CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE
Contents
“CASES”
It’s the first week of classes. How are things going for you? In the faculty meeting today, we will reflect on the first week of in-person and virtual classes and see what worked, what didn’t, and what surprised us.
I have been very impressed by the classes in which I’ve sat as an observer this week. Grad students have been doing a good job of getting cooperative problem solving sessions moving ahead, this week conducting just mathematics reviews with the students. Faculty have had some very lively and interactive classes this week. I heard stories about how engaged students seemed despite Zoom and the reality of distance learning. I know it won’t all be good… but there has been good, and that’s been something of a surprise.
One thing that shouldn’t surprise us is that COVID-19 cases have exploded on campus since students have returned to campus. Of the 45 cases so far in August (as of 8pm on August 27, 2020), about 32 have occurred since students started to return to campus on August 17. This is no surprise for a very simple reason. People came back to SMU from far and wide, and they brought with them a sample of the regional probability of contracting and harboring SARS-CoV-2. Now that they are back in semi-normal living conditions, the disease will inevitably find a foothold and begin doing what viruses do: using their hosts to spread and replicate, spread and replicate.
We’ve already been alerted to at least one contact-traced case of a student who is enrolled in a physics class and tested positive for COVID-19; thankfully, that class was conducted virtually for the first week, so we dodged a bullet. Will that happen next week? Or the week after? I know we are all wrestling with this questions now.
Fondren Science Building has been eerily quiet, even with the students back on campus. On Wednesday, when I came into the department to assist our newest faculty member, Dr. Krista Lynne Smith, I was struck by how calm and serene the hallways were even during class-change periods. Thanks to red/blue days, or due to a fraction of students being all-remote this semester, or maybe just luck, Fondren Science wasn’t the crammed and noisy place I am used to during class change periods. No students knocked on my door and asked for directions. In fact, I saw few students at all.
That may change as components of our own classes switch to in-person next week. We’ll see. I want you all to remain safe, so you can execute your teaching and research missions. Wear masks. Socially distance. Wash your hands. Be a role model of the best science-driven health policy so that others can learn from your example. These are all the most basic things we can do to protect each other and ourselves during this pandemic.
Sincerely,
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
DEPARTMENT VIEWS
First Department Colloquium on August 31: “Real-time Modelling During the COVID-19 Epidemic”
Prof. Dan Coombs (Mathematics, University of British Columbia) will discuss how modeling of the COVID-19 pandemic has worked throughout the outbreak. The event is entirely on Zoom. The Zoom room is password-protected and available to folks within SMU (contact the department if you meet the criteria for the Zoom connection and want to join in there); there is also a live stream of the event that is non-interactive but entirely public. More information is here: https://www.physics.smu.edu/web/seminars/poster.html?uid=309263501356739025187593483322754156938
Personal Protective Equipment – Important Information
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is available in the Physics Main Office for members of the department, but you have to ask for it. See the in-office staff schedule below so you know who will be available to assist you in-person during the week. There are individual hand sanitizer pump bottles, antibacterial wipes, gloves, masks, and face shields.
DO NOT THROW AWAY PUMP OR SPRAY BOTTLES. We can refill gel hand sanitizer pumps when needed, so save that bottle for the next round!
Undergraduate-Oriented Social Event: Evening of September 2, 2020
The event will be held from 6 – 7 p.m. on Wednesday, September 2 via Zoom. There will be an introduction to the faculty, as well as short presentations on career support, undergraduate research and programs. Please register below to receive the Zoom invitation for next Wednesday. The first 30 students who register and participate in the event will receive $10 gift cards.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1tdQ0Iz8eZnlsixcv2d0OlxH_hl1tVqUM42QMHRW2K2IhnQ/viewform
Thanks to everyone who participated in the August 26 Physics Department “Meet and Greet” event!
Thanks to the 38 participants of the August 26 departmental “meet and greet” event! It was a great chance to get to know a little about everybody. Thanks to Michele Hill for organizing and emceeing the event. The ice-breaker questions and break-outs were particularly popular, as people traded answers to questions like “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” and “If you had the ability to teleport anywhere right now, where would you go?”
FACULTY NEWS
Faculty Meeting – Friday (Today) at 2:45pm
This all-virtual faculty meeting will focus on 1 hour of discussion about the first week of classes. Faculty should bring information about the good, the bad, and the ugly, so that we can all learn from the experiences and help each other move forward through the next 13 weeks.
Faculty Leave Requests Due to the Dean by September 16
From Cindy Havens in the Dean’s Office: “Faculty leave requests are due September 16, 2020 to me electronically. Read and follow the current leave instructions, which can be obtained from your Department Chair. Department Chairs must be sure to indicate teaching arrangements and any service activities that will remain while the faculty member is on leave. For contractual leaves – junior faculty research leaves, administrative leaves (contractual) – these still require a leave form.”
Undergraduate Research Assistants: Don’t Get Started Until the Payroll Process is Completed
Faculty who have URA students are reminded that no students should be working right now. URA applications have been received but not approved. We have to wait for the URA applications to be approved, DocuSigns signed, AND the payroll forms to complete. Adam Neal sent an email notice about this August 18 AND this info is on the URA website: https://www.smu.edu/Provost/EngagedLearning/Undergraduate-Research/URA
SuperCDMS NSF Operations Grant Awarded to SMU
SMU has just been awarded the SuperCDMS operations grant by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This is a $750,000 per year award to fund all SuperCDMS experiment operations. SMU is the lead institution and will be issuing sub-awards to the University of California-Berkeley, Northwestern University, University of Florida, University of Colorado-Denver, and Santa Clara University. Professor Jodi Cooley led the proposal effort, coordinating the many colleagues and institutions whose components were part of this successful process. She is extremely grateful for the hard work her collaboration put in over the last year to shape a competitive proposal, and to the NSF for providing this first year of funding.
This money supports travel for participants, equipment for operations, and a portion of salaries for postdocs and faculty with leadership roles in the operations aspect of our experiment.
This news arrives in addition to the base SMU group funding information she shared in her postcard from the August 14, 2020 Friday Physics Newsletter.
STAFF NEWS
Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of August 31
The in-office staff schedule for the week of August 31 is as follows:
- Monday: Michele
- Tuesday: Lacey
- Wednesday: Michele
- Thursday: Lacey
- Friday: Lacey
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.
Full staff in-office calendar for August and September:
STUDENT NEWS
GRE® Subject Test Administrations Canceled for September 12 and October 17
A critical announcement was recently posted by ETS, the agency that runs the Graduate Record Exams (GREs) that many graduate schools require or recommend be part of applications:
The GRE® Subject Test administrations scheduled for September 12 and October 17, 2020, have been canceled due to impacts from the pandemic. Health concerns and local COVID-19 restrictions are preventing many institutions that have hosted GRE Subject Test administrations in the past from being able to provide a safe testing space. The Subject Tests cannot be offered online at this time, so the next opportunity to take a Subject Test — assuming health conditions improve — will be April 2021. If you were scheduled to test on a canceled test administration date, your test fee will be refunded automatically. The GRE® Program has begun sharing this news with graduate schools, and we suggest that you contact the programs to which you are applying for updates on their application requirements.
ETS Announcement, August 20, 2020
Therefore, all graduate programs cannot expect any students who graduated in Spring 2020 or who will graduate in 2021-2022 to have taken the GRE subject tests in time to submit an application for matriculation in Fall 2021.
Meet the New Graduate Students!
Lacey asked the new graduate students to tell us a little about themselves. Here’s what we learned…
Susan Bataju
I am from Nepal, Pokhara, which is a beautiful lake city surrounded by mountains. I miss them very much now. I went to University of Texas at Arlington, so I have been living in Arlington for past four years and call Texas my new home. I am interested in High Energy Physics. I love cats.
Pineapple in pizza, Ummm… Yes.
Sully Billingsley
I grew up on a small golf course my family owned in Kansas, then moved to Arizona when I was seven, and then moved to Arlington, TX for high school. I just graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington. For grad school, I am interested in growing my knowledge in the field of physics, to help teach the next group of physicists, and I hope to publish research that can benefit the world of physics. Outside of school I am interested in programming, artificial intelligence, exercise, cooking, and golf. If I could have the answer to any question it would be, “will we be able to know everything”? I am extremely against pineapple on pizza, there is too much moisture in pineapple so if you put it directly on pizza it makes it soggy AND it’s too sweet for pizza. If I had to add something else, it would be that I played on the collegiate golf team at UTA.
Ryne Dingler
I am a Texas local from Weatherford. I graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a Physics BS in 2019, with minors in astrophysics and math. I am an alumnus of the Louis Stokes Association for Minority Participation and UTA’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program as well as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. My undergraduate research involved topics in astrophysics utilizing the Chandra Telescope and the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) data as well as neutrino physics in collaboration with the Neutrino Experiment with Xenon TPCs (NEXT). As a graduate student, my interests are aimed towards rare particle detection and astronomical observation as a means of studying cosmological phenomena. During my spare time I enjoy cooking, playing the trumpet and ukulele, and watching comedies and animations. I love music (mostly metal), spicy food, grilled meat, my family and my fiancée, teaching, and, of course, physics!
Macon Magno
I grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee. I went to East Tennessee State University, which is in Johnson City. I got a B.S. in Physics and Applied Math with a minor in Astronomy. After that, I attended Texas A&M University-Commerce, and got an M.S. in Physics. Grad school interests me because it is a time to start doing your very own research, and it is also a time when you get pushed to your limits. My hobbies are reading, playing games, and working out. I have a special interest in working on and repairing computers. If I could know the answer to anything, then I think I would like to know where I will be in 10 years. I like pineapple on pizza.
Reagan Thornberry
I went to Texas A&M for my undergrad, but I actually grew up 20 minutes north of Dallas in Allen, Texas. Here at SMU, I want to do research in experimental particle physics. I like pineapple on pizza but with jalapenos, not ham. And an interesting fact about me is that I was born about 5 miles from SMU, making my current lifetime average velocity ~0.2 miles per year.
Rajeev Vaisakh
I am originally from Kerala, a southern state in India, although I was born and brought up (and currently reside) in New Delhi. I did my bachelor’s in Physics Honors from Delhi University (2014-17) and my Masters from the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (2017-19). I joined graduate school because I like solving mysteries and grad school is where we get the puzzle pieces to fit correctly and uncover the real picture (also we get people who can understand and laugh at our science jokes). My Hobbies include: creative writing (mostly poetry), reading (sci-fi, philosophy, and comics), tennis, cricket, and watching documentaries/series (favorites : ‘Cosmos’, and ‘The Mentalist’) If I could know the answer to something right now, it would be: are we truly alone in this universe? Was there anything before Big Bang? How big is Batman’s Utility belt? And finally, did the Flash mess up the timeline again? (Yes, I prefer DC over Marvel). I am virtually there but hoping to meet you all soon in real. Cheers!
Physics Chair’s Student Advisory Council Complete!
The Department Chair received 11 self-nominations from undergraduates or graduates to serve on the newly constituted Physics Department Chair’s Student Advisory Council. All positions on the council have now been filled (see below) and the council will begin meeting with the Chair monthly for the rest of the academic year.
| Council Position | Student Representative |
| First-Year | John Ridge |
| Sophomore Year | Elena Henderson |
| Junior Year | Stephanie Gilchrist |
| Senior Year | Noah Pearson |
| Doctoral Program | Ishwita Saikia |
ALUMNI NEWS
We are excited to begin a new section of the newsletter focusing on alumni! If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU and wish to share news with the community here, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition!
Vladimir Jovanovich to Defend His PhD Thesis in Neuroscience
On Wednesday, September 2, 2020 at 5pm US Central Time, SMU graduate and Physics Minor Vladimir Jovanovich will defend his PhD thesis in neuroscience. Vladimir has been conducting his research in University of California – San Diego (UCSD) Health Sciences Neurograd program, with a focus in computational neuroscience. The defense will be conducted entirely online. We wish Vladimir the best in this major step forward in his career!
Check out Stephen Ornes’ Latest Article in Scientific American: “When Scientific American Made M. C. Escher Famous”
Stephen Ornes’ (SMU ’96) latest article is published in Scientific American and looks at how the games columnist, Martin Gardner, helped to make M.C. Escher a house-hold name. If you have ever done mathematics recreationally, you probably have Gardner to thank for that. Enjoy this great read over the weekend!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-scientific-american-made-m-c-escher-famous/
THE BACK PAGE
This week, we provide some intellectual fun for all to try! Below is a reproduction of “The Physics Challenge for Teachers and Students” from the latest issue of The Physics Teacher (The Physics Teacher 58, 359 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5145538).
A circuit contains an ideal battery with emf ε, two capacitors, and an inductor, connected as shown. The values of L and C are known. What is the maximum charge of the capacitor C after the switch is closed?
“May the charge grow large”
