One of the largest gatherings of CSU faculty, alumni, and students at the annual American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting occurred in Las Vegas in March of this year. APS March Meeting is the largest physics scientific community meeting with 10,000+ contributed and invited presentations by physicists from around the world. This year CSU physics has been represented by three undergraduates, two CSU physics alumni, and three CSU physics faculty who gave five talks and three posters.

Congratulations to physics senior Patrick Herron who won the Best Presentation Award in the undergraduate research session. His research project “On the Importance of the Direct Measurements of the Specific Refractive Index for Microgels and Micelles” was supported by a CSU Undergraduate Summer Research Award (URSA) and advised by Dr. Streletzky. This is the sixth time a CSU undergraduate has won the award at this meeting.

Physics majors Collin Douglas and George Tomaras presented posters on their summer research supported by CSU’s USRA program and advised by Drs. Streletzky and Fodor, respectively. Patrick Herron also presented a poster prepared together with physics major Jordan Miller (who could not attend the meeting) on local physics outreach efforts of CSU’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS). 

Alumni Dr. Phil Dee’ 13, currently a physics postdoctoral associate at the University of Florida, and Jacob Adamszyk’ 20, now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, delivered their oral presentations and attended every CSU student poster presentation, providing each student with detailed feedback and academic career advice. The CSU students and CSU Alumni then joined Drs—Fodor, Kaufman, and Streletzky for a reunion dinner and some exploration of Las Vegas.

Hopefully, this tradition of physics students, faculty, and alumni getting together at the annual APS March Meetings will continue as we continue to build a strong physics program at CSU!