First-year physics majors Tyler Strouth, Brandon Petersen, and Jacob Barfield (L to R in picture above) enthusiastically participated in the after-school enrichment program at West Salem Elementary School. The trio led an interactive session to 3-5th graders primarily pertaining to fluid properties, including a classic demonstration of laminar flow involving oil and food coloring. By all accounts,…
On February 27, MCSP students Maya Shende, Thomas Lux and Randall Pittman described the results of the research they carried out last summer and last fall to an interested and enthusiastic crowd in Massengill Auditorium. First, Ms. Shende described her work with Physics professor Dan Robb on simulating the neural network underlying the breathing rhythm,…
Thanks to Roanoke College students Amanda Wright, Lizzi Ciskowski, Sara Dvorak and Thomas Lux, as well as Dr. Rich Grant! These students and Dr. Grant dedicated part of a recent Saturday to helping Alexus McBride, a Roanoke Valley Governor’s School student, analyze the data from her school science project. Alexus’ project involved the effectiveness of…
Lizzi Ciskowski, Amanda Wright and Sarah Dvorak (L to R in the above picture) carpooled to the MACUWiP (Mid Atlantic Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics) at the University of Maryland from January 17-19! The conference program included many interesting opportunities for our intrepid trio of female physics majors: a tour of NIST (National Institute…
The MCSP Department, and the physics group in particular, were excited to welcome back Roanoke alumnus Jake Bennett to campus on February 4! Jake is currently doing graduate research at the University of Indiana at Bloomington in experimental particle physics, and in fact has planned his Ph.D. defense for this April. In addition to having…
There’s a new sheriff in town! Dave Taylor is now the chair of the MCSP Department. Trexler Hall second floor has taken on a new look, as students have commemorated Dr. Taylor’s rise to power with a poster. The good citizens of the newly renamed Taylor Town seem to be taking the change in stride…
The students in Experimental Analysis (PHYS 315) presented the results of several experiments in a semester-ending poster session. Topics included the charge to mass ratio of an electron, the speed of light, the Ideal Gas Law, the Stefan-Boltzmann law, electron diffraction and the Michelson Interferometer. Through these experiments, which reproduce breakthroughs in physics, the students…
