Scholarship helps launch one student toward his dreams By: Kristen Daly

Plenty of kids dream of becoming an astronaut. Ian Reeves was one of them.

As a child, Ian wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. One thing he did know, however, was that he wanted to do something that involved science. The Hous-ton native considered a few career paths, wavering back and forth between being a scien-tist or an inventor. He finally decided, as many young children do, that he’d like to be an astronaut. But while Ian’s classmates traded in their childhood dreams for more down-to-earth professions, this astrophysics enthusiast kept his eyes fixed on the heavens.

“My favorite book as a teenager was ‘A Brief History of Time,’ by Stephen Hawking,” he said. “In short, I have always been interested in science.”

He still is. Now a junior at Baylor University, Ian said it’s his love for science that con-vinced him to major in physics. Though he plans on graduating from Baylor with a bache-lor of science degree in physics, his primary interest is more specific: astrophysics.

“If I were an incoming freshman right now, I would be an astrophysics major without a doubt,” he said. “Some of those courses just look cool!” (story continues on page 2)

Volume 4, Issue 4 March/April 2010

Special points of interest: • REU Opportunity

• Recent Additions to the Department Family

• New Astronomy Class in Fall 2010

• Graduate Program News Items

• Undergraduate Program News

• Nobel Laureate Lecture April 19

Department Scholarships

2-3

Meetings & Deadlines

4-5

News Stories & Photos

6-7

Department Programs

8-9

Alumni News 10

Out & About 11

Calendars 12

Inside this issue:

Physics Newsletter Baylor Univers i ty

(left to right) Lauren Ice, Dr. Linda Olafsen, Ian Reeves, and Nethmi Ariyasinghe pose for a picture in the summer of 2009. Ian spends part of his time as a research student in Dr. Linda Olafsen’s laser lab .

When Ian decided to attend Baylor, he was immediately met with a warm welcome. In fact, one of his favorite Baylor memories also is one of his earliest. “I will always remember something the Physics Department does for incoming freshman majors,” he said. “They sent me a gift package with a rattleback and other information about the department. It wasn’t a big thing, but I defi-nitely felt welcome here.”

Despite his smooth transition to Baylor, it wasn’t always on Ian’s radar. In fact, he said that had it not been for the financial assis-tance he received, he probably would not have attended Baylor. “I actually ended up at Baylor because of scholarships,” Ian said. “I needed financial support to attend college, and Baylor offered me more than any other school.”

In his college search, Ian found that the cost of tuition was on the rise despite a slow economy. He knew that scholarships were his only way to earn a college education. In order for him to have the chance to pursue a degree, he would need financial assis-tance.

Some of that financial assistance came directly from Baylor’s physics department. Ian was chosen as a recipient of the Herbert D. Schwetman Physics Scholarship Fund. Named for the late Herb Schwetman, a longtime chair of the physics department who re-tired in 1981, this scholarship is awarded to outstanding undergraduates majoring in physics. It was this merit-based scholarship that gave Ian the opportunity to pursue his childhood dreams.

Ian understands the importance of scholarships. After all, his opportunity for an education has depended on them. “Put simply, they are what has allowed me to attend college. I don’t think there is any other way I would be here,” Ian said.

Though he acknowledges that being awarded merit-based scholarships depend largely on the achievements of the applicant, Ian is careful not to take credit for the help he has received. “I would rather give credit where credit is due and say thank you to those donors,” he said. “Without them, there isn’t any conceivable way I would be here at Baylor. I will always be grateful for the sup-port I’ve received. It’s made a real difference in my life.”

Upon graduating from Baylor, Ian plans to attend graduate school in order to further his scientific studies. After that, his goal is to get off this planet—at least for a little while.

“I would love to be an astronaut some day. In many ways, I don’t think that desire could ever go away,” Ian said. “Let me put it this way though, I fully intend to visit space in my lifetime, one way or another.”

Support like the kind he’s received from the Herbert D. Schwetman Physics Scholarship has helped provide Ian with the educa-tion he needs to reach for the stars—literally.

You can help put the stars within reach of Baylor students like Ian by supporting existing scholarships such as the Schwetman scholarship or by starting your own endowed scholarship. To learn more, please contact Eric Abercrombie, Director of Develop-ment, at (254) 710-2561, or to make a gift online, visit http://www.baylor.edu/give.

Editor’s Note: The Physics Department has chosen this month to highlight the benefits of our endowed scholarships by focusing on one of the current recipients. We would like to thank all of those who have donated in the past and we want to encourage those of you who have yet to give to consider the impact that your giving has on the lives of our bright young students like Ian.

Page 2

Scholarship helps launch one student toward his dreams (cont’d)

Physics Newsletter

“I will always remember something the Physics

Department does for incoming freshman majors”

Special Focus on Student Scholarships There are other important scholarships in Physics, and a list of the current funds is provided on page 3. Details of two additional noteworthy scholarship funds are:

Shim & Theresa Park Scholarship. The late Shim Park was a member of our department. He and his wife Theresa established a scholarship for international students. Currently, there are three recipients: Zhenbin (Ben) Wu, Yongqing Huang, and Zhuan-hao Zhang.

Cy Lynch Graduate Scholarship. Cy Lynch was departmental secretary for many years; and she had a real heart for graduate students. She and her husband John (longtime city manager of Woodway) established the scholarship. Also, Dr. Bob Packard worked with Cy for many years. Current recipients are: Martin Frank and Qianyu (Theresa) Ma.

Volume 4, Issue 4

Baylor University

Department of Physics

Physics Funds

Cy Lynch Physics Scholarship (032 SBUX) This scholarship is merit-based for graduate students.

Gordon K. Teal Physics Scholarship (032 SBVA) This scholarship is for physics majors with outstanding grades.

Herbert Schwetman Physics Scholarship (032 SBUZ) This scholarship is merit-based for physics majors.

Physics Department Special Scholarship (032 SBUY) Funds to benefit the departmental scholarship program.

Physics Endowment and Excellence Fund (032 MAUN) Physics general fund to promote excellence within the Department.

Roy W. Stiegler, Jr., Endowed Physics Scholarship Fund (032 SDFN) This scholarship is need-based for physics undergraduate and graduate students.

Shim and Theresa Park Physics Scholarship (032 SCPS) This scholarship is merit-based for international students.

People sometimes ask us how they can help us accomplish our goals of growing as a Department. One important way in which all of our alumni and friends can help is to give to the ongoing support of the scholarships that we offer to students within our Department. A list of these scholarships and their goals are provided here. Last year, eight undergraduates and six graduate students received awards ranging from several hundred to a few thousand dollars given on the basis of merit and need. One of the great benefits of having these scholarships is the good that can be accomplished by gifts of any size made to these funds.

Department Scholarships

Page 3

CASPER members Rene Laufer, Jonathan Perry, Jorge Carmona, Lorin Matthews, and Truell Hyde, in addition to REU student Cheridan Harris, attended the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) March 1 – 4, held in The Woodlands, Texas. They presented five posters at the meeting:

A BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PAYLOAD CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNIVERSITAET STUTTGART MOON ORBITER. R. Laufer, T. W. Hyde, L. Matthews M. Lachenmann, G. Herdrich, R. Srama, H.-P. Roeser ESTABLISHING AN ENVIRON-MENTAL SIMULATION FACILITY FOR LUNAR DUST RESEARCH. R. Laufer, T. W. Hyde, L. Matthews, G. Herdrich, R. Srama, H.-P. Roeser DIPOLE-DIPOLE INTERACTIONS OF CHARGED-MAGNETIC GRAINS. Jonathan Perry, Lorin S. Matthews and Truell W. Hyde LOW-VELOCITY IMPACTS ON PVDF TARGETS USING A LIGHT GAS GUN. J. A. Car-mona, M. Cook, J. Schmoke, R. Laufer, L. S. Matthews and T. W. Hyde THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PROBABILISTIC MODEL FOR THOLIN AGGREGATION IN TITAN’S ATMOSPHERE. C. C. Harris, L. S. Matthews, T. W. Hyde.

During the Spring semester, Prof. B.F.L. Ward was invited to speak on his new UV finite approach to Quantum Gravity at the CERN Theory Unit in Geneva, Switzerland on January 15, 2010 and at the “Beyond 2010 Conference” in Cape Town, South Africa on February 2, 2010. The title of his talk at CERN was “Asymptotic Safety and Resummed Quantum Gravity” while that of his talk in the “Beyond 2010 Conference” was “Planck Scale Cosmology and Resummed Quantum Gravity.”

First Physics Results from the LHC Experiments!

As announced in the last newsletter, after 15 years of the preparation the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Switzerland, finally started its operation and collided the protons at the highest energies ever achieved, 1.1 TeV per beam, just before Christmas last year. Only a few weeks later, on February 8, the CMS experiment published the results of the first analysis of this data. Baylor physicists work together with other US physicists on this international experiment, and celebrated this achievement at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

“Our findings provide the first information on the characteristics of charged particle production at higher energies than ever be-fore created in the laboratory,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson for the CMS experiment. “The results confirm previous meas-urements and support expectations for the new energy regime. They are important to help us model the experimental background for future measurements at even higher energies.”

We expect the new LHC run to begin in March. The next major goal of the CMS experiment is to record the first collisions at even higher energies, 3.5 TeV per beam. The LHC will run at this energy for the rest of 2010 and 2011, and Baylor physicists will seek for signals of new phenomena, which will unveil several mysteries of the universe, together with the rest of the collaboration.

Finally, the Department of Physics welcomes Dr. Hongxuan Liu as a new postdoctoral fellow in experimental high energy phys-ics. Dr. Liu completed his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina, and he will be working primarily with Dr. Ken Hatakeyama on the CMS experiment at CERN.

Page 4

Baylor Physics at National Meetings

Physics Newsletter

Volume 4, Issue 4

It is time again to begin the selection process for outstanding faculty. However, first, we need your help. Please nomi-nate colleagues! Consider those whom you work with who have done an outstanding job in teaching or research or service to the university and nominate them for an Outstanding Faculty award. There are documents available with the guidelines and nomination information. Please contact Carol Schuetz (carol_carson@baylor.edu or x4410) with any questions. March 15 deadline.

Are you doing something innovative with technology as part of your teaching and research? Are you an undergraduate or graduate student who’s using technology for class work or research in new and interesting ways? Share your insights with your colleagues at the Fourth Annual Educational Technology Showcase on April 7 and 8, 2010, in Moody Me-morial Library. Poster presentations will take place in the Allbritton Foyer of Moody Memorial Library on Wednes-day, April 7 from 1:30 till 2:45 p.m. Presentations and panel discussions will take place as concurrent sessions from 9 to 11 a.m. or 1 to 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 8. To submit your proposal visit the following Moody Library link: http://www.baylor.edu/lib/factech/index.php?id=70510 and complete the submission form. March 10 deadline.

This year's Chautauqua Short Course, "Using Research-Based Curricula and Tools to Promote Active Learning in Introductory Courses," will be held June 19-21, 2010 at Dickinson College in Central Pennsylvania. A brief descrip-tion is included below, and more information, including a tentative schedule and a link for registration can be found at: http://uoregon.edu/~sokoloff/chaut1.htm The deadline for early registration is March 15.

Will Crockett, Director of Public Relations wanted to let us know that Word Wise, the program with KWBU (and iTunes podcast) has another tape day this spring- March 24 from 1-4 in the afternoon. “We’ve really enjoyed having Physics faculty join us, and I wanted to be sure you knew about this spring tape day.”—Will Crockett Director of Public Relations. Taping day is March 24, contact Will Crockett ASAP.

Faculty are cordially invited to participate in a special academic retreat, sponsored by the Institute for Faith and Learning under the auspices of the Office of the Provost, entitled Vocation, Liberal Learning, and the Professions. The retreat will be held following com-mencement (Monday, May 17 through Friday, May 21) at Laity Lodge (http://www.laitylodge.org/) a beautiful ecumenical retreat center located in the Hill Country west of San Antonio. Deadline is Friday, March 5.

Undergraduate students who are still be looking for a summer REU program may be interested in the NSF program recently approved at Georgetown University. In addition to the science, there is a splash of science policy, (after all, it is in Washington, D.C.) Students who may wish to know a little more about the pro-gram at Georgetown can speak with Dr. Jeffrey Olaf-sen who was a postdoctoral fellow there in the 90’s.

Deadlines and Opportunities

Page 5

• Dr. Zhenrong Zhang was recently interviewed by Nature magazine. The article is excellent! Here is the link:

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/100225/full/nj7284-1109a.html

• Dr. Lorin Matthews was profiles by the KCEN Channel 6 morning newscast as part of their “Supermom” series

http://www.centraltexasnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=170056&clipId=4554764&topVideoCatNo=175475&autoStart=true

• Dr. Dwight Russell was featured in a Baylor Lariat article written by Sara Tirrito:

Researchers in Tucson are working on a project that will provide 100 times more data than any astronomy database has in the past, which will be made available for public use, according to an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The project involves the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is currently being built and is expected to begin surveying in 2014, the article stated.

"It's doing two things that we've always wanted telescopes to do -- collect a lot of light and get really good resolution so you can see detail," said Dr. Dwight Russell, associate professor of physics at Baylor. "In the past, to accomplish those two things you had to look at little pieces of the sky one at a time. With this camera and this telescope you'll be able to do the same [things], but over a larger piece of the sky at a time."

Russell said the data provided through the surveys and research will be useful in the classroom. "This thing will take more data than has been taken in human history so far," Russell said. "We can use it in education because you just have so many examples of things you can do. Another thing this particular telescope is going to do is to take the images in six different col-ors and you can use that information to determine properties of the stars, like their temperature. We can use that data in the classroom for students to make their own calculations of the properties of the stars."

Kristen Pechan, a physics graduate student and teacher's assistant, said the new data could also add depth to astronomy classes. "If this information is so readily available, it could make it a very dynamic classroom," Pechan said. "In addition to the requisite astronomy stuff, the class can become more dynamic because you really see: here's all these new developments, which will be different every semester."

Jared Greenwald, a physics graduate student and teacher's assistant, said more people will need to get involved in the field to effectively handle the amount of information expected from this research. "Hopefully we don't get flooded to the point where there's too much information," Greenwald said. "There's only so many researchers, there's only so many people interested in the field, so there's going to be a huge amount of data that's just sitting there for a while. Unless we can get more people inter-ested, it's just going to be sitting on the shelves collecting dust, so to speak."

However, Russell said he believes the vast amount of information is part of the reason that it is being made available to the public. "It is so much information that they feel like there's enough for everyone and that science will benefit much more by making it available because there's no way they could possibly learn everything there is to know from it," Russell said.

Greenwald said the speed with which the data will be made available will be helpful in personal research. "The information is going to be given for free 60 seconds after, and that's amazing," Greenwald said. "That's nice to be able to get stuff instantane-ously to compare with your own data if you're doing research."

Russell said the quick release of data will allow students to study new developments without delay. "As the groups are study-ing data in a new way, we will be part of that," Russell said. "We won't be learning about it five years later-- we'll be learning about it as they do it." Though the first information available from the LSST surveys won't be available until 2014, Russell said there is some similar research, which students can participate in now, at galaxyzoo.org.

"If [students would] like to get involved with astronomy research of this type, the galaxy classification project called Galaxy Zoo will let you participate in classifying new galaxies by going to this Web site," Russell said. "The goal of this having people par-ticipate is to classify these galaxies; if other things are discovered, great, but it's very focused in its goal."

Russell said he is participating on the site and would like to incorporate it into his classes so that the students can take part in real science. "I'm doing it and I'm thinking of adding it to the class as an class activity," Russell said. "The classroom always seems removed from the real data in astronomy, but in this situation they are looking at actual images and their input is con-tributing to the classification, so they're really doing science in this project instead of doing exercises."

Page 6

Baylor Faculty in the News

Physics Newsletter

Volume 4, Issue 4

John, Maggie, Jane, and Joseph Vasut are pleased to announce the birth of Jennifer Ansheng Vasut (upper left) who arrived at 5:36pm on January 20, 2010 and measured at 7 lbs, 7 oz and 20 ¾” long. Ansheng comes from the Chinese words: An: meaning Peacefully Settled on- Sheng: The Life {Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life} . Also of note is the fact that John ran his first marathon (Waco's Miracle Match Marathon) in a time of 4:36:08.6. Considering the fact that the Waco marathon is one of the toughest around in terms of hills he’s pleased with the result. Attached is a photo (upper right) from Kim Orr. If you look closely you can notice a bit of ice on his beard (as well as from where Jennifer Ansheng Vasut gets her fist pumping!)

Apparently, Duke University’s Physics Department put together a "wordmap" that includes terms reflecting the employment of their alums for the past 18 years. “Baylor” is small, but it has a nice spot near the top (to the right of "Scientist" and above "Lab").

Victor Land and his wife Anne had a little girl on January 6th at 10:09 a.m. Jasmijn Sofie Land weighed in at 8 pounds 9 ounces and is pictured below on the left.

Photographic Proof:

A snowstorm closes campus at 2 pm on February 23rd.

The photo on the right was taken from Dr. Jeffrey Olafsen’s office in the BSB.

The Department in Pictures

Page 7

The Department of Physics helped to host a very special astronomy visitor on March 2nd. Brother Guy Consol-magno, Ph.D., Coordinator for Public Relations, Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo, Italy visited campus to give two presentations. The first was part of the 2010 Spring Physics Colloquium Series entitled, “Meteorites, Asteroids, and the Stratigraphy of the Early Solar System” The talk was at 4pm in Room E.125, Baylor Sciences Building (BSB). The presentation was very well attended and a pic-ture from this event is on the left.

Brother Guy Consolmagno also gave a lecture entitled, “The Virtuous Astronomer: How the Work of Science is Shaped by the Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 2, in Room B.110 of the Baylor Sci-ences Building. The lecture was free and open to the pub-

lic. The Institute for Faith and Learning, in collaboration with the Department of Physics and the Baylor Society for Conversations in Religion, Ethics, and Science, hosted the event.

The lecture, unlike the colloquium earlier in the day, considered the intersec-tion of faith and science, challenging the popular notion that these two realms must necessarily be at odds, and that the serious practitioner of one cannot be engaged with the other, said Jason Whitt, associate director of the Institute for Faith and Learning.

Consolmagno earned degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona. He served two years with the Peace Corps teach-ing physics and astronomy in Kenya before returning to an academic post at

Lafayette College in Easton, Penn. In 1989, he entered the Society of Jesus and began studies in philosophy and the-ology at Loyola University in Chicago. He serves as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo in Italy.

“His research explores the connections between meteorites, asteroids and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system,” Whitt said.

The Institute for Faith and Learning was founded in 1997 to assist Baylor in integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment. The Institute regularly hosts scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines.

The expanded set of Astronomy courses are now in place for the Fall of 2010. In addition to PHY 1455, Descriptive Astronomy, and PHY 2455, Foundations of Astronomy, the department will be offering PHY 3455, Observational Astronomy, for the first time.

Cool Astronomy Link of the Month: http://exoplanets.org/

Editor’s Note: Readers of the Department of Physics Newsletter will note that stories connected to the Astronomy and Astrophysics programs actually appear scattered throughout this issue and not just on this page. It will not be surprising to us when the program

Page 8

Astronomy News

Physics Newsletter

“His research explores the connections between meteorites,

asteroids and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the

solar system.”

Volume 4, Issue 4

Our graduate program continues to grow. The current graduate student count in-cludes 19 Teaching Assistantships and 10 Research Assistantships.

We presently have 36 applications in Nolijweb for TAships in the fall. 6 early offers have been made, all with stipend enhancements from the Graduate School. We had a total of 26 applications at this time of the year last year, so our applications are up almost 40% from last year.

Ms. Aditi Mukhopadhyay will be accepted into the graduate program to work with Dr. Ward as soon as her letter of acceptance has been received.

B.J. Enzweiler was photographed in the picture on the right (from the Waco Trib) at the reception to introduce the new President of Baylor University, Judge Kenneth Starr.

Martin Frank was honored as a Presidential Scholar by the Graduate School at a luncheon on Feb.17.

Douglas Moore, Alex Price and Yongqing Huang have been nominated by the Graduate School for the fall, 2009 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award. Congratulations!

Four members of the Baylor Experimental High Energy Physics group gathered in Washington, DC in February for the snowy "April" Meeting of the American Physical Society. Two of our gradu-ate students, Martin Frank and Karen Bland, presented recent results of searches for the Higgs Boson at CDF. Martin's talk was titled "Search for Standard Model Higgs Production in Association with a W Boson using a Neural Network Technique at CDF". Karen pre-sented "Search for a Standard Model Higgs Boson in the Diphoton Final State at CDF".

(At left): Baylor High Energy Physicists in Washington DC (L to R): Martin Frank, Dr. Jay Dittmann, Karen Bland, and Ben Wu.

A recent note from Rachel Wilkerson:

I've been meaning to send you an email for some time to let you know how much I've been enjoying Budapest! Sorry it took me awhile, I've been spending a rather lot of energy learning to cope with five foot snowdrifts. I'm keeping a blog and posting pictures on non-math matters if you're interested. http://rachelsewhere.wordpress.com/ Math classes just started this Monday (2/8). I sat in on Dynamical Systems and Bifurcations today and really enjoyed it.

Online salary database PayScale.com put together a 2009 College Salary Report that highlights which college graduates make the highest and lowest salaries right out of college and how that changes 10 years post-graduation. Here is the top ten:

Undergraduate Degree / Starting Median Salary / Mid-Career Median Salary

1. Aerospace Engineering: $59,600 / $109,000 2. Chemical Engineering: $65,700 / $107,000 3. Computer Engineering: $61,700 / $105,000 4. Electrical Engineering: $60,200 / $102,000 5. Economics: $50,200 / $101,000 6. Physics: $51,100 / $98,800 7. Mechanical Engineering: $58,900 / $98,300 8. Computer Science: $56,400 / $97,400 9. Industrial Engineering: $57,100 / $95,000 10. Environmental Engineering: $53,400 / $94,500

Graduate Program News

Page 9

Undergraduate Program News

Editor’s Note — We enjoy hearing from all of our alumni, no matter how long it as been since you were a student at Baylor University. Feel free to drop us an email or send us the Alumni Feedback form that is at the end of any Annual Issue of the Department Newsletter.

We recently received the following email from Kristen Dobbs, who after teaching at Waco High is currently teaching physics at one of the Hous-ton area high schools. We wanted to highlight this communication to encourage alumni to drop us an occasional note no matter how brief:

Hi Dr. Benesh,

It's great to hear from you. I spent the last five years in Costa Rica working for Young Life, but I'm really enjoying getting back into physics this year. I've been teaching under an experienced teacher who has developed a great AP physics program, so I hope to learn a lot from him.

Now that I'm back in the States I would love to make it to the next Baylor homecoming. Hope to see you then.

Kristen Dobbs

Baylor University Board of Regents Chair R. Dary Stone, J.D. ’77, introduced Kenneth Winston Starr, J.D, as the 14th President of Baylor University, at 3 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 16, in the Barfield Drawing Room of the Bill Daniel Student Center.

With a distinguished career in education, the law and public service, Starr has served since 2004 as the Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean and Professor of Law at Pepperdine University. He also is of counsel to the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he was a partner from 1993 to 2004, specializing in appellate work, antitrust, federal courts, federal jurisdiction and constitutional law.

Dr. Bill Gordon, father of the Arecibo radio telescope, passed away February 16. In addition to all of the usual things you could find in his very thick CV, he was my advisor at Rice for my first two years. He was also the first professor to invite me to his home. I remember talking with him about the Arecibo project, and being amazed at what he had accomplished. When I asked him why he came to Rice after completing the project (instead of returning to Cornell), Mrs. Gordon chimed in that after their years in Puerto Rico, it was too cold for them in Ithaca!

Besides Ithaca being too cold, I remember one other incident. In August 1980, Dana and I made a trip back to Texas (from Illi-nois) before leaving for England. We made a swing through Houston, probably staying with Frank and Beverly Jones, and visited the Rice campus. I dropped by to see Bill Gordon, who at that time was Dean of Natural Sciences (later he became Provost and Vice-President). He was very happy to hear about my receiving a postdoc position at the Cavendish Lab. He told me to look up his old friend, Tony Hewish. When I got to Cambridge, I realized that he was talking about Nobel Laureate Sir Anthony Hewish (co-discoverer of pulsars). It took me several weeks to work up my courage, but because I thought so much of Dean Gordon, I did make an appointment and met Tony Hewish. We had a very nice conversation about Rice, Cambridge, astrophysics, and con-densed matter (physics).

--Greg Benesh

Page 10

Alumni News

Physics Newsletter

Kenneth Winston Starr, J.D., Introduced As Baylor’s 14th President

Dr. Greg Benesh notes the passing of Bill Gordon

Volume 4, Issue 4

Dr. Lorin Matthews

Lorin Matthews presented a physics seminar at Texas Christian University on February 19.

Jerry Milner

Jerry Milner was honored for 40 years of service to Baylor University. at the Annual Service Awards Ceremony on February 17.

Dr. Linda Olafsen

Dr. Linda Olafsen traveled to Texas State University in San Marcos on March 3 to present a seminar on "Resonantly Pumped Optical Pumping Injection Cavity Lasers."

Dr. Ken Park

A seminar was given by Ken Park at the Univ. Texas at San Antonio, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy "Defects with Variability in Stoichiometry and Structure on TiO2 Surface,” February 18, 2010.

Dr. BFL Ward

Dr. Ward has been named to the Winter 2010 Martin Luther King/Cesar Chavez/Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. He will present talks to Detroit Public School System middle schools on April 14, 2010 and will present the Wayne State University Physics Departmental Colloquium on April 15, 2010 as part of the Professorship. His collo-quium title is “Precision Studies in High Energy Collider Physics”. His talk to the middle school students is entitled “Journey to the Professoriate”. Given the small number of US students that are now attempting to enter Physics, the talks to the middle school students will give Prof. Ward a chance to bring some of the excitement of the Large Hadron Collider turn-on to them with the hope that some will be taken by it.

Finally, this Spring semester marks the opening of Baylor’s Precision Theoretical High Energy Physics Laboratory in E229, where Prof. Ward now has the space he desperately needed for his Linux super workstations, video conferencing equipment (to be pur-chased with a DOE Recovery Act Award) , printer, etc., and for his associates/guests as he develops his new MC’s and exact higher loop - higher point function field theoretic methods for precision theory predictions at high energy with particular empha-sis on LHC precision theory. The lab opened just in time for the visit to Baylor by Prof. Ward’s longtime collaborator Prof. Stanislaw Jadach of the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Krakow, Poland during January 20 – February 6, 2010. Prof. Jadach pre-sented a talk on the Baylor Particle Physics Seminar Series entitled “Monte Carlo Modeling of NLO DGLAP QCD Evolution in the Fully Unintegrated Form” in which he presented important progress toward realizing differentially the NLO correction to the standard DGLAP-CS kernels via MC methods. He and Prof. Ward intend to join their complementary approaches to precision LHC theory and that joining was the main subject of their discussion during Prof. Jadach’s visit.

Dr. Walter Wilcox

Walter Wilcox organized a Habitat for Humanity workday on Feb.6, 2010. He took two undergraduate students out to work on house raising day at 317 N 11th Street. It was a great blessing to all.

Dr. Zhenrong Zhang

Zhenrong Zhang presented “Defects and Adsorbates Dynamics on TiO2(110),” the Chemistry Seminar at the Center for Material Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, February 12, 2010.

As a result of Prof. Ward’s participation in the defining symposium on “Asymptotic Safety: 30 Years Later” at Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada during November 4—9, 2009, he has arranged for Nobel Laureate Prof. Steven Weinberg to present a Spe-cial Baylor Particle Physics Seminar on April 19, 2010 on the subject “Gravity at Short Distances”. Prof. Weinberg shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Prof. Sheldon Lee Glashow and the late Prof. Abdus Salam in 1979 for the development of the SU2L´U1 non-Abelian gauge theory of the electroweak interaction. Prof. Weinberg is considered by many as the most pre-eminent theoretical physicist still alive today — the importance of his visit to Baylor cannot be emphasized too much. The visit is jointly sponsored by the Office of the Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, the Office of the Vice-Provost for Research, the Depart-ment of Physics, and the Distinguished Professorship Program.

Out and About …

Page 11

Nobel Laureate Lecture, April 19

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 Dept Colloq.

4 - 5 pm

E.125 BSB

3 4 10:30 am

Retiree Coffee

Physics Conf Rm

5 Graduate Colloquium 3:30 - 4:30 pm E.125 BSB

6

Spring Break

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Spring Break

15 16 17 Colloq 4pm

Randall Jean Engineering

18 19Graduate Colloquium 3:30 - 4:30 pm

20

21 22

23

24Colloq 4pm Lucas Macri

25

26 Graduate Colloquium

27

28 29 30 31 Colloq 4pm

Wolfgang Rindler, UTD

String Cosmology Meetings E.301 Tower Room 10 - 12 pm

March 2010

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

GCAP Mtgs 10am E.301 Tower Room

Particle Mtgs 3:30 C.123 BSB

1 10:30 am Retiree Coffee

Maundy Thursday

2

Good Friday 3

4

Easter Sunday 5

Easter Holiday

6 7 Colloquium

Jon Harrison Math Dept

8 9 10

11 12 13 14 Colloquium

Larry Overzet UT Dallas

15 16 17

18 19 Nobel Laureate Lecture 3:30

20 21 Colloquium S. Kopp

UT Austin

22

Diadeloso

23 24

25 26 27 28 PHY 4196

Final Talks E.125

4 - 5 pm

29 30 PHY 4196

Final Talks E.125

3:30 - 4:30 pm

Friday April 30 is the last Day of Classes!

April 2010

URSA Week — Undergraduate Research & Scholarly Achievement Week