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McKinley Brumback ’14 and Katie Pierce ’14 are working with Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly and her husband, University of Pennsylvania Postdoctoral Researcher Brian Connolly, on a summer research project that has the potential to fundamentally change much of what is known about the universe.

As a physics and philosophy dual concentrator, Emi Birch ’14 has taken an interdisciplinary approach to her education, an approach that is also reflected by her summer research project. Birch is attempting to replicate an experiment conducted by French physicist Jean Foucault in 1851. Foucault hung a 67 meter (about 220 ft.) pendulum from the roof of the Pantheon, in Paris, in order to demonstrate the rotation of the earth.

Hamilton faculty Wei-Jen Chang (biology), Natalia Connolly (physics), and Alistair Campbell (computer science) have just been awarded a Multi-Investigator Cottrell College Science Award by the Research Corporation.  This award, in the amount of $100,000, is for developing novel computational techniques for investigating gene interaction networks in fish parasite called Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (Ich).

According to The Wall Street Journal’s “Market Watch,” alternative energy is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States.  Elizabeth Jonathan ’13, a physics concentrator and mathematics minor, and Sunrose Shrethsa ’14, a physics and mathematics double concentrator, are using their summer research grant to investigate new possibilities in this dynamic field.

Spencer Olsson ’14,  a math concentrator with minors in physics and sociology, is spending this summer examining 28,000 rows of data on two fish parasites, a field of study normally researched by Hamilton’s biology department. Olsson is  applying a new physics research technique to the field of biology.

Professor of Physics Emeritus Philip Pearle published “Simple Derivation of the Lindblad Equation” in the July issue of European Journal of Physics.  

Six members of the Hamilton faculty were recognized for their research and creative successes with the Dean’s Scholarly Achievement Awards, presented by Dean of Faculty Patrick Reynolds at Class & Charter Day on Friday, May 4. The Awards recognize individual accomplishments, but reflect a richness and depth of scholarship and creative activity across the entire faculty.  The awards were made in three categories: Career Achievement, Early Career Achievement and Notable Year Achievement.

Professor of Physics Ann Silversmith presented a talk and a poster at the annual spring meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS) in San Francisco.  

Professor of Physics Emeritus Philip Pearle published a paper titled “Cosmogenesis and Collapse,” in the January edition of the journal Foundations of Physics. The article presents a quantum theory way of creating the universe out of a state of nothingness.

Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly recently participated in a summer outreach program with four high school students and their physics teacher, Jeff  Rodriguez, at Anderson High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.