Boston University Physics News

Female physicists change topic from labs to life

May 05, 2008

Women in Physics is proving the power of the personal narrative. Through a series of biographical seminars held this spring, WIP has made good on its promise to showcase the accomplishments of female scientists and educate the physics community on relevant issues. The talks are by women about women – yet have attracted and engaged both men and women. And in an environment where only 8 percent of faculty and 13 percent of graduate students are female, that means WIP has turned up the volume on a voice that has been relatively quiet.

Read the full story here.
Slices of electromagnetism served up in class

May 01, 2008

As a delectable means to celebrate the end of the semester, students in Professor So-Young Pi’s Electromagnetic Field and Waves course brought in a special-edition cake, adorned with Maxwell’s Equations.

The creation, designed by Rosie’s Bakery, was filled with strawberries and cream. Professor Pi said she found it delicious.

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Professor Redner ponders the effects of zealots and vacillators

March 31, 2008

What do air particles and voters have in common? According to Professor Sid Redner, they’re a lot more alike than you’d think.

As a statistical physicist, Redner applies the same physical principles used to study interacting particles to social situations, and in turn hopes to model large-scale social phenomena, such as voting behavior. “The human world provides such a rich laboratory that I can see statistical physics almost everywhere that I look.”

You can read more about Professor Redner’s research in his recent interview with physicsworld.com.
Professor Averitt receives DARPA Young Faculty Award

March 20, 2008

Professor Richard Averitt has received a DARPA Young Faculty Award for his proposal “Metamaterial Enhanced MEMS for Terahertz Technology”. The Young Faculty Award program is designed to seek out ideas from non-tenured faculty with an emphasis on ideas that are innovative, speculative, and high-risk. DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office sponsors the program. Read more about this award here.
Elementary education bolstered by green science

March 20, 2008

“The United States is losing its competitive edge in science and engineering, one bored kid at a time.”

A recent article in BU Today describes this dilemma, and the ways in which several BU professors are trying to change this. They are developing hands-on programs that will help elementary school teachers more effectively approach math and science in the classroom.

Professors Bennett Goldberg and Andrew Duffy, as well as other members of the Boston University community, are featured.

Read the full article in BU Today.
Education Brought to You by Bruce Willis and Will Smith

March 17, 2008

In PY103, “Cinema Physica,” Hollywood is a teaching tool. Professor Andy Cohen points to action films to demonstrate the possibilities of physics, while bringing the excitement of science to students outside the field.

“When you do an experiment, you don’t know what the answer is going to be,” he says. “And because we don’t know whether the movies actually obey the laws of physics, they are our experiments. They are our laboratories.”

To find out more, and catch a video that takes you inside the classroom, click here.
GIMS Travel Grant awarded to graduate student Utku Kemiktarak

March 14, 2008

Utku Kemiktarak, graduate student and recent author of a Nature-published paper, won a travel grant from the APS Topical Group on Instrument and Measurement Science.

GIMS awarded travel grants of up to $800 each to students as the first author of contributed papers in sessions sponsored by GIMS at the March Meeting. Applicants were chosen on the basis of the quality of their work as evidenced by the abstract of the paper, a letter of support from their thesis advisor and the travel distances.
Scientific Instrument Facility Brings Concepts to Completion

March 13, 2008

BU’s Scientific Instrument Facility (SIF), a 10,500-square-foot shop in the basement of the Physics Research Building, can build it all.

The Machine Shop opened its doors to the BU community in 1987, using its state-of-the-art equipment to fill a wide variety of requests. Its small staff develops intricate machinery for Physics, the School of Management and beyond. One example? A soap canister that plays music every time the dispenser is pumped.

To find out more about SIF, check out this article from BU Today.
Professor El-Batanouny Wins Jefferson Fellowship

March 03, 2008

Professor Michael El-Batanouny has been selected as a 2008-2009 Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. State Department.

This select fellowship program was established in 2003 as an initiative of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State to expand on scientific expertise within the Department.

Fellows work full-time for one year in the State Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development, after which they remain available to the Department as consultants as they return to their academic careers. The program is centered on the notion that “science and technology make fundamental contributions to the security, economic, health, and cultural foundations of modern societies, and are integral to the development and implementation of foreign policy.”

To learn more, click here.
Professor Redner Among APS Outstanding Referees

February 29, 2008

Professor Sid Redner was recently named an Outstanding Referee of the American Physical Society. The APS award program is in its first year, aiming to applaud the efforts of a small number of their 42,000 referees annually.

The editors of the APS journals are honoring Redner and others whose “reports and advice have helped to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics, while creating a resource that is invaluable to authors, researchers, students, and readers.”