Saul Propp successfully passed the Physics PhD Qualifying exam, which is a multiple-day written exam covering a wide array of problems in advanced physics. All graduate students must pass this exam to continue in the PhD program, and it represents a major hurdle to advance to PhD candidacy – many don’t pass. But by studying for and taking the exam, students synthesize and unify what they have learned in their physics coursework, and gain a breadth of knowledge in multiple fields of physics, a set of theoretical tools to tackle various problems in research, and confidence to tackle physics problems that are new to them. Many students need to re-take the exam after their first summer in the program, but Saul studied hard and did great. Great job, Saul!

Alice Greenberg successfully passed the Physics PhD Qualifier exam, which is a multiple-day written exam covering a wide array of problems in advanced physics. All graduate students must pass this exam to continue in the PhD program, and it represents a major hurdle to advance to PhD candidacy. By studying for and taking the exam, students synthesize and unify what they have learned in their physics coursework, and gain a breadth of knowledge in multiple fields of physics, a set of theoretical tools to tackle various problems in research, and confidence to tackle new physics problems. Many students need to re-take the exam after their first summer in the program, but Alice studied hard and commanded that test. Great job, Alice!

This summer, the McMorran group welcomes two NSF REU students to the lab, Matthew Bowden and Hannah DeVyldere. Matthew is visiting us from Seattle Pacific University, and will be working with PhD student Jordan Pierce on optimizing the design of diffraction holograms for producing sculpted electron beams. Hannah is visiting us from Linfield College. She first heard about the work in our group when I visited Linfield last year and gave a talk to the undergrads about research at UO. Hannah will be working with PhD student Alice Greenberg on manipulating nanoparticles using holographically sculpted electron beams.

Tyler applied for and received a student travel award to present his poster at the 47th Annual DAMOP Meeting on May 23-27, 2016 in Providence, Rhode Island. His poster, titled “An orbital angular momentum spectrometer for electrons” discusses a scheme for measuring the distribution of orbital angular momentum components in an electron beam. Great work Tyler!

Congratulations to Eryn Cangi, who was accepted to do research at Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics with Dr. Daniel Abrams. She will be working on applications of mathematical models of synchronicity to problems in orbital dynamics of exoplanet systems and other astrophysical systems.

Congratulations to Fehmi Yasin, who was awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Congratulations to Alex Schachtner, who was accepted into the PhD program at University of Florida! He will begin as a Gator graduate student in Fall 2015.

Congratulations to Tyler Harvey and Jordan Pierce, who recently advanced to PhD candidacy! For their comprehensive exams, they successfully presented their respective research in our lab to a group of professors.