Commencement was held on Friday, May 14th.    Departmental ceremonies were held in Crowell 111 for the eight Physics graduates and their families.

The annual Fink-Moses-Pregger Physics Award was given to James Crispino.

Dr. Marty Becker attended the national meeting of The Geologic Society of America where he presented a paper entitled:]Probable Cervical Vertebra of the Extinct Elk-Moose [cervalces scotti dredged from the Inner Continental Shelf of Central NJ. He published (with co-authors) Paleontology of the K/T Boundary Interval:Badlands National Park, South Dakota in the annual proceeding of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. He also has a manuscript in review entitledTaphonomy of Fossil Turtles from the Lowermost Naversiak Formation in Monmouth County, NJ. In the next month, Dr. Becker will be attending the annual meeting of the Geologic Society of America where he will present a paper co-authored with senior physics major Ryan Earley, on his work with the New Jersey fossil turtles from the Upper Cretaceous.

Dr. Romulo Ochoa spent the spring semester on sabbatical at the University of Arizona Materials Science Department.During that time he conducted molecular dynamics studies of fracture in silica.  As part a of multi-university research program, he gave a talk at the University of Florida, during a Knowledge and Development Initiative review meeting in June.Recent publications include Absorption and Raman Scattering Spectroscopies from Semiconductor-Glass Composites which appeared in Non-Cryst Solids, 274, 87-92 (2000).A Constant Velocity Apparatus Based on Lenz's Law, co-authored with TCNJ student Tiffany Angle, is to appear in Physics Education, 36, 488-490 (2001). Dr. Ochoa was a reviewer of Serway's "Principles of Physics", 3rd ed.Harcourt Publishers.

Dr. Thulsi Wickramasinghe has published Detection of Gravitational Waves from Gravitationally Lensed Systems which was presented at the 20th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, and is currently in press.  Number Counts of GRBs in a vacuum dominated Universe, (in press, 2001) was presented at the proceedings of Gamma-Ray Physics in Baltimore, MD with junior physics major, Karl Strohmaier.  Appearing in Los Alamos National Laboratory Publication, astroph/0107508, 2001 is an article entitled Gravity Waves and Lensing.  Dr. Wickramasinghe was awarded observing time in Paranal, Chile once again this August.  He also had the opportunity to attend "Frontiers of the Universe" conference held in Blois, France, in June of 2001. 

He is also involved in the CONtinuous CAMera (CONCAMs) sky monitoring project.This is a new project to monitor the sky for transient phenomena  from several  different positions on Earth.  TCNJ  has been chosen to be the fifth CONCAM site in the world. 

Dr. Raymond Pfeiffer is analyzing the spectrophometric data for the hot binary star system EM Carinae, gleaned by the "International Ultraviolet Explorer" spacecraft and is preparing a paper of the results for publication in the near future.

Tiffany Angle worked with Dr. Ochoa in presenting "Maze Mayhem:  The Trials and Tribulations of PiKos", a robotics project.

A summer internship at Stanford was detailed by Jessica Evans.  She had an opportunity to work on the Gamma Ray Large-Area Space Telescope.

Jackie Perry worked with Dr. Becker on her presentation of Cervical Vertebra of an Ice-Age Mammal dredged off the coast of New Jersey.

Dr. Wickramasinghe directed the independent study of Karl Strohmaier on the subject of Further Improvements of Using Gamma Ray Bursts to Measure Quintessence.

A second presentation was given by Tiffany Angle in the area of Science Education by designing a constant velocity apparatus using Lenz's Law.

Jocelyn Williams worked with Dr. Ochoa on a project studying the Photoluminescence Spectra of ancient and recent shark teeth. 

Ten students were inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma, the Physics Honor Society on April 26, 2001.  They are:  Tiffany Angle, Neil Aaronson, Alison Cooper, James Crispino, Ryan Earley, Jessica Evans, Jacqueline Perry, Jerome C. Sanders, Justin Siering, and Kyle VanGilson.  Inductees were presented with lapel pins, certificates and membership cards.  Many parents had an opportunity to attend the induction and the reception that followed. 

Neil Aaronson worked with Dr. Pfeiffer on studying solar winds in hot binary star systems.  Computer data from the IUE satellite telescope was analyzed to show how solar winds of two separate stars in a binary system interact. 

Michael Altfield worked with Dr. Wickramasinghe on the Astronomical Photography using an ST7 CCD Camera. 

Dr. Becker supervised the research of Ryan Earley in the identification of fossil turtles from the upper Cretaceous of the Northern Coastal Plain in NJ. 

Karl Strohmaier worked with Dr. Wickramasinghe on the possibilities of the Universe having some viscosity. 

Senior physics major, Jessica Evans worked as a research assistant at the European Laboratory for Nuclear Research (CERN) located in Geneva, Switzerland.  During her nine weeks, she helped assemble and test gas electron multiplier (GEM) detectors for COMPASS (common muon proton apparatus for structure and spectroscopy), a fixed-target experiment that will explore quark and gluon color. 

Neil Aaronson, a senior physics major, worked at NEC as a research assistant in condensed matter physics.  Over 13 weeks he worked on the problem of creating a self-assembly array of polystyrene spheres in a process involving the enhanced transmission of light through sub-wavelength appertures. 

Karl Strohmaier, a junior physics major, worked at Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory located in Princeton's Forrestal Campus.  He worked on computer simulations of atmospheric and oceanic modeling. 

Under the direction of Dr. Steven Klein, Kyle VanGilson, senior physics major, worked at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ.  He performed statistical analysis of data gathered from the Roman Lider Radiometer.  Results from the statistical analysis are to be used as a comparison for Dr. Klein's cloud parameterization module for GFDL's Global Climate Model.  Responsibilities included mass data processing accomplished through PERL and SHELL scripting, as well as through scripts written in S-Plus. 

In the fall of 2000, physics alumna Rob Klueg (Class of '97) of Galaxy Scientific gave a talk entitled "Non-Destructive Evaluation Technologies in Aviation Security." Rob is working on developing and testing new systems for future use in aviation security. 

Physics Alumna Maggie Benoit gave a presentation to the physics club and faculty in the Spring of 2001 entitled Upper Mantle and Transition Zone beneath Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya.  Maggie has traveled to Ethiopia for field research and plans a trip to Antarctica in the near future.  She is a Ph.D. candidate at Penn State University. 

At this point, we are very hopeful that an end is finally in sight.  Assuming that all goes as planned, the College is estimating completion in April of 2002, with occupancy scheduled to take place shortly after Commencement. 

James Crispino was awarded an assistantship in applied mathematics at the University of Maryland.  Liz Wittman, and Tiffany Angle are Physics Teachers at Glen Gardner High School and West Windsor-Plainsboro High School respectively.  Jocelyn Williams accepted a position with Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant as a technician. 

We are very interested in knowing what our alumni are doing and passing on this information. For this edition we contacted Claudio Coloiacomo and he was kind enough to write us the following... 

"After my experience at TCNJ , where I graduated with the class of '95, I went on and got my Masters in Physics from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. During my years as an undergraduate and graduate student, I got the chance to experience the fascinating world of research, working in a laboratory.  I even got some teaching experience. The love for physics and research brought me to continue on to a Ph.D program in Vienna (Austria) where I was accepted into a research group studying the effects of Femtosecond laser pulses in vacuum. I had started working with lasers back during the years at TCNJ and have to admit that without that experience, I would never have acquired the motivation and interest to continue my studies. 

Currently I am working as the CTO of a company called Synelec (www.synelec.com). The company is French while my office is based in Rome. Synelec is one of the world leaders in Videowall display. To make it simpler, we produce and sell the huge monitors you may  have seen at the NASA flight control center, or in such movies as "War Games". 

I left my Ph.D work unfinished after one year for multiple reasons.  Some of these reasons have to do with money, career and also the good old "going back home". By the time I was working in Vienna, it had been almost 9 years since I had left Rome where I was born and grew up. 

Being the CTO of a company involves much responsibility.  It also means dealing with people on a daily basis, completing projects and ultimately seeing to it that the company makes money. Our office in Rome deals with a wider area in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India where we have distributors, This also requires travel to these areas on a fairly regular basis. 

I often think about my studies and the time I spent at TCNJ.  I am certain that without that experience I would not be holding the position I have now. The Community at TCNJ gave me, for the first time, a sense of multi-culturalism and an appreciation for diversity of people. These are values I apply on a daily basis when dealing with our international partners. Physics gave me a scientific mind-set, geared to the analysis and solution of problems. 

I do not deal with lasers anymore, and differential equations are a thing of the past.  However without such an in-depth scientific background, I am certain I would not been fortunate enough to have my present position." 

Class of 2001

Faculty Research and Activities

Student Research

Departmental News and Activities

Alumni News

Editors' Letter
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Please click thumbnails to enlarge images 

Faculty and graduating students
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

HypoPlastron of Osteopygis emarginatus 

Costal from family Toxochelyidae

Costals and nuchal from Trionyx sp.

Initial MD silica sample
 

Fractured MD sample

NGC253 close up

NGC253

TCNJ's CONCAM
 
 
 
 

Tiffany observing Pikos find its way out of a maze
 
 

Close up of Pikos
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sigma Pi Sigma Inductees
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Spring 2001 Independent Studies Presenters
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Maggie Benoit and faculty members