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Volume 10, No. 3. June 2002. | |
| In this issue.... | |
Bill Hiscock organized and presided over the National Space Grant Directors Council Leadership Transition Meeting, held in Boulder, CO, June 18-19. Bill Hiscock was lead organizer of the first National Space Grant "Starting Student Space Hardware Programs" workshop, held at the University of Colorado, June 20-22. The workshop was attended by 65 faculty from 33 states, including Mike Murray and David Klumpar from MSU. MSGC's BOREALIS ballooning program was highlighted in the workshop, and John Belz along with MSU students Ryan Belohlavek and Sean Kirn made presentations at the workshop and led the participants in a triple balloon flight over eastern Colorado on June 22. Publications Submitted: "Multi-Wavelength Observations of Coronal Structure and Dynamics -- Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting", COSPAR Colloquia Series, Volume TBD, P.C.H. Martens and D. Cauffman eds. (Elsevier: Dordrecht). Publications Accepted: "Magnon modes for thin circular vortex-state magnetic dots", B. A. Ivanov and C. E. Zaspel, Appl. Phys. Lett. "Design and performance of a frequency chirped external cavity diode laser" by Kevin S. Repasky, Gregg W. Switzer, and John L. Carlsten. REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) and Summer Opportunities This summer 10 REU students are participating in the materials science program. They are: Kelly Cole (Bozeman, MT); Jennifer Foster (Geneseo, NY); Benjamin Grossman (Kalispell, MT); Kathy Hadley (Yakama, WA); River Hutchison (Claremont, CA); David Larson (Arcata, CA); Nicholas Plumb (Colorado Springs, CO); Vanessa Pool (Santa Cruz, CA); Stephen Stuk (Deland, FL); and Nate Winward (Bozeman, MT). The materials science portion focuses on experimental studies of magnetic film growth by MBE and CVD; designing piezoelectric actuators for motion control of robots for Mars missions; forensic, biofilm, and corrosion research using imaging and chemical analysis techniques; applied optics and optical storage. These positions were funded through the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program in materials research. Four students are part of the solar group's REU program, supported by NASA and AFOSR grants. Samuel Coradetti (from MIT) is working with Stephane Regnier, writing software to evaluate the complexity of solar active regions as a measure of their tendency to erupt. Jessica Dunlap (from Widener U.) is working with David McKenzie, analyzing X-ray images of solar flares to track dynamic magnetic features moving within them. Brian Lundberg (from the University of Arizona) is working with Bob Leamon, writing software to fit Bessell function solutions to interplanetary magnetic field data to identify magnetic clouds in the solar wind. Jason Scott (from MSU) works with Jonathan Cirtain, under the supervision of Piet Martens, on the analysis of SOHO/CDS & EIT and TRACE images of loops. Two MSU undergrads are continuing their research in the solar group over the summer. Trish Jibben just submitted a first-authored paper (congratulations!) to Astrophysical Journal, on the motions and mechanisms of solar surges (her capstone project). Zach Blehm supervised Darrell Bixby, a student in the American Indian Research Opportunities program, on a study of the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope data. "Power-dependent envelope soliton velocity in magnetic thin films", Craig Zaspel, B. Verkin Institute of Low Temperature Physics and Engineering, Kharkov, Ukraine, Jun. 2002. "Studying Propagations Fronts from a 'Thompson Wave' Observed in TRACE", Meredith Wills-Davey, AAS/SPD Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "Differential Emission Measure Error Analysis", Winter, H. D.; Martens, P. C. H., AAS/SPD meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "How to `Subtract' Spectrally Determined Intensities from a Coronal Loop on the Limb", Martens, P. C. H.; Cirtain, J. W.; Schmelz, J. T., AAS/SPD meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "Methods of Temperature and Emission Measure Determination of Coronal Loops", Cirtain, J. W.; Schmelz, J. T.; Martens, P. C. H., AAS/SPD meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "The Point Spread Function of the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope", McKenzie, D. E.; Gburek, S.; Acton, L. W.; Martens, P. C., AAS/SPD meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "Building a Virtual Solar Observatory: I Look Around and There's a Petabyte Following Me", Gurman, J. B.; Bogart, R.; Hill, F.; Martens, P., AAS/SPD meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "Lidar Source Development" NASA, $545,944. Kevin Repasky. Collaborative project with Electrical and Computer Engineering. United States Patent 6,407,831. Coherent interaction of optical radiation beams with optical-electronic materials of generalized crystal symmetry. Inventors: Rufus L. Cone (Bozeman, MT), Guanming Wang (Marlborough, MA), Yongchen Sun (Bozeman, MT), Randy W. Equall (Bozeman, MT), June 18, 2002, PCT/US98/15724, Filed: July 28, 1998, PCT Pub.No.WO99/05507, PCT Pub. Date: February 4, 1999. The Partners in Science Program was founded by Research Corporation in 1988 to provide high school science teachers with the opportunities to work at the "cutting edge" of science, to help make high school science teaching more attractive, to help teachers guide worthy students toward careers in science, to develop new teaching strategies, and to foster long-term scholarship collaborations. The Murdock Trust administers the program in the Pacific Northwest. The research work is done at a recognized research institution under the direction of a Principal Investigator who serves as the Partner's mentor during the project. The Partner receives a $7000 grant during each of two summers to cover a two-month stipend, travel to national meetings, and operating expenses associated with the project. Joy-Lyn McDonald is a Murdock Partner in Science at MSU and a science teacher from Sidney High School, Sidney MT. She is working with Dick Smith in the Ion Beams Group. During her first summer (2001) Joy-Lyn worked to become familiar with the way this group studies the growth and structure of transition metal films on Al surfaces. The goal is to grow films with an abrupt transition at the interface without significant intermixing. She became familiar with thin film characterization techniques using ion beams and learned how to grow thin Cu films on a variety of objects, from leaves to plastic bugs. In addition, she learned how the group uses computer simulations to visualize interface formation. During her second summer (2002) Joy-Lyn has learned about fuel cells, how they work and how they are made. She has constructed several alkaline fuel cells for her students to use in her science classes and worked on appropriate fuel cell laboratories for her students in Sidney. She will end her experience here this summer by powering a small, toy fire engine motor with her own fuel cell. "The Importance of Plasma Viscosity and Loop Geometry in Hydrostatic Coronal Loop Modeling." McMullen, R.A., Longcope, D.W., and Kankelborg, C.C., AAS/SPD meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 2-6. "The Point Spread Function of the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope", by D.E. McKenzie (MSU), S. Gburek (Polish Acad. of Sciences), L.W. Acton, & P.C. Martens (MSU), at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Albuquerque, NM. Loren Acton, served on AURA Solar Observatories Council, June 25 & 26, Tucson, AZ. And June 26-28 was on the External Review Panel U.S. Naval Research Lab Solar Physics and Space Plasma Environment Programs, Washington, DC. Dick Canfield traveled to Washington, DC, for a NASA Review Panel, June 27-28. John Carlsten visited ILX Lightwave in Boulder, CO, for a collaborative program, June 9-July 2. Alan Craig traveled to Minneapolis, MN and Chicago, IL, to visit the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University for collaboration, May 30-June 4. Alan Craig and Jason Stewart traveled to Los Angeles, CA, to collaborate with scientists at Caltech and JPL, June 12-14. Bill Hiscock traveled to NASA HQ May 22-24 to present a briefing on the Space Grant program to Courtney Stadd, NASA Chief of Staff and Presidential Liaison. While there he also visited with Orlando Figueroa, Director of the Mars Exploration Office, to discuss the possibilities of sending student designed and built spacecraft to Mars as a component of NASA's 2007 mission. Bill Hiscock and Dave Klumpar participated in a StudentSat Workshop June 17-23, in Boulder, CO. Yves Idzerda traveled to Washington, DC, for an NSF Panel Reverse Site Visit, June 11-14. Dick Smith attended an EPSCoR workshop at Pacific Northwest National Labs in Richland, WA, June 4-7. Dana Longcope, Richard Canfield, Dave Klumpar, Charles Kankelborg, David McKenzie, Alisdair Davey, Tetsuya Magara, June Sato, Dibyendu Nandi, Lewis Fox, Rebecca McMullen, Melissa Cirtain, Jonathan Cirtain, Meredith Wills-Davey, Henry Winter and Zachary Holder attended the American Astronomical Society meeting in Albuquerque, NM, June 1-6. Stephane Regnier and Brian Welsch attended the IAU Colloquium 188; Magnetic Coupling of the Solar Atmosphere in Santorini, Greece, June 9-16. John Belz and Malina Schindel traveled to Palo Alto, CA, to conduct experiments at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, June 21-July 1. Lewis Fox traveled to Palo Alto, CA, for collaboration with Tom Metcalf on MOSES, June 9-22. Robert Leamon attended the Spring AGU Meeting in Washington, DC, May 27-June 2. Kevin Kilty, B.S. in Physics at MSU, 1975, Ph.D. in Geophysics, U of Utah, attended the first annual meeting of the new Society of Amateur Scientists (SAS) from June 28 through June 30, 2002. The theme of the meeting was the 250th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in or near a thunderstorm to prove the equivalence of lightning and electricity. Dr. Shawn Carlson, executive director of SAS, and previously an editor of the Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American Magazine, organized the event to publicize the contributions of modern amateur scientists and to illustrate that one need not be a professional to do good science. At dinner on Saturday evening, June 29, the Society gave its special Benjamin Franklin Medal to Jack Horner, Curator Paleontology at the MSU Museum of the Rockies. The Society of Amateur Scientists is an organization of 1400+ dues-paying members who range from experimentalists who are engaged in topical, pertinent, self-financed research to a few persons with an interest in science fiction. Kevin ranked many of the papers presented among the best presentations he recalls at professional meetings. They ranged in topic from experiments proving an unexpectedly low metabolic rate for scorpions and ticks, to an overview of a program where grade school students, worldwide, make inexpensive but precise atmospheric measurements to help NASA monitor drift of their satellite instruments. Kevin’s talk was on applying design of experiments to field geology. SAS plans a second annual meeting next summer in Pasadena, California, and Kevin says, “I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it more than I ever have a meeting of the AGU, APS, or AAAS.” Kevin is a faculty member in Mechanical and Materials Engineering at WSU Vancouver. Kevin visited Rufus Cone on Sunday July 7, 2002. Kevin and Roy Nelson built the first pulsed lasers at MSU as Seniors in 1974-75. Thomas "Hanno" Brueckner (PhD '97) has been offered a position at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Hanno writes "That is a big place, 37000 students. The chairman there, Brian Tonner, is a surface science guy, and he asked if I know Gerry Lapeyre! To which I answered yes. He even said that Lapeyre used to call him 'Slick.' Oh, brother!!! I think every grad student in the MSU dept. has gotten tagged with that moniker. It's a small world, and it was really amusing. It goes down in my Hall of Fame for funny stories." Andy Stephenson, B.S. '01, has taken a job with Micron in Boise. His email: astephenson@iousa.net Brett Busch, B.S. '94, also joined Micron earlier this spring. His email: busch@micron.com. Christopher Beck, (B.S. '94) has been awarded a Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship for 2003-2004. Beck is one of only 35 people in the country to receive this distinguished award. The fellowship, which is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Congressional Fellowship Program, matches some of the best engineers and scientists in the country with congressional committees or individual members of Congress. Beck, who is being supported by the International Society for Optical Engineering and the Optical Society of America, was named a fellow last spring. As a Congressional Fellow, Beck will work in a number of capacities, from advising on science and technology issues to assisting with the drafting of legislation. "There are two routes a fellow can take," Beck says. "You can either join a committee or a congressman/congresswoman's staff. I'm leaning towards the latter since it will give me a chance to contribute in a variety of different ways." | |
B.S. | M.S. |
Awards Honors and New Positions Bill Hiscock has been elected Chair of the National Council of Space Grant Directors for the term July 1, 2002 -- June 30, 2004. Zeb Barber (pursuing a career in basic research and/or teaching), and Sara Maccagnano (wishes to conduct research either in a university system or the private sector) were two of three MSU under-graduates who are Goldwater recipients. The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,155 math, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. One hundred seventy-nine of the Scholars are men and 130 are women. Malina Schindel and Seth Timpano have been selected to receive Space Grant Scholarships for the Academy year 2002-2003. This honor reflects the students' past achievements as well as their present and future commitment to the aerospace sciences and engineering. They join an elite group of approximately 1,900 Space Grant Scholars and Fellows nationwide. Jack Dostal received the "Outstanding Graduate Student Award" at the Day of Student Recognition ceremony held by the MSU Office of Student Activities held at the end of the Spring semester. The award is given to an outstanding graduate student woman and graduate student man, based upon scholarship, leadership, and contributions to Montana State University. | |
Compiled & Edited by:Rose Waldon | |
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