Kansas State University

Greetings from the Department Head

We hope you enjoy our reestablished annual newsletter. This has been a year of transitions, both happy and sad. Our beloved Peggy Matthews, office manager and so much more for 36 years in the department until her 2019 retirement, passed away unexpectedly this February. We have already begun work on a suitable permanent memorial for Peggy, who, in the words of Professor Brett DePaola, “ranks with A.B. Cardwell and James R. Macdonald in terms of importance to K-State Physics.”

Along with farewells come welcomes and bon voyages. New assistant professor Meng Han joined our faculty in the fall and is off to a great start in the Macdonald Lab while his young family settles in Manhattan. Long-time instructor John Pratt retired, and mainstay of JRML Kevin Carnes will do so in a couple of months. Finally, our “COVID generation” graduates this spring! Ten of the most resilient undergraduates in department history leave K-State this May with their degrees in physics to launch new chapters in lives around the world.

We still face many challenges. While our home College of Arts and Sciences has begun to recover from enrollment declines over the past decade, the financial situation remains tight; and we must continue to fight to maintain our identity as a world-class research facility that delivers excellent physics instruction from professional physicists to thousands of students each year. This is the best way that we can support K-State President Linton’s strategic vision of a NextGen land grant university. Our communications with stakeholders have improved dramatically with the development of new media across many formats. A major part of K-State NextGen is engagement with communities extending from campus into Manhattan and beyond to all of Kansas, the country, and the world. Engagement is nothing new for us. For example, we continue to honor requests from any Kansas K-12 school or community college to either visit them or facilitate a visit with us. We can get even better.

Our greatest asset continues to be you: the students, alumni, colleagues, and friends who support us. We want to hear from you.  Please check out our website. Subscribe to our social media accounts that can be found on this page. Whether you received a physics degree here, advanced in your career, took one of our introductory courses, or trained up the physicist inside you at one of our public lectures, nothing will help us more than receiving your personal stories on how K-State Physics impacted you and the world around you. Please send us these stories.  Call me at 785-532-1664. Send e-mail to me at tbolton.ksu.edu. If you are able, please continue to help us fund scholarships for our students and support initiatives in excellence, including a new award to honor Peggy Matthews as mentioned in the next article of this newsletter

Department Mourns Longtime Office Manager Peggy Matthews and Works to Honor Her Memory

Following the recent passing of longtime office manager, Peggy Matthews, department faculty are working to name a room after her in the department and to create a fund through the K-State Foundation to honor her legacy.

Matthews passed away suddenly on February 15, 2024, in Manhattan. She is survived by her husband of more than 50 years, Bill, and their two children Eric (Amy) Matthews and Staci (Mike) Burson and granddaughter Eliza Burson. Services were held at Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home.

There are few that leave a legacy behind in a department at K-State as Peggy did. She began her career at K-State in the Office of Admissions and then was employed in the Division of Facilities. She joined the physics department in 1983 and was the driving force behind several department heads including Chander Bhalla, Jim Legg, Dean Zollman, Amit Chakrabarti, and Brett DePaola until her retirement in 2019.

Zollman, who worked alongside Peggy for 10 years during his tenure as head said, “Peggy had the ability to interact with and understand faculty, students, and even the university administration. Because of this, she was able to keep the Department running smoothly through several university, college, and departmental administrations. She also knew when to step back and smile at situations that on the surface seemed difficult. This sense of humor certainly helped me during my ten years as physics head.”

Matthews was oftentimes the first person that employees and visitors encountered when they came to the department.  “With her special attention to collegiality and high quality support for all physics members, Peggy Matthews set the tone for the department that we have been so proud to be known for,” said Amit Chakrabarti.

Plans are underway to honor Peggy’s legacy in the department. An ad hoc committee has been formed and is currently working on plans to rename and dedicate the physics conference room in Cardwell 119 in honor of Matthews.

In addition, the department has set up fund at the K-State Foundation to fund a new annual award to honor a deserving employee who emulates Peggy’s extraordinary spirit while serving the department.  Peggy was passionate about advocating for our department’s classified and unclassified professional staff who work to support the department and University. Her support of these valued members in our department was evidenced by the long-term employees remaining in the department staff that she hired and supervised over the years.

We invite and encourage past and present students, staff, and faculty who have benefitted from Peggy’s assistance over the years to please donate to the Peggy Matthews Memorial Fund (ksufoundation.org/give/PeggyMatthews). This will help ensure that our appreciation for Peggy’s 36 years of service to the department is never forgotten.

Building Interest in Science on Campus and Throughout Kansas

The department has been working to increase awareness of and participation in physics and STEM in general on campus and across the state this past year.

In addition to K-State Open House activities, our faculty, staff, and students have attended and hosted several events this year as we work to inform the next generation of scientists who will shape the future of Kansas and our world.

Faculty member Vinod Kumarappan and several of our graduate students participated in the Girls Research Our World (GROW) and EXCITE! workshops hosted by the K-State Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering and geared toward middle and high school girls. Vinod and graduate research assistants Claudia Morello and Parker Poulos led workshops where students performed hands-on experiments related to the greenhouse effect and investigated whether drinking straws work on the moon.

We hosted area high school students who toured physics and other science departments in the college in conjunction with our Peterson Public Lecture featuring Nobel Prize winner John Mather who spoke about the James Webb Space Telescope.  In addition to touring the STEM departments, students had front row seats for Mather’s lecture, met with the college’s Associate Dean for Student Success, Melinda Cro, and had lunch with Dr. Mather where they were able to ask him questions about his career and the Nobel prize.

University distinguished professor Bharat Ratra gave several lectures at libraries and schools throughout the state on the expanding universe in addition to his open house lecture.

Physics undergraduates hit the road to show off some of our department’s best physics demonstrations. They attended Rocks & Rockets, a free event with fun and games for kids of all ages in Colby. This annual event is organized by Sara Lamm, sister of physics alumnus Hank, BS ‘11.

Undergraduate students and department head Tim Bolton participated in Clay County Schools summer STEAM program. Students (and teachers) engaged in hands-on activities built around rotations with torques and twists and a rotating bicycle wheel and stool. They also used super-long slinkies to learn about waves.

We hosted two local summer camp groups – Wonder Workshop and Cool Care Clubs – where we entertained kids with our most popular demonstrations including dropping a bottle of liquid nitrogen into a barrel of water on a hot July day. The nitrogen expanded in volume by a factor of 1000 as it boiled from liquid to gas, creating a big bubble that splashed water all over the kids with a big bang to their delight.

Stay tuned to our social media accounts so you don’t miss out on local K-State events if you’re in the area or find out if we’re coming to an event near you.

Degree Recipients

We are pleased to extend a warm welcome to the latest additions to our department alumni. The accomplishments of these 2023 degree recipients fill us with a sense of pride and we know that many more are forthcoming.

Bachelor of Arts & Bachelor of Science Degrees

Alexander Adamson – Bachelor of Science

Nolan Foth – Bachelor of Science

Dylan Parker – Bachelor of Science

Iori Sugita – Bachelor of Arts

Evan Swain – Bachelor of Science

Alexander Teeters – Bachelor of Science

 

 

Masters & Doctoral Degrees

Shulei Cao, PhD, Advised by Bharat Ratra

Lindsay Morris, PhD, Advised by Brett DePaola & Brian Washburn

Shams El-Adawy, PhD, Advised by Eleanor Sayre

Christopher Hass, PhD, Advised by Eleanor Sayre

Katelynn Hubenig, MS, Advised by James T. Laverty

Shusil Sigdel, PhD, Advised by Christopher Sorensen

Amogh Sirnoorkar, PhD, Advised by James T. Laverty

Jo Lynn Tyner, MS, Advised by Glenn Horton-Smith

Dustin Ursrey, PhD, Advised by Brett Esry

Hanyu Zhang, PhD, Advised by Lado Samushia

Undergraduate Program Update

Our undergraduate program is seeing growth under the leadership of Amit Chakrabarti (director of physics major programs) and Janae Mooty (academic advisor) as we work to rebuild post-COVID. Janae was recently recognized with a College of Arts & Sciences William L. Stamey Undergraduate Advising award. The students are engaged in teaching, research, physics club, and outreach. The John P. Giese Undergraduate Center is filled with students studying, socializing, and other activities.

Our students have been the recipients of several honors this year. Dual major in physics and mechanical engineering Matthew Culbertson was awarded a Goldwater scholarship (see article in this newsletter).  He was also featured in K-State’s flagship research magazine, Seek. Jeremy Kamman, dual major in physics and international studies, spent last summer researching computational materials physics in Germany with the support of the German Academic Exchange Service. He was also as admitted to Phi Beta Kappa in the fall. Caitlin Solis was awarded a College of Arts & Sciences research award in the fall. Noah McPherson, dual major in physics and chemical engineering was listed as Big XII Outstanding Freshmen at the 2023 Big 12 Conference on Black Student Government.

Several students attended the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in February of 2023. Naomi Downes said of her experience, “Looking around the room at all of the women in these CUWiP lectures was empowering on its own. Then adding all of the discussions and the realization that other people understand is a wakeup call. The thrill of the connection, empowerment, and learning about what physics can do for you and others is an experience you can’t get just anywhere.”

Our majors hosted their first undergraduate research colloquium in the fall. Students highlighted their research projects in oral presentations that focused on their experiences in summer research at K-State, REU programs, and internships. Their presentation skills and research were clear, concise, and impressive as they spoke to their fellow students, graduate students, postdoctoral research associates, faculty, and staff.

Our newest alumni from the undergraduate program have gone on to Thermo Fisher Scientific, Kubota Corporation, and KC Testing & Engineering, as well as to graduate programs at K-State and Missouri S&T.

Culbertson Named 84th Goldwater Scholar at K-State

Matthew Culbertson, a senior studying physics and mechanical engineering, was named K-State’s latest Barry M. Goldwater scholar in 2023. He was among 413 natural science, engineering, and math students from across the United States awarded the prestigious merit-based scholarship out of more than 1200 nominees.

Matthew is working with research advisor Amir Bahadori in the radiological engineering analysis laboratory in the mechanical and nuclear engineering department. They are developing and testing a random position machine to simulate microgravity while conducting cell model irradiations. They hope to show how human cells react to irradiation in microgravity, in order to better understand what happens inside the human body in space.

Culbertson is the son of Anne and Chris (current K-State College of Arts & Sciences Dean) Culbertson. He graduated from Manhattan High School in 2020. Upon completion of his undergraduate education, he plans to pursue a PhD in Nuclear Engineering.

Introducing the Eisenhutts

Zach Eisenhutt and Sarah Kane were the best of friends at Liberty North High School in Missouri who made the journey to K-State together in 2019. Zach was looking for an affordable college education and after touring K-State, he knew he’d found the right fit for his educational pursuit and his budget. Sarah, a first generation student, had come to K-State for a campus visit with a friend looking at K-State’s Architecture program and had a great visit. She’d narrowed down her choices to Iowa State or K-State but ultimately decided to head to the Little Apple too.

Sarah always knew that she wanted to become a teacher. In high school, she found herself wondering how she would teach the lessons she was learning from her own teachers. She had seen many of her fellow students lose an interest in STEM when they transitioned to high school and thought that she’d like to inspire others to maintain the excitement they’d had in elementary school for these subjects. During her senior year of high school she participated in an educational internship program that paired her with an elementary teacher, and thus confirmed her career path would lead her to teaching secondary education.

Zach had been motivated by his high school physics teacher who taught class by asking students open-ended questions. He followed up with hands-on experiments to help them answer those questions, pulling a fluorescent tube out of the ceiling and then using it in several activities designed to demonstrate the concepts of physics behind it.

These experiences led Zach to pursue a dual degree in physics and math while Sarah chose to follow a path to Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Science in math. Along the way, she added a physics minor as she knew that underfunded schools often times have math teachers in their physics classrooms, plus the physics minor only required four additional classes.

During their freshman year at K-State, best friends Zach and Sarah took a leap into the dating world on February 29, 2020. When the COVID pandemic emerged a couple of weeks later and students were sent home and classes pivoted to remote learning they were grateful to have forged a new path in their relationship.

In fall 2020, most classes were still remote but the Physics Today class was taught in person while masked where the students and instructors of the course attempted to foster community that had been sorely missed. It was then that these students began to bond together, building relationships, working on homework together, and gaming on Zoom and in person.

The friendships they cultivated continued to bloom. When Zach and Sarah married on July 8, 2022, fellow physics majors Jeremy Kamman and Josh Barron were the best man and groomsman respectively. Josh’s girlfriend was Sarah’s maid of honor.

Sarah and Zach both credit Brandi Lohman as a major influence on them during their undergraduate career. They said that Brandi gave them an opportunity to teach General Physics and Engineering Physics labs. Brandi realized that Zach and Sarah had missed out on a lot during COVID 19 remote lab experiments. Thus, she assigned them to teach those courses so that they were able to revisit the labs they had missed out on as students. This benefited not only Zach and Sarah but the students they were teaching as well because they were able to better introduce these materials to them and could expand on the physics concepts driven by the experiments.

This spring, Sarah and Zach will be the only married couple we can think of in recent history at commencement along with their fellow cohort.
Zach has applied to graduate school and decided to remain at K-State to further his education. He participated in undergraduate research with Chapin professor Glenn Horton-Smith in high energy physics and is hoping to continue in this field. His research greatly benefitted him. He says, “I don’t think I could find a class at K-State to teach me what I’ve learned through the experience.” His project in which he does real time programming to connect directly with measurement devices that spit back data are part of an important piece of electronics that the K-State HEP group is building for an experiment that will ultimately reject backgrounds from cosmic rays. Zach says this research gave him valuable insight as to how much thought goes into designing an experiment of this magnitude on a huge collaboration and how the project he worked on was just a very small cog in a gigantic machine.

Sarah is doing her student teaching at Manhattan high school this spring. She is teaching college algebra and calculus AB. She knows that this career path is the right one for her as she is loving her time with the students and is looking forward to having her own classroom in the fall. Department staff know that they will be up to the career paths they have chosen. They have participated in several outreach activities for the department. Sarah was especially adept at leading a group of high school students visiting campus for the day in connection with Nobel laureate John Mather’s visit around the campus and both enjoyed demonstrating physics concepts at Rocks & Rockets, a STEM event in Colby, Kansas, organized by Sarah Lamm, sister of alumnus Hank Lamm.

Earning their degrees at K-State have not only brought this couple closer together but it has set them up for very bright futures that will influence future generations of learners.

Physics Club emerges from challenging post-pandemic period with renewed commitment

In March 2020, K-State began the transition from in-person classes to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Education at K-State shifted to Zoom as students returned home and remained off campus.

Since the return to in-person classes the Physics Club has slowly returned after students had to rebuild connections with each other. However, thanks to active student leaders in the club, they have noticed a continual growth in membership and activities these past two years.

The group has students who are energetic and enthusiastic about the club and students, faculty, and the administration – are thrilled to see the club rebuilding. The club has been steadily ramping up their social activities and are active participants in department and university outreach activities.

“We’re excited to see the continued growth and enthusiasm in the Physics Club among our undergraduate students,” Tim Bolton, said.

The Physics Club has also revamped and revitalized the John Giese Student Undergraduate Room in the basement of Cardwell Hall. When passing through the basement of Cardwell, it is great to see the lounge in use by our majors and minors and filled with activity.

The pandemic may have altered the group’s trajectory but it is thrilling to see the return and reinvigoration of the Physics Club as they’ve resumed their activities.

Graduate Program Update

We started the 2023-24 year with an incoming group of 14 new graduate teaching and research assistants including a Fulbright Scholar. Half of them are from the United States, including two former REU students, and the rest from Bangladesh, Republic of Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Korea, and Pakistan. Another student from India joined us this spring.

We have been working hard in partnership with our Physics Graduate Student Council and current students to improve new student orientation to better assist incoming graduate students. This year we added sessions on US financial literacy, conducted by a PowerCat Financial counselor, and on mental health, conducted by staff from Lafene Student Health Center.

Kurtis Borne who is working with JRM faculty Daniel Rolles had his research with Oxford University chemists studying ultrafast dynamics in a molecular photoswitch published in  Nature Chemistry. Their experiment used ultrashort light pulses produced by the FERMI free-electron laser facility in Trieste, Italy, to track the conversion between the two isomers on a timescale of femtoseconds. The experimental results were interpreted with the help of state-of-the-art computer simulations done in Oxford. The combined study discovered faster than previously identified pathways leading to the conversion, which may help design new ways of controlling the outcome and efficiency of this important class of photoreactions.

Claudia Morello was awarded a College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Graduate Student Award in March 2023. She is supervised by Matt Berg.

Lindsay Morris presented her research at the Capitol Research Summit in Topeka last spring. Her dissertation advisors were Brett DePaola and Brian Washburn.

Jennifer Tyler, who is mentored by Glenn Horton-Smith in High Energy Physics received an award from the Universities Research Association Visiting Scholars Program that will provide funding for her work on MicroBooNE at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Hanyu Zhang was a lead author on the publication “The DESI One-Percent Survey: Exploring the Halo Occupation Distribution of Luminous Red Galaxies and Quasi-Stellar Objects with Abacus Summit.”

Amogh Sirnoorkar published “Sensemaking and scientific modeling: Intertwined processes analyzed in the context of physics problem solving” in Physical Review Physics Education Research. Amogh was mentored by J.T. Laverty during his graduate studies in physics education research.

Our recent graduates have successfully found employment in academia and industry. This year’s students have secured postdoc positions at Boise State University, MIT, University of British Columbia, Purdue, and Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics. Others have gone on to the private sector in companies such as Exstratus, Jackson County Conservation District, and Hydrograph Inc, emeritus professor Sorensen’s startup company here in Manhattan.

Like Saturn’s moon Enceladus, PhD student Claudia Morello, is small but she’s made a big impact

Claudia Morello dreamed of become a chef growing up in New Jersey. After participating in her school’s culinary program, she realized that cooking in a restaurant setting was not nearly as enjoyable as preparing food for her friends and family. She began to look to the stars when it came time to choose an undergraduate program and headed to Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s astrophysics program because of her passion for astronomy, math. and physics – all courses in which she excelled.

In 2017, Morello came to K-State to participate in the department’s NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduate program. It was then that she met her research mentor for the summer, Dr. Matt Berg, and began a project in which she developed an algorithm to simulate two-dimensional scattering patterns based on a particle’s silhouette. She enjoyed her summer in the program immensely and found the fresh air and small town vibe of the Flint Hills were not as bad as she’d originally anticipated.

Claudia returned to K-State to begin her graduate education in 2018. She continued her research under Professor Berg, this time on another project utilizing light scattering but to analyze cryovolcanoes on Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. The project combined her love of light scattering and astronomy.

Morello’s graduate path also led to increasing leadership roles in the department and student government. She served as the president of the Physics Graduate Student Council (PGSC) and advocated with her fellow officers and students to increase student stipends and change the format of the department’s preliminary written exams. Ultimately these endeavors were successful and will impact future generations of graduate students in the department.

Claudia submitted several proposals to the University’s Student Governing Association (SGA) to affect change for diversity within the department and provide additional graduate family support. Her proposals led to support for graduate student families and LGBTQIA2S+ physics graduate students, which are major accomplishments within the confines of SGA. For her efforts, Morello was named the College of Arts & Sciences graduate student recipient for outstanding leadership for her work with PGSC.

Claudia also worked to increase the participation, retention, and advancement of girls and women in STEM fields through several outreach projects with the K-State Office for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering program to include GROW (Girls Researching our World) and EXCITE. She designed and led workshops for these programs to increase female interest in the STEM fields.

Morello successfully defended her dissertation in February and will graduate officially this spring. She will return to the East coast to share her knowledge and expertise in the workforce. Claudia will apply her skills and experience in light scattering to our national defense.

There’s no doubt that Morello will continue to inspire others as she’s a natural born leader with many talents. She has always looked toward the sky to follow her dreams and she still puts her culinary abilities to good use as was evidenced by the tasty and beautiful cookies she baked for her thesis defense in the shapes of the sun, moon, and stars.

Dean Zollman Hosts K-SUPER Alumni Gathering

More than 30 current K-SUPER research group members and alumni met up at a luncheon hosted by group founder and mentor, Dean Zollman, to catch up and reconnect with each other. The luncheon was hosted in downtown Sacramento during the 2023 summer AAPT/PERC meeting.

The group of alumni, spanning more three decades of PER history, included former postdocs Raj Chaudhury (University of South Alabama) and Sanjay Rebello (Purdue University), lab director Rebecca Lindell (Tiliadal STEM Education), undergraduate major Ben Archibeque (postdoc at Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center), and graduate students Alicia Allbaugh (NASA’s JPL), Bijaya Aryal (University of Minnesota Rochester’s Center for Learning Innovation), Jackie Chini (University of Central Florida and moving to Ohio State University in the fall), Alicia Churukian (University of South Carolina), Edgar Corpuz (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), Elizabeth Gire (Oregon State University), Kara Gray (Seattle Pacific University), Trà Huỳnh (Western Washington University), Morton Lundsgaard (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), Chris Nakamura (Saginaw Valley State University), and Xian Wu (University of Connecticut).

Rebecca Lindell expressed her appreciation to Dean Zollman for organizing and hosting the event and said, “It had been 20 years since we were all together. It was great to come back together!”

Zollman said. “It was enjoyable to have people from the early days of KSUPER get to know some of our recent and current students. We also heard from many KSUPER alumni who were unable to attend.”

The gathering allowed KSUPER alumni to meet the current research students and faculty, share updates on life and physics, and catch up with old friends. It felt more like a family reunion and it was wonderful to see all of these successful people in one room.

 

 

Alumni News & Honors

Kamal Bhandari (PhD ‘21) who is now a current postdoc at Clemson University and collaborators including his major professor Jeremy Schmit, published “Prediction of Antibody Viscosity from Dilute Solution Measurements,” based on Kamal’s PhD research in Antibodies.

Saima Farooq (PhD ‘16) was honored with the University of Maine’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Outstanding Lecturer award for 2023 last spring. Farooq is a lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Saima received her PhD under the advisement of high energy physicist and current department head, Tim Bolton.

Praful Gagrani (MS ’18) completed his PhD at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023. He is now a postdoc at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Origins of Life group at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Gagrani is primarily interested in applying mathematical physics towards building techniques for understanding various aspects of complex systems. Praful worked under the direction cosmology faculty member Lado Samushia when he was a student at K-State.

Trà Huýnh (PhD ‘20) joined the faculty of Western Washington University in December 2022 as an assistant professor of Physics Education Research following a postdoc at University of Washington Bothell. Her research interest centers on equity and justice in physics and physics education. Huýnh was supervised by Professor Eleanor Sayre during her PhD.

Dissertation research carried out at K-State by Narayan Khadka (PhD ‘22) under the guidance of major professor Bharat Ratra led to a publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Khadka’s research developed into a collaboration that discovered how dust in galaxies affects some measurements of their distances and thus resolves a controversy.

Hank Lamm (BS in Physics and Mechanical Engineering ‘11) who is currently an associate scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory returned to campus to present a colloquium in the fall titled “Look What You Made Me Do: How Particle Physics Demands Quantum Computers” Lamm talked about the fundamental computational obstacles that quantum computers avoid, how future large-scale quantum computers are necessary to push the limits of theoretical high energy physics, and how the interim period is forcing physicists to reconsider previous notions of how quantum field theory is formulated.

Aleena Rafique (PhD ’18) was one of five early career researchers receiving a 2023 PSE U.S. Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory Early Investigator Named Award. The award will support her project “Enabling precise measurement of neutrino interactions using advanced computing in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). The program was designed to support exceptional early career researchers at Argonne as they break into their fields.

“Graphene Nanosheets from the Controlled Explosion of Aromatic Hydrocarbons” was published in Carbon Trends by Shusil Sigdel (PhD ’23). Shusil was supervised by emeritus distinguished professor Chris Sorensen and mentored by research associate professor Arjun Nepal. Sigdel is an Application Scientist at HydroGraph Clean Power.

Jacqueline Spears (MS ’72) retired in May of 2023 after serving more than 30 years at K-State. Spears was a faculty member in the College of Education and a former dean at K-State Olathe. She had many achievements during the span of her career.

Nandana Weliweriya received the Sandy Beaver Excellence in Teaching award from the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences at University of Georgia. Nandana earned his MS in 2015 and PhD in in 2019 in Physics Education.

Undergraduate Alumni Spotlight – Sara Crandall (BS ’12 and MS ‘16)

Sara Crandall may have come to K-State from the small town of Cheney, Kansas, with a population of ~2,000 people but this small town girl had big dreams that impacted countless individuals along the way. We all can be inspired and learn from Sara’s dedication to service throughout her life as she pursued both her BS and MS degrees at K-State and a PhD at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC).

As an undergraduate physics major, Crandall was an active member of our Physics Club where she frequently participated in hands-on science demonstrations as part of the club’s outreach activities. She was a lab instructor in our undergraduate courses whose teaching philosophy inspired students to focus on their critical thinking skills by communicating their problem solving processes. A correct answer was not good enough, and true learning came in the journey through the problem. Her office hours were full of students who benefited from her commitment to their learning.

Upon completion of her BS in 2012, Sara continued her educational journey at K-State in pursuit of an MS degree. She worked as a graduate teaching assistant in the department while conducting research in the area of cosmology under the direction of now University Distinguished Professor Bharat Ratra.

During graduate school at K-State Crandall participated in a National Science Foundation sponsored program for a year, during which time she created and facilitated interactive physics modules for Junction City High School students.  She utilized her own physics research to create modules that introduced students to real, hands-on science based on general and special relativity.

After graduating with her MS from K-State in 2016, Sara pursued a PhD in astrophysics from UCSC. In addition to her research she continued her science outreach by designing the completion of astrophysics projects for two high school students which resulted in a scientific publication.

During her time at UCSC, Crandall was highly focused on the support of students who were also parents as she had become a single parent during her graduate studies at K-State. She participated in a new student housing project on campus working with the USCS administration to inform them of how the high cost of living and low housing availability impacted students with families and the specific need for the university to provide a safe environment for their students with children while they worked to achieve their educational goals. She also volunteered in a working group on childcare that researched and documented the needs of university families which is still being utilized at UCSC. In addition, she designed and deployed the Students as Parents UCSC website, synthesizing information about accessing financial aid, housing, and childcare which provides links to resources about health insurance for dependents, ways to address food insecurity, and more.

Not only was she active in the aforementioned service projects in California but she also participated in the Santa Cruz’s Project for Inmate Education (PIE) program where she instructed jail inmates in algebra and astronomy courses as they worked to achieve college credit and gain confidence in their abilities and thought processes.

Upon completion of her PhD, Sara took the skills she acquired as a researcher in astrophysics and her dedication to service to the US Air Force where she serves as an operations research analyst supporting programmatic decision making on cost, risk, and schedule. She maintains a strong interest in US national defense strategy through science and technology development, small business innovation research, and digital transformation while ensuring that the needs of the nation’s warfighters are met.

Crandall’s journey serves as an example that can educate and inspire us all to embrace our own personal growth. We all have the ability to touch countless lives and foster a sense of service, compassion, and empowerment to better humankind.

Graduate Alumni Spotlight: Pablo Guimerá Coll (MS ‘15)

When Pablo Guimerá Coll (MS ‘15) arrived in Manhattan from the Canary Islands, beginning a company was the further thing from his mind. But that’s exactly what this K-State alum has done as co-founder and now R&D director of Crystal Sonic, a fast growing Arizona-based startup company that developed a semiconductor processing technology to improve yield and drive down the cost of advanced semiconductor substrate materials for use spanning the micro-electronics industry.

Pablo began his career at K-State as an undergraduate student taking courses while simultaneously completing a Bachelor’s degree in Physics at Complutense University in Madrid, Spain. His new life in Manhattan was not easy. In addition to taking undergraduate courses, he was working and traveling with the K-State women’s basketball team. During this time he encountered University Distinguished Professor Chris Sorensen and sought some guidance from him. Chris recognized that Pablo’s positive attitude and strong work ethic were getting him through a rocky academic start and began to mentor him.

Guimerá Coll joined the department’s graduate program as a GTA in 2011 where he proved to be an outstanding teacher. K-State students quickly learned that he had an innate ability to explain physics concepts very well and that he had an engaging personality that made him very approachable. This teaching earned Pablo two teaching awards – the department’s “Outstanding Teaching by a First of Second Year Graduate Student” award and the “Graduate Student Council’s Award for Graduate Student Teaching Excellence “in 2014.

Pablo began working with Sorensen as a GRA on a project involving the synthesis of nanoparticles where he discovered some remarkable solvation properties and shape evolution of gold nanorods under a process known as digestive ripening. This research and its results were the basis of his MS thesis which he completed in 2015.

Following his MS, Guimerá Coll began his studies in materials science at Arizona State University (ASU), which also has a great reputation in the field of solar energy research, which was Pablo’s lifetime passion. He excelled at ASU under the guidance of his PhD advisor, Professor Mariana Bertoni.  Their research group discovered a way to cut semiconductor wafer materials like silicon with sound waves, a method that is 10 times faster than the conventional sawing process used in industry. This method reduced defects in the cut wafer and was much cheaper than current processes in use.

The discovery resulted in the award of a patent which led to the co-founding of Crystal Sonic with Bertoni and set the stage for Pablo’s current success. He won the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center’s “Perfect Pitch” contest in Washington, DC, which included a $5,000 prize and the Lynn Preston trophy for his talk on “Sound Assisted Low Temperature Wafering for Solar Energy.”

In delivering a TED-like talk, Pablo gave his greatest piece of advice to the audience that we can all learn from – “Don’t let anybody, including yourself, deny you from achieving your dream.” Pablo is the twenty-first century version of the American dream – a dream that he not only followed but brought to fruition.

A Return to Physics—Catching up with Mansoora Shamim

Mansoora Shamim (PhD, 2008) completed her thesis on a search for evidence of the last possible space-time symmetry or nature, called supersymmetry, with high energy physicist Tim Bolton using data collected by the D0 experiment operating at the Fermilab Tevatron proton-antiproton collider. After leaving K-State she had a very successful six year run a postdoc at the University of Oregon where she worked on the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 2013 Shamim and her husband Atta Ul Aleen Bhatti, a surgeon, returned to their home country of Pakistan to be near their family as they began their own, which now includes three children – son Hazeem and daughters Shaista and Tahreem.

In fall of 2022 Mansoora applied for and was awarded a CERN Post-Career Break Fellowship. This program launched by CERN offers full- or part-time fellowships to science and engineering graduates looking for a way back into science. It provides an outstanding opportunity for individuals to update their knowledge and skills while working for up to three years in an international environment at the forefront of research and opens up doors to longer term positions.

Shamim is enjoying her return to physics and has rejoined the ATLAS experiment working with colleagues she knew from her first stint there and new collaborators. She also works on FASER, an experiment exploring very high energy scattering phenomena that occurs at extremely small angle scattering at the Large Hadron Collider. She reports that “all the C++ and Linux is coming back”.

Mansoora’s children are adding French to their already impressive set of languages and her spouse is pursuing opportunities to practice surgery in Switzerland.

This is a fantastic diversity and inclusion program that CERN is offering to welcome scientists like Mansoora back to the workforce. And it’s great to have another K-Stater making an impact in the field of high energy physics.

Faculty News & Honors

The J.R. Macdonald Lab faculty and staff were thrilled to host K-State President Richard Linton last spring for a tour of their facilities. Linton learned about the exciting AMO physics research happening beneath Cardwell Hall being carried out by our faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students with funding by the US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Matthew Berg was promoted to professor. He is also Associate Editor for the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer. Berg joined the faculty at K-State after serving as an assistant professor at Mississippi State University. He received his Ph.D. in physics at K-State in 2008 under major professor Chris Sorensen.

Glenn Horton-Smith and the high energy physics group hosted a successful MicroBooNE collaboration meeting on campus in October with more than 75 collaborators coming to Manhattan or attending on Zoom. The MicroBooNE collaboration investigates low energy excess events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment, measures a suite of low energy neutrino cross sections, and investigates astroparticle physics.

Vinod Kumarappan, a member of the JRM Lab faculty, was promoted to professor. The focus of his research is to develop methods to align and orient small molecules in the gas phase and to study ultrafast physics in the molecular frame. Vinod frequently contributes to our department’s outreach with the Kansas Associate for Women in Science & Engineering, leading workshops for their programs promoted women in STEM.

Distinguished Professor Chii-Dong Lin and collaborators proposed a high harmonic spectroscopy method for measuring the charge migration speed in a carbon-chain molecule, butadiyne that was featured in SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

Arjun Nepal was promoted to research associate professor. Arjun manages the K-State Physics partnership with Hydrograph Clean Power Inc. on graphene-related research, development, and production. He has also served as an NSF REU mentor and is currently one of the first research mentors in a new K-State program for students from USD 383’s Manhattan High School.

Bharat Ratra was named a fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2023 for his pioneering research in cosmology and particle astrophysics leading to the development of dynamical dark energy models and for sustained commitments to science education, undergraduate research, and science popularization at all levels.

Professor and James R. Macdonald lab director Artem Rudenko was named a 2023 fellow of the American Physical Society for his “outstanding contributions to the understanding of correlated few-particle dynamics in strong field interactions with atoms and molecules, and for leadership in developing and conducting coincident molecular imaging experiments at X-ray free-electron laser facilities.”

Chris Sorensen, emeritus distinguished professor, published his long awaited book “Light Scattering and Absorption by Particles: The Q-Space approach” with IOP Publishing. The book provides an overview of how particles of any size or shape scatter and absorb light.

Daniel Rolles and co-PIs Loren Greenman and Artem Rudenko in physics, Nathan Albin and Dinh-Liem Nguyen in math, Christine Aikens in chemistry and Doina Caragea and Bill Hsu in computer science were recipients of a 2024 K-State GRIPex: AI in the Disciplines award. They plan to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to create molecular facial recognition software to identify actors in molecular movies by analyzing and interpreting experimental data from femtosecond and attosecond laser experiments performed in the JRML and connecting their findings with theoretical predictions from quantum chemistry. They will then use AI-based molecular image analysis to identify short-lived molecular structures created in ultrafast laser experiments, leveraging the unique experimental capabilities in ultrafast laser science by combining them with AI/ML expertise in computer science and math and with theoretical quantum chemistry expertise in chemistry and physics. This research will open exciting new research opportunities at the borderline between AMO physics and physical chemistry with potential applications in solar energy harvesting and storage, catalysis, biomedical molecular switches, and a host of other applications in chemistry and materials science.

Cosmologist Lado Samushia’s contributions to US Department of Energy research on dark energy and universe expansion led to the collaboration’s release of its first batch of data — with nearly two million objects for researchers to explore — and published their first set of papers related to the early data release. The papers include early measurements of galaxy clustering, studies of rare objects, and descriptions of the instrument and survey operations. Samushia also appeared on an episode of “The Space Between” podcast where he discussed dark matter, dark energy, and his current research projects in cosmology.

Listen to an interview with emeritus distinguished professor Dean Zollman conducted as part of the American Institute of Physics Oral History Project. The transcript of the interview covers Zollman’s experiences in physics beginning in graduate school in the 1960s while pursuing a PhD in nuclear physics through his nearly 50 year career as a faculty member who ended up as a pioneer in the field of physics education.

Department Welcomes New Faculty Member

The latest addition to the faculty, assistant professor Meng Han, joined the department in the fall of 2023. Han received his PhD in physics at Peking University in 2020 under the direction of Prof. Yunquan Liu. As a graduate student, he studied phase problems in atomic ionization by strong laser fields.

Upon completion of his PhD, Meng joined the lab of Hans Jakob Wörner at ETH Zürich (where Albert Einstein once worked!) as a postdoctoral associate. His postdoctoral work focused on the study of the structure and dynamics of matter in the entire range from isolated atoms, molecules, and clusters to nanostructures, macromolecules, biomolecules, and macroscopic systems in the gas phase, liquids, and solids. Han was named a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow in 2021 while at ETH Zürich.

At K-State Meng’s research in the James R. Macdonald Lab will focus on the generation, characterization, and applications of attosecond light pulses, particularly in circular polarization, which has unique advantages in real-time resolving of electron dynamics in chiral molecules and magnetic materials. (See the article Nobel Prize Connections below in this newsletter.)

Meng and his wife Yuanyuan Shi are enjoying the transition to their new life in Manhattan and being a part of the K-State physics family. They are parents of one-year old son, Che Han. They enjoy hiking, skiing, and cooking in their spare time.

Keep up with the latest on Meng’s research group and projects on his personal webpage.

Rolles sabbatical truly golden

Daniel Rolles spent a productive sabbatical year in the golden state of California working with collaborators at Stanford’s PULSE Institute and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory deepening his collaborations with colleagues at SLAC, PULSE, and the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS).

Rolles was joined on sabbatical by his spouse, Dr. Krista Danielson, faculty member in K-State’s English department, and their daughter. This was a return home of sorts as Krista grew up in California and met Daniel when he was a Fulbright scholar at SLAC. Thus, their family looked forward to returning to the area where it all began after several years.

Experiments at LCLS, the world’s first X-ray free-electron laser, are a key element of Rolles’ NSF- and DOE-funded research activities here at K-State. Thus, strengthening his ties was extremely beneficial for his research productivity and it also increases JRM’s competitiveness in obtaining federal funding since experiments at LCLS are a top priority for the DOE program that funds the J.R. Macdonald Lab.

When planning his sabbatical, its timing was aligned to the planned commissioning of a new instrument at LCLS. Unforeseen delays caused this to actually occur after Daniel’s return to Manhattan. Nonetheless, important preparations and planning happened during his stay and his on-site presence was beneficial during the preparation and planning phase.

The delay afforded collaborators to spend more time analyzing data and writing publications on prior experiments and was greatly facilitated by daily in person contact. This resulted in Daniel’s most productive year of his career in terms of publications – with more than 20 submitted, accepted, or published.
Rolles also was able to travel to several large-scale facilities worldwide, attend and present at a number of conferences, and he gave 10 presentations at conferences, seminars, and colloquia.

The opportunity also afforded him to meet with collaborators at Oxford University in November 2022 to work on data analysis and interpretation of several ongoing projects and plan for future experiments. The visit also prompted a two-week visit from one of the Oxford graduate students to the JRML this past October.

Not only was Rolles able to increase his time with collaborators, his students and colleagues also benefited from increased travel to and participation in experiments at SLAC and other facilities as well as increased publications from the works that they contributed on these projects.

Rolles and his fellow researchers in the JRML gained a lot from this sabbatical that will likely result in more future collaborations and better competitiveness for federal funding for AMO physics at K-State.

Sabbatical Leaves Allow K-State HEP CMS Group to Return to CERN

High energy physicists Keti Kaadze and Yuri Maravin spent their sabbatical leaves with K-State’s entire High Energy Physics CMS group except Prof. Andrew Ivanov at the Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 2023. While a sabbatical offers an important opportunity for faculty to increase their focus on research, this was especially crucial in the post-COVID period as the CMS experiment recovers from implications due to the pandemic. The sabbatical afforded Yurii and Keti a unique opportunity to make a significant impact on the ongoing operations of the CMS detector in addition to making excellent progress in K-State’s own research program.

While there, Keti and Yurii mentored graduate student, James Natoli, as he worked on the hadron calorimeter (HCAL), a subsystem of the CMS detector. James acted as the detector-on-call-expert supporting daily operations of the HCAL and addressing questions during the data-taking process. He was also responsible for deriving calibration constants of some of the HCAL components which improved the quality of collected data for the analyses.

Natoli returned to the K-State campus from CERN in December after making significant progress in the search for an ultra-rare decay of the W boson into a triplet of pions, which is the thesis topic he intends to defend at the end of summer.

Keti also worked with postdoc Dennis Roy who was appointed coordinator of the HCAL operations team last year. As coordinator Roy monitors, reviews, and plans activities to ensure that detector operations run smoothly. With Kaadze’s guidance he also became engaged in searching for a three Higgs boson production in collaboration with researchers from Brown and Peking Universities and the Rudjer Boskovic Institute, with several other groups, for the first time at the LHC.

Maravin and GRA Braden Almond and postdoc Giulia Sorrentino completed the necessary integration of the K-State concentrator card for the Mip Timing Layer Detector (MTD), an upgrade of the CMS detector that will go online in 2026. Yurii served as the US CMS manager of this project to design, produce, and test the concentrator card, one of the final steps needed to proceed with production and testing in 2024.

Given the success of the integration activities of the MTD readout unit designed and built by the K-State Electronic Design Laboratory, postdoc Sorrentino was elected to lead the data acquisition activities for the entire MTD project, further increasing the impact and visibility of the K-State group on the international high energy physics scene.

Allmond is continuing his work at CERN and will return this summer to begin writing his dissertation.

One of Kaadze and Maravin’s most rewarding aspects at CERN was spent serving as guides at CERN where they met many visitors and led them on tours of the CMS experiment site and delivered lectures about particle physics research to groups of high school students.

Spending their sabbatical in Europe also brought great opportunities to the K-State group. In addition to enjoying hiking and skiing in the areas near the Alps, they enjoyed traveling to historic sites and engaging in various local activities. A highlight of Keti and Yurii’s was a trip to the Normandy region of France, where they visited historic sites of the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. It was gratifying for them to notice that the French still express gratitude for the sacrifices made by the Allied Forces in those in these battles.

The sabbatical leave for Keti, Yurii, and their group was a resounding success as they achieved several professional milestones in hardware, data analysis, and operations projects. In addition they were able to strengthen current collaborations and establish new ones for their future research and take advantage of travel opportunities while living in Europe.

Nobel Prize Connections

The  joint winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics were Pierre Agostini, The Ohio State University; Ferenc Krausz, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics; and Anne L’Huillier, Lund University.  They were awarded the prize “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.” They were recognized for experiments that have demonstrated ways to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy.  All of them have been on the K-State campus over the years to present their research.

Agostini delivered a physics colloquium at K-State in 2005; and L’Huillier and Krausz attended the 2nd International Conference on Attosecond Physics in Manhattan in 2009. K-State was selected to host that conference in part because of the research that was going on in the J.R. Macdonald Lab (JRML), whose members Zenghu Chang (now at the University of Central Florida), Lew Cocke (professor emeritus), and Chii-Dong Lin (still active) made important early contributions to the field of attosecond science.

Over the years, JRML faculty played an important role in this field and have been working with this year’s Nobel prize winners, publishing papers with all of them. In particular, Cosmin Blaga, assistant professor here at K-State, is a long-time collaborator of Pierre Agostini.  Agostini was Blaga’s Phd advisor at The Ohio State University. Their ongoing collaboration has spanned two decades and resulted in 23 joint publications to date. Blaga was in attendance at the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm in December.

The main goal of attosecond physics is to understand and ultimately control light-matter interactions at timescales commensurable with electronic motion in atoms, molecules and assembles of molecules. These fundamental processes play a critical role in chemistry and biology, as they are responsible for photosynthesis, energy flow inside and between cells, vision, cell replication, etc. The atomic, molecular and optical physics researchers here at K-State undoubtedly will continue contributing to this important field of research, seeing how they too can continue making their mark on the future of physics.

Attosecond science at K-State will receive a new boost with the arrival of new faculty hire Meng Han whose main area of expertise is generation, characterization and applications of attosecond light pulses.

In Memoriam: Bruce Shore

Bruce Shore, associate professor here in physics at K-State in the 1960s, passed away in January of 2023. Bruce moved on to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he stayed until his retirement in 2001. Shore was co-author of the well-known ‘Principles of Atomic Spectra’ with Donald H. Menzel. A special issue on coherent control that Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics was published in honor of his life and work. It can be found here.

Staff News & Honors

Math/physics accounting specialist Cindy Carlyon celebrated 5 years of service at K-State and in the department in addition to being acknowledged with a meritorious service award. This award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary effort in their position which has proven to be a valuable service to the K-State community.  Cindy definitely is deserving of this honor.

High energy physics research associate Brigid Crowe was a recipient of an award from the Universities Research Association Visiting Scholars Program to facilitate her work on the mu2e experiment at Fermilab.

The department celebrated accountant Kim Elliott’s 10 years of service on campus with all 10 of these years in the department. Kim started at the receptionist position prior to being appointed accountant a few years ago. In addition to being recognized at the university ceremony, the department celebrated Kim’s milestone achievement at a reception in the department.

Undergraduate advisor Janae Mooty was recipient of the College of Arts & Sciences 2023 William L. Stamey Advising award. Janae advises not only for physics but for biochemistry and molecular biophysics and statistics as well. Michal Zolkiewski, Tim Bolton, and Perla Reyes, heads of these departments said of Mooty, “With solid preparation in STEM research and teaching, Janae is committed to student success in academia. She [is clearly] interested in building high-quality academic advising collegewide and shares her experience with other advisors. Her advisees appreciate her dedication, caring, and approachable style, and knowledge of academic regulations. Janae is an outstanding advisor, genuinely committed to helping students achieve their goals.” Mooty and other college award recipients were recognized at a celebration in February.

Andy Thurlow, machinist, was recognized as the University Support Staff of the Year awardee in the technical and professional category in the spring of 2023. Thurlow manages the department’s machine shop in which he designs and builds state-of-the-art equipment to further the research efforts within the department and across the campus.

 

 

 

Accounting Specialist Balances Work and Play

Cindy Carlyon, accounting specialist for math and physics doesn’t just excel in the office. She has been counting the beats and displaying her musical talents throughout the great state of Kansas as a member of a musical trio, “The Church Ladies.”

After hours and on the weekends, Cindy can be found singing and playing melodica and bass (which is bigger than she is!) with her talented counterparts Mary Louise Stahl and Joan Nelson. These church ladies are definitely not performing a bunch of old hymns on the pipe organ but instead are wowing crowds at their shows with harmony-based acoustic performances of country, classic rock, bluegrass, and folk music. You can read more about Cindy and her group and find a schedule of their upcoming shows at www.churchladiesks.com/.

Contact Us: We Want to Know What You’ve Been Up To

We want to hear from you! Please contact us at alumni@phys.ksu.edu or give us a call at 785-532-6786 to let us know how you are doing. If you find yourself in the Little Apple, let us show you around the department so that you can connect with our current students, faculty, and staff who will bring you up to speed on the latest happenings in the department.

Department Head Greetings from New Head, Tim Bolton

It has been far too long since we published our last issue of the K-State Physics Newsletter – 2019 to be exact.  As the new head for the Department, I would like to welcome you to the first edition of our electronic newsletter.  Our goal is to increase communication and to make it two-way.  I encourage you to be in touch with us to let us know what you’re up to and also to let us know what you’d like to see more of in these newsletters.

I became the new head of the Physics Department on June 26, 2022, and worked closely with former head Brett DePaola through the transition. Brett ably guided the department through many crises over the past five years. However, our Department still faces many challenges.  COVID massively disrupted the learning of physics at all levels.  Demographic trends and university reorganization have placed enormous stresses on our home College of Arts and Sciences that make it more difficult for us to achieve an optimal configuration of the Department.

Our stakeholders recognize the value of our teaching hundreds of students each semester in foundational pre-professional courses, but they are nervous about the small number of majors we graduate each year.  We must do a better job telling the powerful story of the impact our graduates have on the state, nation, and world; and the enduring value to society of the basic and applied research that we do. Fortunately, we have the team in place here to meet these challenges, and we have YOU, our students, alumni, colleagues, and friends to support us.  As mentioned above, we want to hear from you.

Whether you received a physics degree here, advanced in your career, took one of our introductory physics courses, or trained up the physicist inside of you at one of our public lectures, nothing will help us more than receiving your personal stories on how K-State Physics has impacted you and the world around you.

We encourage you to send us your stories.  Call me at 785-532-6786.  Send e-mail to me at alumni@phys.ksu.edu.  If you are able, please continue to help us fund scholarships for our students and to support initiatives in excellence throughout our department.

If you have not yet done so, make sure to take a look at our newly renovated website www.phys.ksu.edu .  Subscribe to our social media accounts which can be found on the website.

We hope you enjoy the update on K-State Physics in this issue and look forward to hearing from you.

End of an Era: Several Key Department Members Retire

Peggy Matthews, longtime department administrator, retired in September 2019 after more than 45 years of service at Kansas State University, most of them in Physics as she joined the department in 1983. Matthews kept the department running smoothly and was beloved by students and faculty alike. She provided the help and support they needed and could always be counted on. The department hosted a reception in her honor at the K-State Alumni Center. Friends where K-State faculty, staff, and colleagues from across campus joined to celebrate her.  Peggy is enjoying her retirement by traveling with her husband, Bill, and enjoying time with her children and grandchild.

Carol Sisson Regehr held several positions in the department after receiving her Physics MS in 1985 under the advisement of Larry Weaver.  Carol was an Assistant Scientist for the James R. Macdonald Laboratory supervising purchasing, budgeting, and reporting for a DOE grant for the accelerators. She also became the go-to substitute to teach courses for professors working in the Macdonald Laboratory, when they were away at conferences. Thus, it was a natural fit for Carol to serve as an Instructor beginning in 2016 teaching studio sections for Engineering Physics. Carol is enjoying retirement traveling with her husband, Lowell.

Professor Emeritus Bruce Law came to K-State in 1994 as an assistant professor in physics. He was promoted to full professor in 2000. Dr. Law’s research focused on liquid surface physics, which play a key role in many processes involving complex fluids. He also studied the application of light scattering, visible light reflectometry and interferometry, neutron and x-ray reflectometry, and AFM of bulk and surface phenomena, and theoretical studies of hydrodynamic interactions in bulk and surface phases. Law was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2011. Bruce is enjoying traveling, playing chess, and biking adventures.

University Distinguished Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar Emeritus Christopher M. Sorensen in the Departments of Physics and Chemistry (adjunct), Sorensen retired from K-State Physics in spring 2022 where he has spent his entire professional career. He is the author of more than 300 papers and holds several patents. He has mentored 41 students throughout his career.  He is the primary inventor of the graphene production process licensed to the startup company HydroGraph Clean Power, Inc. which is featured elsewhere in this newsletter. In 2003 he won the David Sinclair Award of the American Association for Aerosol Research for his work on aerosol fractal aggregates and light scattering. He received the Olin Petefish Award in Basic Science from the Higuchi-KU Endowment fund and the Outstanding Publication Award from Aerosol Science and Technology.  Not only known for his research, Sorensen was named the Carnegie Foundation and Council for the Advancement and Support of Education United States Professor of the year for doctoral and research universities.  Although he has retired, Chris has not yet slowed down. He remains active in his research ventures and continues to teach Descriptive Astronomy on a volunteer basis.

We offer our sincere congratulations to these retirees as well as our gratitude for their dedication to generations of K-State Physics college students.

Teaching Faculty Member Joins Department

The Department welcomed a new faculty member this academic year.  Barbara Fennell joined us in Fall 2022 as our first teaching faculty.

Fennell joined us as Teaching Associate Professor.  She comes to us with more than 20 years of physics teaching experience having spent the last 10 years at College of the Ozarks.

Tim Bolton, head, says “As a new faculty member, Barbara has brought new ideas, new energy, and new knowledge that help make our department stronger. Barbara has brought this energy to Engineering Physics this past fall and will bring a lot to Descriptive Physics this spring as she works with Bret Flanders to prepare to take the helm of this pre-professional course from him while he is on sabbatical next year.”

Barbara earned her B.S. and M.Tech. degrees from Southeastern Oklahoma State University and an Ed.D. from Ball State University.

In addition to enjoying her transition to K-State and Manhattan, Barbara has appreciated the welcoming atmosphere in the Physics department – especially from its students.  She has found the active learning approach of the Studio models used in our department to be a great collaborative experience.

Department Welcomes Several New Key Office Staff

There was a lot of change and excitement in 2022.  In addition to a new head, the department has undergone several changes in office staff since 2019.  We are pleased to be fully staffed with some wonderful people in key positions.

Kayla Engel joined our department in July at the front desk as office specialist.  She is responsible for key control, mail, exam preparation and copying, and room scheduling. Kayla moved to the area with her husband, Darrin, who is the senior computer specialist for the Math department. They are parents to three year old daughter, Rosie.

Alicia Cribbs is the Human Capital Services Representative for Physics/Math shared services.  She came to Manhattan at the end of July just in time to appoint all of the new Graduate Teaching Assistants, lab instructors, and graders for the semester. Alicia comes to us from that other Kansas school down I-70 who made it to a football bowl game this year.

The final addition to complete the team is Krysta Wise, accounting specialist for Physics/Math shared services.  Krysta moved to Manhattan in September and is responsible for supplies and bill payment as well processing travel requests and reimbursements with her counterpart, Cindy Carlyon

The department is grateful for the efforts of Kathy Roeser who recently left the College of Arts and Sciences as well as Cindy Carlyon, Kim Coy, and Kim Elliott who made sure that things ran smoothly during the time these positions were vacant.

Engaged Undergraduate Student Aims to Shape the Present and Future of Science

As an honors physics and international studies dual major with minors in classical studies and environment geophysics, Jeremy Kamman brings student involvement to a new level.

A Physics scholarship recipient, Kamman who hails from Antioch, Illinois, is active in the department and is also involved in Student Governing Association, serving as a senator for the College of Arts & Science.

Jeremy currently serves as president of the Physics Club and has been integral in bringing this group back to life post-COVID. It’s wonderful to see the Giese Student Center filled with undergraduates again.

Jeremy is active in department teaching and research. He has served as a teaching assistant in General Physics laboratories and is involved in the research program of Loren Greenman, who was his faculty mentor during the department’s 2022 Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.  Jeremy continues his work in Greenman’s group on a theoretical computational ultrafast dynamics for molecules project.

Jeremy aspires to a career in science policy and national security.  Based on his accomplishments at K-State, we are certain that this impressive young man is poised to meet every goal he strives to attain. With a young scientist like Jeremy, we all can be optimistic about the future his generation will help build.

Undergraduate Alumni Spotlight – Zoe Cosgrove

Zoe Cosgrove graduated with Bachelor of Science degrees from K-State in Physics and Electrical Engineering in 2020. After graduation, she began working at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, far from her hometown of Derby, Kansas. APL is a University-affiliated research center performing classified and unclassified work for government sponsors. Lab mission areas include missile defense, sea control, civil space, cyber operations, national health, homeland protection, and more.

Cosgrove’s job as a research engineer is to develop solutions for improving wireless communications for their sponsors, usually in a tactical environment. Project examples include 5G cellular, High Frequency communications, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) protocols, and internet of things (IoT) devices. These prototypes are generally tested in the field and eventually deployed as operational prototypes affording Zoe the opportunity to travel to military bases across the country to meet lab sponsors and field test equipment.

Zoe has recently become involved in the lab’s initiative building expertise in quantum technologies. Her team is researching the feasibility of a quantum communications system. While there are many exciting papers published about researchers that have established quantum links and transmitted entangled pairs or quantum states, a host of challenges remain in order to make a functional “quantum internet.”

Cosgrove credits her experience performing the SQUID experiment in the department’s Advanced Lab with aiding her in her work. She said, “Because some qubits and superconducting qubits are made using Josephson junctions which I learned about while working on the SQUID experiment, I already had an idea of how these Josephson junctions work. The opportunity to research applied quantum technologies excited me because it gave me a chance to use what I had learned in my quantum mechanics classes.”  Zoe is glad to have physics and engineering backgrounds developed at K-State as they aid her greatly in her current work at Johns Hopkins Advanced Physics Lab.

Graduate Research Assistant Lindsay Morris Takes Physics to the Farm

PhD student Lindsay Hutcherson Morris works with K-State Physics professor and former department head Brett DePaola and adjunct faculty member Brian Washburn of the National Institute for Standards and Technology on a unique interdisciplinary project on the boundary of physics and agronomy. She joined the department in 2018 after her participation in our 2017 Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

Lindsay was encouraged to apply to the REU program by her department head at University of South Alabama, Justin Sanders, who received his PhD in 1992 at K-State under the direction of Pat Richard.

Lindsay currently works on an NSF-funded effort with researchers in Physics and Agronomy. Her presentation of this research recently won an award in the Graduate School’s Research and the State Forum as one of 10 posters selected to represent K-State research at the state capitol in Topeka this spring.

Lindsay studies new techniques for remote gas sensing in greenhouse emissions in agriculture, as enteric fermentation from cattle (also known as “cow burps and farts”) is one of the largest sources of anthropogenic methane emissions in the US. She and her team focus on measuring cattle methane emissions by deploying a mobile open-path near-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) system. This system functions in the field without the need for external calibration, a considerable advance in technology. Early measurements resulted in time-resolved concentration enhancements of methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and water, which were used in conjunction with weather data to calculate fluxes for these gases that compared well with direct measurements using older technologies.

In addition to working on her research, Lindsay participates in the department’s Physics Graduate Student Council as an active member of the Graduate Affairs Committee. This committee brings important issues to the attention of faculty and department administration and works with the department to improve the quality of graduate student life.

Alumni Spotlight – Aleena Rafique

After receiving her PhD in 2018, Aleena Rafique went on to a postdoc position at Argonne National Lab where she worked on the liquid-argon prototype detector of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) – ProtoDUNE – the single-phase DUNE Far Detector prototype at CERN’s Neutrino Platform. Aleena led a detailed analysis of electrons that are produced as a result of neutrino interactions and electrons coming from the decay of cosmic muons, Michel electrons. Michel electrons can be used to calibrate the detector’s response to electrons in the tens of MeV energy range, which will be critical for the supernova event search in the DUNE detector. Analyses of neutrino oscillation, supernova neutrinos, and nucleon decay all benefit from capability to detect and reconstruct electrons.

Rafique currently serves as an Assistant Physicist in the High Energy Physics Division at Argonne National Laboratory where she is researching the properties and interactions of neutrinos of several experiments covering US short and long baseline neutrino programs. She is focusing on a DUNE project that will combine the world’s most intense neutrino beam, a deep underground site, and massive liquid argon detectors to enable a broad science program addressing some of the most fundamental questions in particle physics.

Aleena credits her graduate experience at K-State with building the foundation of her career in the neutrino physics community. According to her, “The PhD courses taught by great professors in the Department helped enhance my critical thinking skills, which are necessary for developing a thought process of how to tackle a physics research problem.”

Aleena was mentored by Professor Tim Bolton who she credits with helping build her research skills, initiating a curiosity within her to expand her knowledge of neutrinos, and shaping her career. According to her, her experience at K-State has made a huge impact on her life thus far for which she will always be grateful.

A K-State Physics Public-Private Partnership for Graphene Production

Graphene is a state of carbon that was first isolated and characterized in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom (work for which they won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics).  It exists in single atom-thick sheets of hexagonally coordinated carbon atoms that give it extraordinary mechanical and electrical properties.  Within a decade of its discovery, Chris Sorensen and his group, including then graduate student and now research assistant professor Arjun Nepal, developed a method of producing very high-quality graphene through detonation of a mixture of acetylene and oxygen in a carefully controlled combustion chamber located in the K-State Physics High Bay laboratory in General Richard B. Meyers Hall. 

Fewer than 10 years later, Sorensen’s patented graphene production method has been licensed by the startup company Hydrograph Clean Power Inc. (Hydrograph) to make graphene in their Manhattan, Kansas, production facility which is being sold to high technology companies around the world. This rapid development pace was made possible by the investment of Hydrograph from almost the very beginning. This private sector support enabled a faster and nimbler implementation path than typically occurs through federally-funded research. The relationship between K-State Physics and the company has now evolved to one that allows both continued research and development for graphene applications at K-State and access by Hydrograph to specialized equipment and experts at K-State that aid their commercialization efforts.

This partnership represents a new way of conducting research in the department. A great deal of effort has gone into developing rules that allow Hydrograph employees on campus and establishing compensation rates that make the work possible.

Chris Sorensen continues to lead the scientific team as Vice President for Research at Hydrograph, while Arjun Nepal keeps all parties compliant with safety, operations, and financial procedures through his new role as Project Manager. The venture has received strong support from K-State’s Pre-Award Services and K-State Innovation Partners.  K-State made a critical investment in the High Bay Lab through its lab safety upgrade program. The final contribution that allowed the parties to realize this new relationship has been the ability of K-State Physics to make timely strategic investments using funds generously donated to the department by Michelle Munson (BS ’96) in setting up the appropriately named Christopher M. Sorensen Physics Incubator Fund.

More details on K-State graphene work and Hydrograph can be found here.

Dr. Sayre Goes to Washington

Professor Eleanor Sayre, physics education research, was appointed to the National Science Foundation in January of 2022 as a Program Director for the Division of Undergraduate Education in the Directorate for STEM Education at the National Science Foundation. While at the NSF, she is on leave from Kansas State University. 

In her role as a program director, Sayre is guiding and evaluating research at the national level. She works on several programs within STEM education and collaboratively across multiple directorates. Her portfolio includes building national capacity for high-quality STEM education research (BCSER); helping mid-career faculty restart or reorient their research programs (MCA); scholarship programs to support low-income, academically talented undergraduate students (S-STEM); and improving undergraduate STEM education and community transformation (IUSE).

She also works on a new program, the Future of Semiconductors (FuSe), which ensures cutting-edge research and workforce development for semiconductor technologies through multidisciplinary teams. Advances in the range and capabilities of these technologies and reducing their cost of applications across computing, sensing, and communications represent a tremendous opportunity for the country.

Eleanor makes proposal funding recommendations; influences new directions in the fields of science, engineering, and education; supports interdisciplinary research; and aids prospective and current principal investigators in doing high-quality research and development. “It’s incredibly rewarding. I feel like I’m doing good in the world, and I am learning so much about funding processes and promoting cutting-edge research,” Eleanor says.

Working with NSF colleagues, researchers, and others in government is a rare and wonderful opportunity for faculty. While at the NSF, Eleanor retains her ties to K-State.  At the end of her NSF appointment, she will be able to return with new insights for her colleagues.

Major Changes Coming to James R. Macdonald Laboratory

The James R. Macdonald Laboratory (JRML) received its most recent grant renewal, the largest ever, in February 2022 from the US Department of Energy, a move that allowed our department faculty to continue making groundbreaking discoveries in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics here in Cardwell Hall. The lab also received funding for ongoing research in X-ray free-electron laser facilities in the US and Europe.

The latest grant renewal marks a change in leadership, with Artem Rudenko taking on the role of Lab Director from Brett Esry, who had a successful three-year stint as Director. JRML and the Physics Department greatly appreciate Brett’s successful tenure. Artem will be supported by colleagues Daniel Rolles, Associate Director for Research, and Kevin Carnes, Associate Director for Laboratory Operations along with the lab’s excellent research and technical staff.

This year marks big changes in the lab’s laser facilities as personnel anticipate delivery of a brand new $1.6 million laser system this summer. The system has been secured with funding from a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation award and will greatly expand laser capabilities in the lab.  The addition of this new laser requires shuffling of the lab’s existing lasers with its oldest, home-built KLS laser system being put into retirement. The HITS laser will be moved into current KLS space where it will be utilized as a teaching facility.  JRML’s current workhorse laser, PULSAR, will be moved to the HITS room, and the new laser will be located in PULSAR’s space. FLAME, the lab’s youngest laser will remain in its current location.

Stringent temperature and humidity requirements are necessary for the new laser. Thus, the College of Arts and Sciences and University leadership assisted JRML and department personnel in securing funding for the upgrade of JRML HVAC systems. These efforts resulted in funding of $500K from the State of Kansas Deferred Maintenance Project and allows for replacement of the lab’s air conditioning with a new system that takes advantage of the University’s chilled water system resulting in an energy-efficient climate-controlled system that will not succumb to rapid weather changes experienced in Kansas. The funding  affords the opportunity to replace JRML’s in-house chilled water system. Installation of these systems are scheduled to begin soon with project completion anticipated in time for arrival of the new laser.

“These major upgrades will allow JRML to continue to be a driving force in atomic, molecular, and optical physics research,” said department head Tim Bolton. “Many on campus are unaware of the world-class research going on right here in the Cardwell Hall sub-basement.  We intend to better inform all K-Staters and our external stakeholders on this exciting work performed by our JRML team both here at K-State and with their research partners at facilities such as SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California and Germany’s Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY).  The fundamental AMO research performed at JRML could well lead to next generation photocells for solar power and other technologies that drive our economy forward in the future.” He invites the public to learn more about the lab at the University’s Open House on April 1, 2023, or to contact the department office to set up individual or group visits.

Distinguished Professor Thumm Receives Higuchi-KU Research Award

Distinguished physics researcher Uwe Thumm is a recipients of one of the prestigious Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Awards.

The awards are the state higher education system’s most prestigious recognition for scholarly excellence.

Thumm, university distinguished professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the recipient of the Olin Petefish Award in Basic Sciences. Thumm’s work includes understanding the interaction between light and matter in time and space.

“The research being conducted by Dr. Thumm has been truly transformational in his field,” said David Rosowsky, vice president for research. “He is well deserving of this prestigious recognition, and we are so proud to have him at K-State.”

Thumm will be recognized in April.

This is the 41st annual presentation of the Higuchi awards, established in 1981 by Takeru Higuchi, a distinguished professor at the University of Kansas from 1967 to 1983, his wife Aya, and the KU Endowment Association. The awards recognize exceptional long-term research accomplishments by faculty at Kansas Board of Regents universities. Honorees receive $10,000 each for their ongoing research.

Physicist Named Fellow of American Astronomical Society

Bharat Ratra, university distinguished professor of physics has been named a 2023 fellow of the American Astronomical Society.

Ratra is one of 22 American Astronomical Society Fellows being honored this year for original research and publications, innovative contributions to astronomical techniques or instrumentation, significant contributions to education and public outreach, and noteworthy service to astronomy and the society.

Established in 1899, the American Astronomical Society is a major international organization of approximately 8,000 professional astronomers, astronomy educators and amateur astronomers. Its mission is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe as a diverse and inclusive astronomical community.

The society is recognizing Ratra for his pioneering research in cosmology and particle astrophysics leading to the development of dynamical dark energy models and for sustained commitments to science education, undergraduate research and science popularization at all levels.

Ratra studies the structure and evolution of the universe. He currently focuses on developing models for the large-scale matter and radiation distributions in the universe and testing these models by comparing predictions to observational data.

According to Ratra, he and Jim Peebles, Emeritus Albert Einstein Professor of Science and emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University, proposed the first dynamical dark energy model in 1988. Peebles received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019.

“Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism responsible for causing cosmological expansion to accelerate,” said Ratra. “The discovery that cosmological expansion is accelerating is one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the last quarter of a century.”

Ratra has published more than 140 scholarly papers and has been cited more than 18,000 times. He has mentored 13 graduate students, five postdoctoral fellows and three visiting faculty members. In the past five years, he has given more than 100 invited presentations around the world.

“Dr. Ratra has had an amazingly versatile career as one of the inventors of dark energy and as a dogged analyst who has tested his models of cosmologies against many different data sets,” said Tim Bolton, physics department head at Kansas State University. “He has mentored numerous students from around the world and is one of K-State’s best science communicators, explaining big, complicated ideas in a clear and understandable way.”

Ratra has received more than $10 million in individual and collaborative grants, largely from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. He has received many national and university honors and is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He is also active with many science outreach endeavors, including the National Science Foundation’s QuarkNet program for high school science teachers and collaborations with several local schools.

Ratra joined K-State’s physics department as an assistant professor in 1996. Before that, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University and both the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology. He has a doctorate in physics from Stanford University and a master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.

Article by Marcia Locke

Faster than the Speed of Light: An Update on Department Faculty and Staff

We have not published a newsletter since 2019, so below we present a whirlwind update of department faculty and staff.

New Associate Teaching Professor Barbara Fennell jumped right into the department co-teaching Engineering Physics this past fall, and she’ll take the reins from Bret Flanders in Descriptive Physics this spring. Read more about Barbara elsewhere in this newsletter. Brandi Lohman is in the middle of her eighth year as Director of Undergraduate Laboratories and works her scheduling magic every semester in addition to teaching. She is planning for a studio version of General Physics. In her spare time, she is working on a PhD with Eleanor Sayre in physics education. Nino Matcharadze has assumed the role of lead instructor for our venerable P-World class, taking on the challenge every semester of conveying the basics of physics with as little math as possible to non-STEM majors.

Janae Mooty became academic advisor in fall 2021, replacing Jessy Changstrom (PhD ’22) who has taken a teaching faculty position at KU. An experienced K-12 teacher and doctoral candidate in the College of Education, Janae does much more than advising (which she also handles for the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Physics and Statistics). She plans to teach a Global Campus version of Concepts of Physics this summer. Mick O’Shea is winding down more than a decade of service as our Graduate Program Director and Associate Department Head. In 2020 he spent time a Jefferson Science Fellow in the U.S. State Department in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance. He is in the first year of a three-year phased retirement and is developing a new Global Campus course in the Physics of Outdoor Sport, which will be offered in the fall. After splitting time between Math and Physics, John Pratt is now a full time Department instructor mentoring new generations of students. Our EP and GP students appreciate his keen sense of humor and the extra flourish of a mother country connection as he explains Newton’s laws in his delightful British accent. Kell Ruhnow (MS ’21) helps students through the trials of EP2 as our first Gen Z instructor. She obtained her MS in Physics under the mentorship of Glenn Horton-Smith of our High Energy Physics group. Larry Weaver may not be formally teaching anymore, but you can find him at colloquia and seminars in the department, always asking good questions. He is a frequent mentor who is always willing to explain complex topics to faculty, graduate and undergraduate students in our program as well as the REU program, which he led for many years. Gary Wysin has assumed the duties of Graduate Program Director this spring, in addition to teaching courses at all levels in the department. He is leading a departmental effort to raise stipends for graduate research assistants to help improve quality of life for our students and keep us competitive with other universities.

In the AMO group Itzik Ben Itzhak continues his research into the interaction of intense ultrashort laser pulses with molecular ions in the James R. Macdonald Laboratory (JRML) although he’s splitting time between Kansas and Alabama, where his wife Svetla is on the faculty at Air War College-Air University. Cosmin Blaga has emerged as an outstanding undergraduate research mentor while keeping advanced lasers in the lab humming. His group’s goal is to understand the interaction of matter with intense, ultrafast laser pulses and develop applications and novel technologies based on the newfound science. Kevin Carnes started the first year of his three-year phased retirement this fall, winding down an incredible run as Associate Director for Research in the lab and decades of service working with its directors to maintain the facility. If you know of someone who would like attempt to fill his shoes, please encourage them to apply.

Although retired, Emeritus Distinguished Professor Lew Cocke continues to push K-State AMO forward by popping up in AMO seminars and asking the tough questions. It will surprise no one that when Riley County began its first round of COVID vaccinations, Lew was on-site day one as a volunteer. Brett DePaola began his three-year phased retirement after finishing a term as department head that mirrored the challenges that Amit Chakrabarti faced in the Dean’s office. Brett’s reimagining of Physics 102 as “Physics for Public Policy Makers” has become a huge hit with students and administrators across campus. Brett Esry completed a very successful term as lab director last spring, proving that theorists can handle the hardware. The lab achieved record levels of funding and acquired game-changing new instrumentation under his leadership. Charles Fehrenbach maintains operations of the PULSAR ultrafast laser facility. He also conducts orientation and safety training for the multitude of students and staff working in the JRML each year. Loren Greenman became the Department’s latest recipient of a five-year DOE Early Career award in 2021 for his work on “Theory of the Femtosecond and Attosecond Dynamics of Molecules in Complex Regions of their Potential Landscapes.” Loren is co-director of our NSF REU program with Bret Flanders. Vinod Kumarappan continues his research in UV pulses and high-resolution FFT spectroscopy and recently finished a long run of teaching EP2. Vinod has worked diligently for several years with the undergraduate scholarship committee to ensure these funds are properly disbursed to incoming and current undergraduate students. Chii-Dong Lin has been a driving force in at least two successful rounds of the lab reinventing and reinvigorating itself as a world class facility in AMO physics. He’s currently investigating the interaction of atoms and molecules with intense femtosecond infrared laser and XUV attosecond pulses. Chii-Dong is in year one of a three-year phased retirement, but remains active as ever with his research group. Daniel Rolles leads projects that are bringing next generation lasers to the JRML in addition to bringing collaborators from all over the world to use the powerful Linear Coherent Light Source at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where he is on sabbatical this year. In addition, he is a key member leading graduate student recruitment efforts in the department. Artem Rudenko has taken on the leadership of JRML as its Director and Principal Investigator. He is guiding several instrumentation and infrastructure upgrades, expanding the lab’s capabilities as both a world-class on-campus facility for AMO physics and a major player in international science collaborations at US and European laboratories like SLAC and DESY. K-State President Richard Linton named Artem Cortelyou-Rust Professor this year – the third physics faculty member to hold this position following Chris Sorensen and Pat Richard. Uwe Thumm returned this past fall from a successful sabbatical at several prestigious European universities. He’s focusing on his research investigating strong-field ionization of plasmonic nanoparticles with intense infrared laser pulses. Uwe, Chii-Dong Lin, Loren Greenman, and Brett Esry form the unique team of theoretical physicists at JRML who contribute much to the lab’s success.

In the Condensed, Soft, and Biological Physics group Matt Berg takes graduate students through his legendary sequence of advanced electrodynamics courses and runs a vibrant program in light scattering physics, with exciting new recent results in in situ particulate emission characterization using a holography system deployed in drones.  Amit Chakrabarti led K-State’s College of Arts and Sciences as Dean through an incredibly challenging budgetary and COVID period, managing to set fundraising records for the College. We were delighted to welcome him back to the Department this past fall as professor, researcher, advisor, mentor, and friend. He’s also reviving our undergraduate major program as its director. Bret Flanders and Paul Smith of Chemistry were awarded K-State’s first multi-million dollar Keck Foundation grant, which supports “high-risk and high-impact work of leading researchers to lay the groundwork for new paradigms, technologies, and discoveries that will save lives, provide innovative solutions, and add to our understanding of the world.” He’s heading to Lawrence Livermore National Lab for sabbatical in 2023-24. Arjun Nepal serves as Project Manager for the new partnership between K-State Physics and Hydrograph Clean Power Inc, a startup company seeking to commercialize the graphene production process invented by University Distinguished Professor Emeritus Chris Sorensen and Arjun. Read more about Hydrograph elsewhere in this newsletter. Jeremy Schmit performs innovative research at the boundary of Physics and Biology studying phase behavior and physical properties of protein solutions making him a natural fit as the mainstay of our General Physics program. Jeremy recently led a successful overhaul of our department’s graduate qualifying exam. Chris Sorensen has reinvented the concept of retirement. He continues to voluntarily teach Descriptive Astronomy, maintains a vibrant research program on light scattering with Matt Berg, and serves as the Vice President for Research at Hydrograph Clean Power Inc. See the article elsewhere in this newsletter for more details on Hydrograph.

In High Energy Physics, Tim Bolton spent the last three years on loan from K-State to the Department of Energy in senior project management positions on DOE’s Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment before assuming his department head role. See Tim’s greetings from the Department Head in this newsletter. Glenn Horton-Smith was appointed co-holder of the Lilian E. and Earnest K. Chapin Physics Chair (with Brett Esry) in spring 2021; Glenn is finishing up a very successful 10-year run as PI of the High Energy Physics group. Andrew Ivanov leads a multi-institutional collaboration charged with designing and building electronics for the upgraded pixel tracking system of the CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Andrew was promoted to full professor in 2021; he’ll be off on sabbatical in 2023-24. Keti Kaadze has become one of the foremost world experts on Higgs boson physics with the CMS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider; in addition, she leads a second K-State electronics project for the upgrade of this detector. Keti finished a three-year term on Fermilab’s User’s Executive Committee in 2021, during which she briefed DOE’s High Energy Physics Advisory Committee on the impacts of COVID. Yurii Maravin has assumed the position of Principal Investigator of our High Energy Physics group. He is on sabbatical at CERN this year, and he leads K-State’s yet another instrumentation upgrade project for the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.

In Cosmology Bharat Ratra tirelessly promotes physics to audiences of K-12 students and members of the public across Kansas and the region, all while continuing his fundamental research in cosmology. Bharat serves as Principal Investigator for the Department’s long running QuarkNet Center, which focuses on providing K-12 teachers from small Kansas high schools with opportunities to engage in research in high energy physics and cosmology. Lado Samushia returned from his sabbatical last year where he spent much of his time working on the Large-Scale Structure Catalog as part of the Data System team on Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, an international science collaboration managed and funded by the Department of Energy.  He’s taking over leadership of the Computing Committee from longtime chair Kevin Carnes.

The PER group’s J.T. Laverty is conducting research that focuses on developing assessments, curricular materials, and examples of how to do beneficial things for education researchers as well as traditional physics educators. He also leads our innovative learning assistant program, which partners students who have recently completed EP or GP sequences in class with primary instructors. Teaching assistants help primary instructors teach; learning assistants help students learn. Eleanor Sayre maintains an active research program while on leave at the National Science Foundation. She is the latest of several Physics faculty who have performed national service, including Tim Bolton as a program manager at the DOE Office of Science and Brett DePaola and Mick O’Shea who served as Jefferson Science Fellows with the US State Department. See more on Ellie’s work with the NSF in this newsletter. Group founder Dean Zollman continues to offer wisdom to J.T. Laverty, Ellie Sayre, and the rest of the PER group. In addition, he’s been invaluable to me (along with Brett DePaola and Amit Chakrabarti) as a former Department head and is an asset to all of us in Physics.

The Department picture is not complete without mention of our superb administrative and technical staff. While a separate article lists new additions to our department, we’d like to fill you in on other longtime staff.

Much of our Department’s business runs through the “Kims.” Kim Coy helps administer our graduate and REU programs and supports the PER program, but is better known to our graduate students as their “grad mom.” She was honored by K-State President Richard Linton for 35 years of service and received a University Support Staff (USS) meritorious service award last spring. Kim Elliott keeps the books “by the book” for Physics/Math “Shared Services North,” managing our incredibly complicated mix of revenue and costs while calming the nerves of faculty and university financial officers. Kim E. has been ably assisted for the past five years by Cindy Carlyon, who will be recognized at this year’s spring USS ceremony. Pamela Anderson continues to manage grants, national, and international lab subcontracts, and travel for High Energy Physics as she has done now for nearly two decades.

Chris Aikens, Scott Chainey, Calvin Hodges, and Justin Millette keep JRML equipment running smoothly so that research experiments can be performed using their expertise in design, construction, electronics, and more as they work with the laser and vacuum systems in the lab.

PCSC’s Larry McFeeters, Vince Needham, and Liam McFeeters run what insiders know as the top IT operation on campus – providing both hardware and software support to the Department. They kept our operations up and running during COVID to ensure classes, research, and business operations ran as smoothly from home as they do in Cardwell Hall.

Andy Thurlow manages the Physics Machine Shop and helps the Department and others on campus obtain their research goals by providing the best in machining and mechanical design on campus.

Austin Roberts keeps tabs on the thousands of pieces of equipment in our building, making sure everything ends up in the right place at the right time.

Finally, no individual has impacted more student lives over more than two decades than Peter Nelson, who provides all Department instructional resources for lecture demonstrations and undergraduate labs. Peter also received a USS meritorious award service this past spring.

We are fortunate to have such a talented and dedicated staff to support the academic and research interests of our Department.

 

 

Degree Recipients

Congratulations to our Department’s degree recipients that have occurred since 2019. We look forward to seeing what they accomplish next.

Bachelor of Arts & Bachelor of Science

Faisal Al Madani — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Mutlaq Alqahtani — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Peyton Starr Barton — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Axel Campos — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Ryan Carier — Bachelor of Science, 2022

Jeremiah Clark — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Alexander Coon — Bachelor of Science, 2019

David Coria — Bachelor of Science, 2020

James Corona — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Zoe Cosgrove — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Kaleb Cox — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Nicholas Donohoue — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Austin Dortch — Bachelor of Science, 2020

David Engel — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Reid Erdwien — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Blaine Fry — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Patrick Gambill — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Jacob Goldenstein — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Michael Henderson — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Cade Ifland — Bachelor of Science, 2022

Sarah Inskeep — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Spencer Kuchta — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Jesse Laning — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Thomas Lasnier — Bachelor of Science,  2019

Matthew Lewis Jr. — Bachelor of Arts, 2019

Philip Lucas II — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Nathan Marshall — Bachelor of Science, 2021

William Martin — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Kennith McLoud — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Nicholas Mignano — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Sebastian Neal — Bachelor of Science, 2022

Sarah Peterson — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Jacob Peyton — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Jessica Pietrowski — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Joseph Piriano — Bachelor of Science, 2022

Zane Phelps — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Joshua Richards — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Kenton Schroeder — Bachelor of Science, 2022

Jared Schuler — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Parker Stoops — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Paul Teriault — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Joshua Weaver — Bachelor of Science, 2022

Cheyne Weis — Bachelor of Science, 2019

Joshua Williams — Bachelor of Science, 2020

Samuel Wilson — Bachelor of Science, 2021

Masters & Doctoral Degrees

Alharbi, Hessah — MS 2021, Advisor: Chris Sorensen

AlRashed, Munerah — PhD 2019, Advisor: Tim Bolton

Anderson, Peter A — MS 2021, Advisor: Matt Berg

Bender, Lydia — MS 2020, Advisor: J.T. Laverty

Bhandari, Kamal — PhD 2021, Advisor: Jeremy Schmit

Budhathoki, Santosh — MS 2019, Advisor: J.T. Laverty

Changstrom, Jessica — PhD 2022, Advisor: Eleanor Sayre

Coghlan, Virginia — MS 2019, Advisor: J.T. Laverty

Ebini, Raiya — PhD 2020, Advisor: Chris Sorensen

Feizollah, Peyman — PhD 2022 PhD, Advisor: Matt Berg

Gautam, Prakash — PhD 2022, Advisor: Chris Sorensen

Giri, Ramesh — PhD 2022, Advisor: Matt Berg

Hosseini-Zavareh, Sajed — MS 2019, Advisor: Kristan Corwin

Huynh, Tra Thi Thanh — PhD 2020, Advisor: Eleanor Sayre

Jambuge, Amali — PhD 2021, Advisor: J.T. Laverty

Jochim, Bethany — PhD 2019, Advisor: Itzik Ben-Itzhak

Kaderiya, Balram — PhD 2021, Advisor: Artem Rudenko

Khadka, Narayan — PhD 2022, Advisor: Bharat Ratra

Khong, Hien — PhD 2022, Advisor: Eleanor Sayre

Kim, Doyeong — PhD 2022, Advisor: Keti Kaadze

Lam, Huynh — PhD 2021, Advisor: Vinod Kumarappan

Li, Xiang — PhD 2019, Advisor: Artem Rudenko

Li, Jianxiong — PhD 2019, Advisor: Uwe Thumm

Maughan, Justin — PhD 2020, Advisor: Chris Sorensen

Meddage, Varuna — PhD 2019, Advisor: Glenn Horton-Smith

Mendis, Dalath Rachitha — PhD 2019, Advisor: Andrew Ivanov

Mitchell, Tyler Benjamin — PhD 2020, Advisor: Andrew Ivanov

Panta, Krishna — PhD 2022, Advisor: Bret Flanders

Pathak, Shashank — PhD 2021, Advisor: Daniel Rolles

Paudel, Ajib — PhD 2021, Advisor: Glenn Horton-Smith

Phan, Tam — PhD 2021, Advisor: Jeremy Schmit

Phan, Tien — PhD 2021, Advisor: Jeremy Schmit

Ramallo, Nelson — PhD 2020, Advisor: Jeremy Schmit

Rijal, Shital — MS 2022, Advisor: Bret Flanders

Robatjazi, Seyyed — PhD 2021, Advisor: Artem Rudenko

Ruhnow, Kelley — MS 2021, Advisor: Glenn Horton-Smith

Ryan, Joseph — PhD 2021, Advisor: Bharat Ratra

Saydanzad, Erfan — PhD 2021, Advisor: Uwe Thumm

Severt, Travis — PhD 2021, Advisor: Itzik Ben-Itzhak

Stoops, Parker — MS 2022, Advisor: Chris Sorensen

Summers, Adam — PhD 2019, Advisor: Daniel Rolles

Weerasinghe, Kushan— PhD 2019, Advisor: Brian Washburn

Weinschenk, Sedrick — MS 2022, Advisor: Keti Kaadze & Yurii Maravin

Wright, Justin — PhD 2022, Advisor: Chris Sorensen

Ziaee, Farzaneh — PhD 2022, Advisor: Artem Rudenko

Zohrabi Alaee, Dina — PhD 2020, Advisor: Eleanor Sayre

 

In Memoriam

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of several beloved members of our department

John Spangler passed away March 30, 2020, at his home in Manhattan at the age of 83. He attended Kansas State University as an undergraduate. He received his PhD from Duke University and then entered the US Army. He began his academic career at DePauw University in Indiana but returned to K-State as a physics faculty member from 1965-85. In 1985, John began teaching at St. Norbert College in Green Bay until his retirement in 1998 and returned to Manhattan. He served as an instructor periodically over the years after his return to Manhattan.

 

J.R. Macdonald Laboratory professor Tom Gray passed away May 4, 2020, at the age of 82. Tom joined the department in 1977 after serving as a faculty member at North Texas University for 10 years. He retired from K-State in 2003. Tom was a Fellow of the American Physical and published numerous papers during his career. Tom retired to Corpus Christi, TX, in 2006.

 

Longtime office specialist Deanna Selby passed away on July 25, 2022, after a courageous battle with cancer at the age of 71. Deanna joined the department in January 1985 after beginning in Grain Science. She maintained the key records for the department and completed travel requests and reimbursement in addition to copying department course syllabi and exams. She retired from the department at the end of 2017.

 

 

John Eck passed away December 22, 2022.  John spent 16 years in the department before joining the faculty at University of Toledo in 1985 as associate dean of the graduate school. He went on to become associate vice president of research and graduate studies at Old Dominion University from 1989 – 1995.  He retired in 2010 as dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and eventually moved to Norfolk, VA to be close to family.

 

Glen Rubash, machinist, passed away February 16, 2023. Following a 30 year career with the Junction City Fire Department, Glenn became a facilities technician at K-State. After retiring from his position in Facilities in 2019, Glenn joined the physics department as a machinist in the machine shop where he completed various projects until the time of his death.

 

 

These individuals all made important contributions to our department over the years and will be missed by their family, friends, and colleagues.

Contact Us: We Want to Know What You’ve Been Up To

We want to hear from you! Please contact us at alumni@phys.ksu.edu or give us a call at 785-532-6786 to let us know how you are doing. If you find yourself in the Little Apple, let us show you around the department so that you can connect with our current students, faculty, and staff who will bring you up to speed on the latest happenings in the department.