2013-2014 sps annual chapter report...

2013-2014 SPS Annual Chapter Report Template

Cover Sheet: Basic Chapter Information

SPS ZONE 4

(for help see the Zone Map Here: http://www.spsnational.org/governance/handbook/websites.htm)

SPS Chapter Number 4155

School Name University of Maryland- College Park

Sigma Pi Sigma Chapter Number (if applicable)

052

Chapter Advisor Donna Hammer

Email [email protected]

Name of person responsible for preparing the report, Title

Kevin Cheriyan, Delilah Gates, Gagan Tunuguntla, Max Burns, Donna Hammer

Please remember Step #1 – Updating Chapter Informationhttp://www.aip.org/spsinfo/report/entry.jsp

University of Maryland- College Park, #4155 Annual Chapter Report 2013-14

Annual Chapter Report, page 3

Part 1: Our chapter’s interactions and participation in SPS National Programs.

Did your chapter vote in the 2013 SPS National Council election?

Yes No

Did your chapter vote in the 2014 SPS National Council election?

Yes No

1. Marsh W. White Award: Percussion Garden In November 2013, the UMD SPS chapter applied for a Marsh W. White Award to aid with an outreach project we needed financial help with. The project concerned the Port Discovery Children’s Museum in Baltimore, MD, which had, a few months earlier, requested help from the UMD SPS with an exhibit known as the Percussion Garden. The Museum needed help incorporating physics into pieces that children played with to make sounds and music. We at UMD SPS decided that we would get help through the Marsh W. White Award, and put together some demonstrations and signs that would explain acoustic physics to children under 10 in a very rudimentary and entertaining way. In May of 2014, we asked National SPS for an extension on the project until September, 2014.

The Percussion Garden team at their second meeting. From left SPS members, Kevin Cheriyan, Austin Gerrety, Robert Rienstra, American Meteorological Society member Grace Duke, Kevin Dunlap, Delilah Gates, and Faculty Advisor Donna Hammer. 2. Associate Zone Counselor Nominee 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 SPS member, Kevin Cheriyan ran as a candidate for the position of Associate Zone Counselor in the years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, and won the position. 3. Career Pathways Toolbox Workshop, American Center for Physics After the Zone 4 Meeting that took place on the UMD campus March 7th and March 8th, Toni Sauncy agreed to host the Meeting attendees at the American Center for Physics in a Career Pathways Toolbox Workshop. Important professional skills such as resume building were presented along with a detailed discussion of the application of the physics major to the modern job market.



Toni Sauncy leading the AIP Career Pathways Toolbox Workshop after the Zone 4 Meeting, on March 9, 2014. 4. Tellering the 2014 National Council Election Newly elect UMD SPS Vice-President for the year 2014-2015, Brendan Rappazzo volunteered to count the votes for the 2014-2015 National Election at the American Center for Physics in College Park, MD. 5. Mid-Atlantic CUWiP, 2014 We also hosted a coffee break-station at the Conference for Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) that our department and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) co-hosted January 17-19, 2014.

In the front from left, SPS members Delilah Gates, Erin Uhlfelder, Hannalore Gerling-Dunsmore and standing third from left Sigma Pi Sigma advisor Sonali Shukla, and first from left, standing, SPS chapter advisor Donna Hammer, at the Mid-Atlantic CUWiP held at UMD in January 2014.



Part 2: Our Chapter’s interactions with the professional physics community outside the college/university

The Zone 4 Meeting for Spring, 2014 was held at the University of Maryland- College Park from March 7-8. It was a great honor to host the Zone Meeting on our campus after 10 years. More than 50 students attended over the 2 days, representing the following nine different institutions. 1) University of Maryland- College Park 2) Northern Virginia Community College 3) Randolph Macon College 4) University of Mary Washington 5) Montgomery College 6) George Washington University 7) Morgan State University 8) Towson University 9) Old Dominion University On the evening of Friday, March 7, Daniel Golombek gave a lecture on the Hubble Telescope and its lasting effects. After hearing Dan speak at the September 2013 SPS National Council Meeting, we were eager to have him speak at our Zone Meeting, and were glad when he accepted.

UMD SPS President Delilah Gates introduces the UMD chapter for the Zone Meeting on Friday, March 7, 2014. On Saturday, May 8th, 1997 Nobel Laureate Dr. William Phillips, gave a talk titled “Time, Einstein and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe” (pictured below).



After Dr. Phillips’ talk, 11 posters were presented by students in our newly constructed Physical Sciences Complex.

After the poster session, lunch was distributed, and 2 lab tours were organized to Dr. Daniel Lathrop’s Non-Linear Dynamics Laboratory and Dr. Gretchen Campbell’s JQI lab.



Dr. Daniel Lathrop introducing the Zone Meeting visitors to his Non-Linear Dynamics Lab. Inside the

metal cage is the 3-meter Dynamo experiment designed to simulate the Earth's core using liquid Sodium. After the lab tours, the second lecture of the day was given by Dr. John Mather, 2006 Nobel Laureate, on “Science System Engineering for the James Webb Space Telescope”. Later in the evening, we were honored that Dr. Mather and his wife decided to stay with us for an informal dinner and discuss matters that the Zone Meeting attendees wanted to discuss.

2006 Nobel Laureate John Mather posing for pictures with SPS members from UMD, Towson and NVCC. As the final event of the Zone Meeting, Toni Sauncy, Director of National SPS helped give out the awards for the posters with Donna Hammer, Faculty Advisor of the UMD SPS chapter.



Part 3: Our chapter’s interactions in our campus community

To raise money for our chapter every semester, UMD SPS have members volunteer their time to sell

donuts every morning. We sell donuts at the front lobby of the physics building from 8 am to 12pm, on weekdays. By volunteering their time every morning, our members are taking part in something that has been a tradition at our SPS chapter (on and off) for several decades. The prices we set for donuts (75 cents) and coffee (50 cents, 40 with cup) have stayed the same for about 10 years. We have drivers volunteer to pick up donuts from our local Shoppers every morning. All other supplies are bought in bulk from Costco about twice per month. It is by selling donuts and coffee that our chapter is entirely self-sufficient. We do not depend on the physics department or the University for funding.

A donut breakfast at the Zone Meeting on Saturday, March 8th. Our chapter decided to give out donuts and bagels for breakfast, to give our visitors a taste of our authentic Shoppers crafted donuts.

Did your chapter meet regularly this year? Yes No If yes, with what frequency? Weekly About how many people attended your regular meetings? ~20-30 How many people involved in your local chapter are SPS National members? (i.e., they pay SPS National dues of $24)?

7



Our SPS chapter held weekly meetings on Thursday evenings. We would invite a faculty member from the physics or related department to give an informal lecture on their research. In the 2013-2014 academic year, we have had the following speakers talk about their research. See the corresponding pictures and captions for more information.

Dr. Nicholas Schmerr on Planetary Geology

Dr. Tom Cohen on Quantum Chromodynamics. This picture shows a post-lecture interaction from our member Hannalore with Dr. Cohen.



Dr. Dianne O’Leary (pictured above) lectures on Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing to our SPS members. Dr. Douglas Hamilton (pictured below) from the Department of Astronomy on discovering rings of Saturn and moons of Pluto.



We invited two graduate students, Eric Raymer (pictured above) and Katie Foote from North Carolina State University to talk about their physics graduate program and the research they do at NCSU.

Other speakers we have had include Dr. Jordan Goodman who spoke about his work with the ICECUBE and HAWC Experiment, Dr. Alessandra Buonanno who talked about her work on General Relativity and the LIGO experiment, and Dr. Eun-Suk Seo on the ISS-CREAM experiment for cosmic rays. In previous years, besides physics, we have also invited faculty from the department of astronomy, geology, mathematics, computer science and philosophy. Apart from speakers, we try to reserve tours of the department’s physics labs when possible. In Fall 2013, we were excited to have Dr. Luis Orozco arrange a tour of the Joint Quantum Institute’s Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) laboratory to learn about controllable atoms on circuits and about how ultra-cold temperatures of microKelvins are achieved.

A SQUID grad student explaining the involved lasers to SPS member Gagan Tunuguntla.



In Spring 2014, Dr. Timothy Koeith from the Department of Nuclear Engineering invited us to tour the Radiation Facilities at UMD, mainly the Maryland University Training Reactor (MUTR). MUTR is a 250 kW open pool type Co-60 nuclear reactor, that provides teaching, research and service for UMD and its collaborators.

Dr. Koeth lectures the chapter on the physics of the reactor before the tour.

Pictured below are some of our members at the Reactor (in the background) during the tour.



Undergraduate General Relativity Course

Our SPS chapter helped promote an undergraduate General Relativity course in our campus by hosting Dr. Sergio Picozzi, who wanted to teach an undergraduate course in General Relativity. His dilemma was that he needed enough students to express interest, showing the department a need for the course. UMD SPS, over a period of a semester procured more than 30 signatures from students who were willing to register for the course. Due to this collective effort, the first General Relativity course in UMD history is being offered starting July 12, 2014 as a Summer course.

Undergraduate physics tutoring In Fall of 2013, our chapter began offering tutoring to undergraduate physics majors. Our mem-bers picked up two hour shifts every weekday to tutor undergraduates needing help in any phys-ics courses.



Part 4: Our chapter’s interaction with the off-campus public community

Maryland Day The University of Maryland hosts its annual “Maryland Day”, an open-house for the campus, on the last weekend of every April. It attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year. One of the more popular stations of the Day is the Physics Department’s Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Sta-tion. This year, the Department gave SPS complete control of the ice cream station. We went through about 40 liters of Liquid Nitrogen and 2 gallons of ice-cream mix.

UMD SPS President handing out ice-cream mix to eager visitors.

Physics is Phun The UMD Physics Department has been hosting physics lecture-demo programs to the public since 1982, known as physics is phun. Volunteers from and outside the department have con-sistently helped to make physics more accessible for middle-school and high-school aged chil-dren and their parents through this wonderful program. For the last two years, every program (of which there are 4 every year) has been consistently supported by chapter members.

Kevin Cheriyan helping middle-school children understand centripetal motion by having them rotate buckets of water tied to strings.

Marsh W. White Project: Percussion Garden



See Part 1 for our description of Percussion Garden to see how we are trying to make physics accessible to children under 10 and their parents at the Port Discovery Children’s Museum at Baltimore, MD

Maryland Food Bank o On a Saturday morning in April, about 10 members from our chapter volunteered at the

Maryland Food Bank, helping to pack sandwiches and canned food for children in need. Standing, from left to right, Christiane Ebongue, Vadim Korotkikh, Robert Rienstra, and Max

Burns. Sitting, from left to right, Lexi Suberi, Sylvester Gates, Delilah Gates, and Andrew Baer.



Part 5: FREESTYLE Category: The way our chapter strives to further the SPS Purpose and Mission.

Members of UMD SPS visited the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. to hand out copies of particle

physics-related paintings to offices of congressmen and congresswomen, to encourage them to attend a seminar that celebrated the discovery of the Higgs Boson. We visited the offices of every congressperson to remind them of the importance of the funding of particle physics and Fermilab. The paintings were by Xavier Cortada of Florida International University. Shown above is the flyer that we handed out at the Capitol. The five different paintings that we handed

out are shown at the bottom.

2013-2014 sps annual chapter report...

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