Board of Visitors
The department's Board of Visitors met October 29-30 to discuss research and education issues. Attending were members Audrey T.S.-Stelson, Macy Summers, Phil Burt, Dennis Hall, Gordon Soper, John Fox, Richard Martin, and Jim Roberto.
Faculty
 Professor Stu Elston and Associate Professor Hanno Weitering were honored at the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Convocation Awards at the end of the 1999 academic year. Dr. Elston was honored for his work with "Scholars-in-the-Schools," in which he volunteered at Bearden High School. Dr. Weitering won the Junior Faculty Research/Creative Achievement Award.
The June 24 edition of Physical Review Focus highlighted the work of Dr. Jim Thompson and his colleagues with "Windows on the Superconducting Soul," an explanation of how a magnetic field can alter the behavior of vortices in superconductors.
Dr. Stu Elston instructed a "Laboratory-Based Hands-On Workshop" for Knoxville area high school physics teachers July 13-14. The program emphasized basic E&M concepts and provided some hands-on work in the photoelectric effect, which often appears on AP exams.
The September 24 issue of Science Magazine featured work by Dr. Ward Plummer, Dr. Hanno Weitering, graduate student Anatoli Melechko, and their collaborators. Their work demonstrated how isolated impurity atoms or "dirt" can affect the nucleation and condensation of a new crystal structure as the temperature gets colder.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced in October that the UT-Battelle team had won the bid to manage the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Lee Riedinger, physics department head, will become the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at ORNL in April 2000. Dr. Riedinger recently discovered another interesting tie between Battelle and the physics department. Dr. William Evans, head of the Ohio State Chemistry Department from 1928 until 1941, was offered the job as Battelle Memorial Institute's first president. Even though the position would triple his $7K annual salary, he elected to stay at Ohio State because of his dedication to teaching. Dr. Evans' daughter, Jane Ann, married a young physicist named Alvin Nielsen, who became the physics department head at UT.
On October 1, Dr. Witek Nazarewicz was named Deputy Director of Science for the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is responsible for operation of the HRIBF Program Advisory Committee, interaction with the Users Executive Committee, advising the facility on priorities for beam and equipment development, and presenting the HRIBF scientific program to the outside community. Dr. Nazarewicz will continue as a faculty member in the physics department, fulfilling his HRIBF duties as an ORNL adjunct staff member.
Dr. Carol Bingham and Dr. Ward Plummer got early Christmas gifts on December 13, when they were notified they had each won awards from SARIF (Scholarly Activity/Research Incentive Fund). Dr. Bingham won $48,000 to purchase fast electronics for decay spectroscopy, while Dr. Plummer won $62,440 for equipment to develop a high-temperature single crystal growth facility. Both professors secured matching funds from other sources to carry out their research. The SARIF awards are distributed by the UT Office of Research.
Staff
It never slows down for Paul Lewis, who spent the summer teaching all ages about astronomy. He taught courses for Kids U, the University's summer school for kids grades 2-12, as well as aerospace education classes for teachers. The fall semester had him running all over town for public observing sessions on Mercury's Transit of the Sun (November 15 at Borders Bookstore in Knoxville), and the Leonid Meteor Showers (November 17 at Big South Fork). On November 12, he completed an astronomy outreach program at Maynard Elementary School by helping novice astronomers launch the rockets they made during the workshop. Go to the
TRDC Web site for photographs, as well as news on Paul's astronomy program.
Congratulations to Linda Robinson, who learned this fall that she would be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the prestigious honor society for the liberal arts and sciences. Linda is finishing up her undergraduate degree in political science and works part-time in the physics main office. She also has
designs on entering the Peace Corps after she graduates this year.
Students
Congratulations to our recent graduates:
Summer 1999
Sam Held, M.S.
Ismail, Ph.D.
Brent Stevens, B.S.
Kyujeong Song, Ph.D.
Shuhei Yoshida, Ph.D.
Fall 1999
Cathy Large, M.S.
Saskia Mioduszewski, Ph.D.
Marina Shmakov, Ph.D.
James Sternberg, M.S.
Mission Accomplished
Congratulations to the graduate students who passed their preliminary examinations in the fall:
- Jian He
- Zhaoning Li (UTSI)
- Ryan Mitchell
- Jason Newby
- John Pierce
- Korey Sorge
- Alex Thesen
- James Wicker
New Faces
The department welcomed 14 new graduate students for the fall 1999 semester.
They are:
- Mickhail Batygov
- Wei Jiang
- Zhanwen Ma
- Chad Middleton
- Scott Ness
- Hyo-In Park
- Oscar Restrepo
- Malachi Schram
- Hojung Sin
- Izabel Szlvfarska
- Nick Tantawy
- Alexander Thesen
- Wei Tian
- Josh Williams
Alumni
EG&G Ortec recognized Adam Berryhill (B.S. physics, 1997) for taking on a daunting project and seeing it through to a successful completion. According to his supervisor, he built a detector that one of Ortec's competitors declared would be difficult detectors to undertake. It was a prototype for the EXOGAM, a gamma-ray spectrometer being developed to study the exotic nuclei at the SPIRAL radioactive beams facility at the GANIL laboratory in France. After building the detector, Adam worked with customers at the University of Liverpool to operate it.
Chris Hawkins (B.S. physics, 1999) is now working as a computer support specialist in the math department. He plans to enter graduate school next fall to work toward a master's degree in geology, with an emphasis on environmental geophysics. Congratulations to Chris and his bride-to-be (Laura Melosh, a graduate of UT's Wildland Recreation program) on their upcoming March wedding.
Back to Cross Sections, Fall 1999 issue.
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