluids, their application to simple Fermi systems, and to nuclear and neutron-star matter were discussed. Workshop organizer Vijay R. Pandharipande (second row, third from right) arranged formal and informal talks on topics including models of the nucleon-nucleon interaction, the type of matter properties they predict, and the scattering of nucleons and pions by the nuclear medium. Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe summarized the “Status of the Nuclear Matter Problem” and proposed a number of interesting model problems. Whom do you recognize?

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWSPhysics Illinois News is published twice a year by theUniversity of Illinois Department of Physics for itsstudents, faculty, alumni, and friends.

MISSIONThe mission of the Department of Physics of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is to serve the people of the State of Illinois, the nation,and the world through leadership in physics educationand research, public outreach, and professional service.

EDITORCelia M. Elliott

COPY EDITOR AND PRODUCTIONCyndi Paceley

ART DIRECTION & DESIGNCollege of Engineering Communications Office

PHOTOGRAPHYThompson/McClellan Photography

ONLINE www.physics.uiuc.edu/Alumni

WRITE TO USSubscriptions are free. To place your name on our mailinglist or to request an address correction, please contact us at:

[email protected](217) 244-7725

Physics Illinois News215 Loomis Laboratory of Physics, MC-704Department of PhysicsUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign1110 West Green StreetUrbana, IL 61801-2982 USA

If you have suggestions for stories or features that youwould like to see, comments about this edition, orrequests for an electronic version of the newsletter, pleasewrite to us. We’re listening!

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an equal opportunity and affirmative action institution.

Date post:	12-Mar-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	0 times
Download:	0 times

THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF … · THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY...

Documents