Commencement was held on Friday, May 13.  Departmental ceremonies were held for fourteen Physics graduates and their families.

CLASS OF 2004

(left to right) Top Row:  Daniel J. Costantino, Frank P. D'Amore, Thomas Farley, Christopher McKittrick, Jeffrey Chin, (December 2003), Christopher G. Verzella

Bottom Row:  Douglas P. Jenkins, Teri-Lynn Allonardo, Erin E. Welsh, Morgan Farnkopf, Richard L. Santillo, III, Jessica M. Woods, Christopher Bertinato.  Not pictured are December, 2003 graduates Jessica Lee Evans and Dana M. Hovey.

Dr. Marty Becker retuned to South Dakota this summer to continue his research on shark and fish fossils in the area surrounding Badlands National Park .  This visit resulted in the collection of many new fossil specimens that are currently under study.  As a result of previous research in this area, a manuscript titled:  Chondrichthyans of the Fairpoint Member of the Fox Hills Formation (Maastrichtian), Meade County , South Dakota will be published in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology this December.  The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology is recognized as one of the premier, international journals in the field of paleontology.  Many phases of the project were completed with the assistance of two TCNJ students, Ryan Earley (class of 2002), and Daniel Brady (class of 2004).  The summer of 2004 also resulted in the discovery of a new upper Cretaceous shark site in the vicinity of Malvern , Arkansas .  The project has resulted in an abstract accepted for publication this November by the Geologic Society of America.  Preliminary research will be presented at the Geologic Society of America national meeting this fall in Denver , Colorado .

Throughout the 2003-2004 school year, Dr. Becker continued his research in marine shark and ray fossils in New Jersey .  This resulted in the completion of a project on fossil sawfish from Monmouth County .  With the assistance of Daniel Brady, a manuscript titled:  Reconstructing the Rostrum of the Sawfish, Ischyhriza mira, from the Lower Navesink Formation (Campanian-Maastrichtian), Monmouth County , New Jersey will be published this fall in Northeastern Geology and Environmental Science.  An additional project involving shrimp coprolites from the same field area is also underway.  The project is the result of over ten years of fossil collection in the northern coastal plain of New Jersey.  A manuscript on the subject was recently submitted for review to Ichnos, the international trace fossil journal.

Dr. Danielle Dalafave  presented  “Creating Engaging Science Courses:  Applying the SENCER Model”, S. Sherman , B. Dixon, and D. Dalafave, at the Association of American Colleges and Universities conference “Pedagogies of Engagement:  New Designs for Learning In and Across the Disciplines” in Chicago , IL in April of 2004. She wrote a workbook for a newly developed course for Elementary Education Majors entitled “Physics for Elementary Education Majors Laboratory Manual”, through John Wiley & Sons.

Dr. Dalafave, along with P. DePasquale and D. Reimer received a TCNJ Career Development Grant in the amount of $1,500 for “Quantitative Literacy Across the Curriculum:  Everybody’s Project” for the Mathematical Association of America’s Professional Enhancement Workshop participation in Leavenworth, WA in August of 2004.

Dr. Alan Hoffmeister continues to work with the long term, large scale evolutionary patterns in the drilling predator-prey system.  Current projects include work on drilling predation brachiopods from the New Albany Shale (Devonian) from Indiana and the Magdalena Group (Pennsylvanian) of New Mexico .

In 2004, Dr. Hoffmeister presented results of his research at the Southeast regional and annual meetings of the Geologic Society of America.  A paper comparing the drilling intensity on bivalve mollusks and brachiopods from West Texas was published in Acta Palaeontologica Pononica earlier this year.

Dr. Romulo Ochoa attended the Conference for Physics Chairs, "Physics in the Public Interest" sponsored by the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers held in College Park, MD on June 4-6 (2004). He also coauthored with Drs. Kolp, Dalafave, Gleeson, and Pfeiffer the fourth edition of the General Physics Laboratory Manual published by Wiley. New experiments include using video cameras and digitizing techniques to study projectile motion, motion sensors to verify Newton's Laws and constant acceleration motion and other equipment where extensive use of PCs is required.

Dr. Raymond J. Pfeiffer studies the physics of interacting stars in binary systems by analyzing UV spectra obtained with the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) space-satellite telescope.  The research also involves the development of computer models to represent the shapes of the stars and reproduce, by numerical integration of the radiation transfer in a system, the observed variable light of that system as the component stars revolve around their common center of gravity and the wind-interaction effects on the spectral line profiles.  After a 6-year effort, Dr. Pfeiffer has published his 43^rd publication entitled The Winds of Hot, Close Binaries; Paper 4:  EM Carinae (HD97484) (with D.J. Strickland), in the British international journal, The Observatory.

Dr. Pfeiffer has recently made major revisions in his monograph “A Manual for Introductory Astronomy,” which was published by Thompson International Publishing this past August.  The manual is used here at TCNJ in the course AST 161, Introduction to Astronomy

Dr. Thulsi Wickramasinghe and Dr. Ochoa had their manuscript "An Analysis of the Linearity of Half Periods of the Lorentz Pendulum" accepted for publication in the American Journal of Physics. He is a reviewer for Physical Reviews and the Physics Teacher. 

Dr. Wickramasinghe has established new collaborations with Penn researchers to study the mass function of galactic bulge MACHOs and the rotational speeds of galaxies in a dark energy dominated universe. He is also working with researchers at Michigan Technological University in the study of decaying Higgs fields and cosmological dark energy. 

Brian Refsdal worked with Dr. Ochoa on Optical Tweezers and presented their findings to a group of faculty and students on December 3, 2003 in the Celebration of Student Achievement.

Kim Cox spoke on Fish Coprolites from the Upper Cretaceous of New Jersey under the supervision of Dr. Becker, and also presented Applications of the Current Balance as a result of her research with Dr. Ochoa.

Dr. Ochoa supervised the research of Doug Jenkins on Raman Studies of Shark Teeth and that of Richard Santillo on Characterization of Forces between Solenoids.

English major, Kristy Fiore continued her work with Dr. Becker on Trace Fossils from the Upper Cretaceous of North-Central South Dakota.

Dr. Ochoa supervised four independent research projects during the Spring of 2004.  They resulted in presentations given by students Teri-Lynn Allonardo on Using DL-Poly to Simulate Silica Glass, Marcus D’Amelio on Double Exposure and Interferometric Holography, Sean Elmes, a junior Engineering student on Proportional Control of Muscle-Wire Actuators, and Richard Santillo on Developing Customized Computer Interfaces for Laboratory Equipment.

Senior Morgan Farnkopf worked on Designing the Curriculum for a Science-Fiction course under the supervision of Dr. Frank Kolp.

Seniors Steve Meigh and Kristy Fiore worked with Dr. Becker and presented Upper Cretaceous Fossil Sharks for Arkansas and Fossil Shrimp Coprolites from Monmouth County , New Jersey respectively.

Shawn Garner conducted research under Dr. Wickramasinghe's supervision entitled "Astronomical CCD Imaging with a 16" Telescope at TCNJ."

Senior Chris Voinier was accepted into the National Undergraduate Fellowship program at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.  His project continued work done the previous summer on testing the sensitivity of a grid device designed to detect carbon dust in fusion reactors.  This dust comes the hot fusion hitting the carbon composite walls of the reactor, and therefore can hamper the efficiency of the machine.  The device is an electrostatic detector, consisting of interlocking wire grids with spacing as small as 25 microns between them. When the dust impinges on the grid, the circuit is completed and a signal is sent to counting electronics.   Chris is attending the annual meeting of the American Physical Society - Division of Plasma Physics in Savannah GA in November to present his work.   

The now annual dinner at Chevy’s Restaurant was graciously hosted by the Physics Club for faculty and staff members in January.

Three of our alumni were invited back to campus by the Physics Club in March of 2004.  Rob Klueg, Brian Cahill and Kyle VanGilson (all of Galaxy Scientific), spoke to undergraduates about “What do I do When I Graduate with a Degree in Physics”.

Our Senior Dinner was held in May to honor the achievement of our fourteen physics graduates at The Washington Crossing Inn.  There the seniors had an opportunity to reflect on their four years as physics majors and provide feedback via the new “exit interview” questionnaire.

The Egg Drop and Paper Airplane contests were held on October 20. Senior Brian Refsdal and Junior Kelsey Kirkpatrick teamed up to win the Egg Drop contest with a 13.2 gram aluminum device. Freshman Ian Dubois won the Paper Airplane contest with Paul Bancer (also a Freshman) finishing a close second. 

On October 29^th a Retirement Dinner was given in honor of Dr. Paul S. Hiack who retired officially in June.  A custom plaque commemorating Dr. Hiack’s 43 years of service to Trenton State College/The College of New Jersey and the astronomy program was presented.  Also the announcement was made that the planetarium will be officially named “The Paul S. Hiack Planetarium at The College of New Jersey” in December of 2004.  This follows a petition which was circulated and endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the School of Science faculty.

November 3^rd brought another of our favorite alums back to campus.  Dr. Paul McCracken, invited by the Physics Club spoke to students and faculty about his current research which involves using MRI to study the preclinical efficacy of pharmaceuticals in animal models of disease as part of a new Imaging Group at Merck Pharmaceuticals.

A seminar hosted by the Deparatment and Dr. Thulsi Wickramasinghe brought Dr. Louis-Gregory Strolger an Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute to campus on November 10^th.  He spoke about “Supernovae and the Accelerating/Decelerating Universe.”

Scott Sarraiocco gave a talk about his activities as Director of Technology in the Absecon Public Schools system and his previous experiences as a high school teacher. Scott spoke at TCNJ on November 17. 

The Physics Club, under the leadership of Lindsey Talarowski, has been very active this year. Groups of majors have gone to Six Flags and the National Museums in Washington D.C., and participated in other activities. The Club has organized the talks by the alumni and cosponsored the talk by Dr. Strolger.

We are always pleased (and proud) to hear of the accomplishments of our alumni.  Here are a few updates:

Neil Aaronson received his Masters Degree from Michigan State University and has passed the last of his qualifiers as of last December.  Neil presented a talk at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and has a paper ready for publication as well.  His research focuses on sound localization, and measuring the acoustical properties of rooms using maximal length sequences. 

Ryan Earley has passed his qualifiers and is on his way towards his doctoral degree in Geophysics at Rutgers University.

Dr. Paul McCracken received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine after successfully defending his thesis on "Transient-Based Magnetic Resonance Elastography of the Brain." He is now a Senior Researcher at Merck Research Labs in West Point, Pennsylvania. 

Dr. David Pustai passed his defense in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Delaware.  He has accepted a position as a senior systems engineer at Lockheed Martin Corp.  Dave is the proud father of two and the family is residing in the King of Prussia, PA area.

Michelle Reno received Master degrees in Applied Physics and in Atmospheric and Space Science from the University of Michigan.  

Scott Sarraiocco was kind of enough to let us know that he is now working as Director of Technology for the Absecon Public Schools.  He and his wife Jamie are living in Northfield , NJ and are expecting their first child in December.

The Physics Department has undergone many changes over the past few years, but none quite as poignant as the retirement of Dr. Paul Hiack.  He led our department as chairman for over twenty years.  During that time we have seen growth in many areas.  We now have one of the largest undergraduate physics programs among comparably sized institutions in the nation.  We have seen a marked increase in the number of students applying to and receiving assistantships in prestigious graduate programs.  Faculty and student research is enhanced by the addition of equipment and new facilities.  Dr. Hiack was the primary planner of the new state-of-the-art 48-seat Planetarium boasting a Zeiss instrument and Sky-Scan projection system.  Our observing facilities are among the finest in the area.  Due to his efforts, Astronomy students at TCNJ are able to participate in observation of the night sky as a part of their coursework.  Dr. Hiack, with his light-hearted demeanor and dedication to the interests of the department and its students has left an indelible impression on the Physics Program at TCNJ.  For that, we are all very grateful, and wish him continued health and happiness.

CONTENTS

Class of 2004

Faculty Research and Activities

Student Research

Departmental News and Activities

Alumni News

Editors' Letter
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Please click thumbnails to enlarge images 

Faculty and graduating students.

Graduation Party

Graduating students-faculty dinner.

Students - Faculty dinner

Picnic

Independent Study presentations.

Dr. Paul Hiack, Professor Emeritus

Dr. Hiack's Retirement Party

Egg Drop Contest 2004

(contestants)

(Winning drop)

(not a winner)

Dr. Paul McCracken's talk

Dr. Louis-Gregory Strolger's talk