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UMSL Physicist Department of Physics & Astronomy http://www.umsl.edu/~physics December 2016

Note from Chair 2016 was a year of changes and challenges at the University if Missouri – St. Louis and the Department of Physics & Astronomy. The recent budget challenges and a budget realignment process resulted in a reduction of staff. Alice Canavan, long time administrative assistant in Physics & Astronomy, has transferred to Math & Computer Science and we welcome Jessica Flannigan as our part time administrative assistant. Construction on the new Science Learning Building was completed and the grand opening was held on November 10. Our Advanced Physics Lab with updated facilities, including a dark room, will be taught for the first time in the new building during Spring 2017. More changes are coming in 2017. In addition to this, the long-awaited renovation of Benton Hall is just beginning. We have temporarily relocated our geology and mechanics labs to Stadler Hall and will be relocating all other offices and labs in 2017 while the renovations take place. In the last newsletter, I mentioned our renovated and upgraded planetarium. In collaboration with the Challenger Learning Center, we have expanded our outreach program and can offer shows produced in house by Dr. David Horne and with the assistance of undergraduate physics majors. We also have a small selection of professionally produced shows. Our program offers middle school students from the St. Louis area an opportunity to learn about the solar system in our planetarium and to learn about comets and phases of matter with demonstrations using dry ice and liquid nitrogen. Please keep us up to date on your activities. As always, we thank you for your continued support and encourage you to read the short biographies on our scholarship recipients. We wish you and your family all the best in 2017.

Erika Gibb

Mark Your Calendar: May 5

Dr. Michael Meyer (M.S. 1991) will be the guest lecturer at the annual alumni luncheon on Friday, May 5, 2017. Michael is a professor in the Dept. of Astronomy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with research programs in star and planet formation. We hope you can join us.

Department Chair Erika Gibb (center) and her students Aaron Butler and Zach Bernard (top row) and Arianna Laurent and Chelsea Diestelkamp (front row) doing remote observing on a telescope in Hawaii. Dr. Gibb was featured in the Fall 2016 UMSL Magazine as one of three women department chairs of the three science departments. (Photo courtesy of August Jennewein)

Phil James Illuminates Mars

We welcomed former faculty member and Department Chair Phil James for the annual alumni luncheon and lecture on May 6. Phil was hired as an assistant professor at UMSL in 1968 and was Department Chair from 1983-1990. After 22 years, he left to become the Physics Department Chair at the University of Toledo. In his lecture, “Reminiscences of a Martian Physicist”, Phil reviewed his long career of studying Mars and its climate, a pursuit in which he remains active to this day. Prior to the lecture, we held our annual awards ceremony. Senior Cameron Nunn received the Jeffrey Earl Award for the Outstanding Physics Senior and a $500 gift card. Junior Warren Li received the Senior Alumni Award ($500). Waruni Jayawardana received the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, which consists of a $250 prize and a one-year subscription to the American Journal of Physics.

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Patricia Amick Honored at Founders Dinner

Patricia Amick (B.S. 1974) received an UMSL Distinguished Alumni Award at the Founders Dinner September 22. What follows is an excerpt from the UMSL Daily: “As noted in the UMSL Daily article, she was the fourth woman engineer when hired at McDonnell Douglas Electronics Company in 1978. She has spent her career advocating for women in STEM fields and mentoring many women and men, including Boeing personnel, United States Air Force customers and many Boeing suppliers. For more than 38 years, she has held multiple leadership positions on engineering teams, including the F-15C Radar program and the F-15E Radar Modernization Program, and donates her time, treasure and talent to many charities. Amick is a published author of a nationally recognized handbook and numerous technical papers on electronics manufacturing, performance-based logistics and lead-free soldering. She has one patent, two patent disclosures and numerous awards from McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. She is currently a technical fellow in electronics manufacturing at Boeing Research and Technology, supporting both military and commercial aircraft, missiles and proprietary programs.” Patricia is the seventh physics alumnus to receive this award.

Meet the Scholarship Recipients

The Department supports four students annually with $2000 awards. Three students are supported with Physics & Astronomy Alumni Scholarships and one with the Richard D. Schwartz Scholarship for Physics Majors. Gerard Pujol Hernandez – Gerard is an international student-athlete from Spain. He is a sophomore, majoring in physics with an emphasis in astrophysics and minoring in math. He is a member of the UMSL swimming team. He is also a member of the Pierre Laclede Honors College and the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, representing the swimming team. He has completed some hours of research with Dr. Gibb and is planning to continue. Because of a very demanding swimming practice schedule (4h per day approximately, including Saturdays), his free time is limited. Gerard works part-time at the REC center as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. Besides science and sport, he also loves traveling. Gerard states “I really love science, and whenever I can read or watch about things related on astrophysics. I chose UMSL because I was offered a good scholarship for joining the swimming team and among those other universities' offers, UMSL was the only one that had an astrophysics undergraduate major. Before coming here, astrophysics was just a hobby and I had a telescope back home with which I spent a lot of nights observing the sky. I was undecided about my major, but when I got the offer, and saw that UMSL had an astrophysics program, I decided to take my hobby further

and make it my future.” He is planning eventually to get a Ph.D. in physics. Tianna McBroom – Tianna is a junior working toward a general physics degree with a minor in math. She is student coordinator of the planetarium and Vice President of the Physics Club. She did a semester of research with Dr. Gibb and hopes to do more research. Outside of UMSL, Tianna volunteers at the Science Center, works as a waitress, and enjoys weight lifting, sports, and doodling. She also admits that she has the smallest handwriting in the Department. Lindsey Rodgers - Lindsey is a senior Physics major at UMSL with an emphasis in Astrophysics and a Mathematics minor. Her campus engagements include student director of the observatory, president of the Physics and Astronomy Club, and Peer Mentor in the Pierre Laclede Honors College. She is currently conducting research with Dr. Bruce Wilking analyzing spectroscopic data to derive radial velocities of young stars in the Rho Ophiuchi infrared cluster. After graduation, she plans to continue her education and earn a Ph.D. in Astrophysics. Harper Smith - Harper is an UMSL senior studying physics and math. He recently participated in research on young stellar objects with Dr. Wilking. Harper likes discussing various aspects of physics and astronomy, so he attends most public open house nights at the Richard D. Schwartz observatory. He enjoys spending time outside of class with his peers, and can often be found at physics club events. Outside of school, Harper likes to play chess.

Physics major Tianna McBroom making a presentation to a class from Ferguson Middle School in the newly renovated planetarium (photo courtesy of August Jennenwein).

Planetarium Outreach

The recently renovated planetarium has been a busy place this past year. We hosted over 450 students and teachers from area schools as part of our astronomy outreach program supported by our NASA/Missouri Space Grant award. As part of our partnership with the Challenger Learning Center (http://www.challengerstl.org/), we sponsored middle school classes from Ferguson-Florissant and Normandy to visit campus for presentations in the planetarium and in a classroom for demonstrations about ices in the solar system

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culminating with the making of a “comet”. On the same day, the students also visited the Challenger Learning Center in Cool Valley to conduct a simulated space mission. In addition to this, we again hosted the Boy Scouts STEM U program and used the planetarium to help scouts obtain their astronomy merit badge.

Astrobiology and Life Beyond Earth

The College of Arts and Sciences and the Department hosted a two-day symposium on astrobiology April 8 and 9. Dr. Erika Gibb organized the program and was one of eight speakers which included Dr. David Horne (UMSL), Drs. Ray Arvidson and Bill McKinnon (Washington University), Dr. Peter Plavchan (Missouri State), Drs. Avi Mandel and Boncho Bonev (NASA Goddard), and Dr. Rachel Whitaker (University of Illinois). Topics included the origin and evolution of life on Earth, Mars exploration, the ocean worlds orbiting the giant planets, comets, and exoplanets. In addition, there were panel discussions at the end of each day with questions from participants as well as presentations in the recently renovated planetarium. The conference was well attended, including several alumni.

Dr. David Horne gave an invited talk at the Astrobiology Conference entitled “The Martian Environment: The Potential for Current Life and Habitability of the Red Planet” (photo courtesy of August Jennewein).

Graduate Program Update We awarded six M.S. degrees and two Ph.D. degrees in 2016. Ibtisam Al-badri, Haleem Azmy, Brock Ebert, Jamie Roberts, Nathan Roth, and Matt Wentzel completed Master’s degrees. Nathan, Jamie, and Matt are continuing in our doctoral program. Ibtisam, Nathan, and Jamie wrote Master’s theses. Stephen Ordway and Tim Sullivan passed the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam in January 2016. Gang Wang successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in March of 2016. Gang’s dissertation was entitled “DFT Investigations of Hydrogen Storage Materials”. His advisor was Dr. Eric Majzoub. Logan Brown defended in November with his dissertation entitled “Spectroscopic and Spectro-Astrometric Analysis of T Tauri Stars”. His advisor was Dr. Erika Gibb. All theses and dissertations can be accessed through the

Department’s web page.

Jamie Roberts, Nathan Roth, and Tim Sullivan were supported by graduate fellowships or internships from the NASA/Missouri Space Grant Consortium in 2016. All presented their research at the statewide annual meeting in April at the Missouri S&T campus. Graduate students Nathan Roth, Tera Glaze, Jamie Roberts, and Ibtisam Al-badri received awards at the UMSL Graduate Fair in April. Nathan received the top Departmental award for his poster “Volatile Composition of Comet PanStarrs”. His advisor is Erika Gibb. We welcomed two new full-time students to our graduate program this fall: Chelsea Diestelkamp and Chemeda Ejeta. Chelsea has a math degree with a physics minor from Missouri S&T and Chemeda a physics Master’s degree from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

NASA/Missouri Space Grant Consortium 25th Annual Meeting

The 25th Annual Meeting of the NASA/Missouri Space Grant Consortium was held on the Missouri S&T campus April 22-23, 2016. Undergraduates Nicholas Moore and Brigid Costello discussed their analysis of infrared spectra of Comet C/2002 LINEAR (advisor: Dr. Erika Gibb). Graduate students Jamie Roberts, Tim Sullivan, and Logan Brown also made presentations, Jamie on oxygen precipitate clusters in Cz silicon (advisor: Phil Fraundorf), Tim on dynamics in a young stellar cluster (advisor: Bruce Wilking), and Logan on infrared spectroscopy of the young star AA Tau (advisor: Erika Gibb). Alex Bretaña and Tianna McBroom also described the UMSL Planetarium Program conducted for area 5th grade students and teachers.

Physics Club News The goal of the Physics and Astronomy club is to provide opportunities for students to creatively use their knowledge of physics while having fun and connecting with classmates and faculty. Each semester the club organizes professor lectures as part of an ongoing series. This past fall Dr. Bernard Feldman gave a talk about cancer in rats due to cell phone radiation and Dr. Ta-Pei Cheng will discuss gravitational waves this spring. The club also recently completed their pendulum wave machine build and purchased an Arduino. In the spring semester, the club will host a physics pentathlon including events like marshmallow bridge building and egg crash test dummies.

More Undergraduate Research Brigid Costello and Nicholas Moore made presentations at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium held on the UMSL campus on April 29 and hosted by the Golden Key International Honour Society and Sigma Xi. Nicholas received the top Departmental prize for his poster “Partial

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Volatile Composition of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR)” (advisor: Erika Gibb).

Alumnus Featured on CNN, etc. Was Venus once habitable? Alumnus Dr. Michael Way (M.S. 1991, Ph.D. 1998) and collaborators at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies conducted simulations of Venus in the early solar system using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies 3-D General Circulation Model when the Sun was less luminous than today. Using this and Magellan topography provides Venus an ocean of average depth 310 meters and an atmosphere similar to present day Earth. These results could have implications in the search for planets within the habitable zones of stars. Their paper was published in Geophysical Research Letters in August and was featured on a variety of news outlets including CNN. Mike visited the Department in April and gave a Department colloquium on this study.

Neuroscience Research Showcase On October 14, 2016, the Center for Neurodynamics hosted UMSL's first Neuroscience Research Showcase. The event featured a talk by Washington University circadian rhythm expert Erik Herzog, as well as a poster session where UMSL students presented their research. Held in the spectacular new lobby of UMSL's recently opened Patient Care Center, the session featured 24 posters from the Departments of Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Optometry, Physics & Astronomy, and Psychological Sciences. Funding for refreshments was provided by the participating departments, including Physics & Astronomy, as well as by local company AssayPro. It was a great opportunity for faculty and students from a range of departments to get together and share their common interest in neuroscience research. Center Director and Physics & Astronomy faculty member Sonya Bahar says that the Center plans to host more such events in 2017. Viva la Brain!

FACULTY UPDATES: Sonya Bahar The primary focus of my research group is on computational models of evolutionary dynamics and synchronization in neural systems. My graduate students and I are studying phase transitions in evolutionary models, and investigating the effect of parameters like mutation size on how evolutionary lineages branch in space and in time. Dawn King defended her PhD dissertation on this work at the end of 2015, and spent much of 2016 as a postdoctoral associate in my lab, spearheading a collaboration with Prof. Wendy Olivas in the Department of Biology to investigate phase transition behavior in yeast populations. On the “brain side”, graduate student Tera Glaze and I just published a study of chimera states in a neural model in the journal Chaos. I have also been working to expand the Center for

Neurodynamics, which has added several new members this year, and which hosted the first UMSL Neuroscience Research Showcase in October. I am completing a book titled The Essential Tension: From Cooperation and Competition to Multilevel Selection, which deals with the problem of collective dynamics in biological systems and its implications for evolutionary biology. The book will be published by Springer as part of their “Frontiers” Series, and will hopefully (at last!) appear in 2017. bahars@umsl.edu http://www.umsl.edu/~neurodyn/faculty/bahar.html Bernard J. Feldman This year I published two papers, “An Introduction to Electrodynamics and Special Relativity” (US-China Educational Review A 6, 380-384 (2016)] and “Possible Explanation for Cancer in Rats due to Cell Phone Radiofrequency Radiation” [US-China Educational Review, in press]. The second paper suggests that neurons around the brain and heart of rats form closed electrical circuits and following Faraday’s Law, 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation induces 900 MHz electrical currents in these neural circuits. In turn, these 900 MHz currents generate sufficient localized heat in the neural cells to shift the equilibrium concentration of carcinogenic radicals to higher levels, and thus, to higher incidences of cancer. It is then suggested that the same mechanism is at work in humans exposed to cell phone radiofrequency radiation. http://www.umsl.edu/~phybfeld/, feldmanb@msx.umsl.edu Michael Fix My nonteaching activities this year included continued uncovering and mapping of a partial dinosaur skeleton from a site in Southeast Missouri, which is on display in the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History in Marble Hill, Missouri. I recently discovered even more of the skeleton in the block of clay, and this has delayed completion of the map. I also have assisted the museum by helping to identify rocks and fossils brought in by members of the public. I have continued collaborating with Dr. Andrew McDonald – an expert on dinosaurs, who is very interested in studying the hadrosaur (duck-bill dinosaur) from our Missouri site. fixm@umsl.edu Ricardo A. Flores My research interests are astrophysical cosmology and applications of quantum field theory to the physics of elementary particles but I am not active in these fields. This past year, however, I had the opportunity to teach an introductory course in Global Geodynamics that left me with an entirely changed view of Plate Tectonics, with an immensely dynamic view of our planet –just on a time scale we cannot comprehend–, and a field chock-full of Physics that appears one way or another in the descriptions of the Earth. Did you know that the depth of the oceans can be predicted? It can, because seafloor behaves just like the metal of your car when you turn the engine off and the metal shrinks as it cools.

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Philip B. Fraundorf My research involves materials, atomic resolution microscopes, computer simulations, and conceptual strategies for doing both nanoscale detective work and curriculum modernization. We’ve long provided the region with tools not otherwise available for examining the nanostructure of a growing variety of specimen types, including for example aerosol catalysts, integrated circuit silicon, carbon nanotubes, extraterrestrial materials, ferrofluids for drug delivery, and most recently ultrahigh temperature materials for leading-edge surfaces on hypersonic aircraft. This has helped put graduates into applied physics internships and jobs with companies that include MEMC/SunEdison, Seagate, Martin-Marietta, Mitsubishi Silicon-America, Motorola, and Cabot Electronics. Of four recent intellectual challenges, one lies at the intersection between (i) modern-day uses for graphene sheets and (ii) possible roles for carbon droplets in cool stellar atmospheres. Spinoffs of molecular-modeling work include expectations that cooling carbon gas will condense as a liquid first, an “evaporating oven” method for synthesis in this context, and a candidate for Avogadro’s integer in the new-SI. Another involves the studies of gigascale integrated circuit silicon, a highly-ordered material tightly connected to modern technology. Specimens from SunEdison--Solar being annealed in ovens here show promise for elucidating the behavior of a hidden or “ninja” precursor phase to precipitation of useful SiOx clusters in this material. A third involves quantitative detective work on atomic periodicities and energy loss reflected in electron microscope images. Our most recent development here is development of JS/HTML5 browser apps for on-line electron-optics simulation and harmonic analysis of sound. A 4th involves the intersection between (a) log-probability measures, (b) the mathematical theory of model-selection and (c) the quantitative study of correlations in complex systems with particular focus on the challenge of sustaining task layer-multiplicities in metazoan communities. The latest here is a paper in preparation for J. Theoretical Biology. On the pedagogical front, notes from a Fall 2016 talk at Bradley University on a number of related side-projects may be found at: http://www.umsl.edu/~fraundorfp, pfraundorf@umsl.edu Thomas F. George I am involved in theoretical research in various areas of laser/materials/nanophysics, including nanomedicine, and am still managing to publish, on average, a paper per month. I am also on contract with Springer to write a book on nanomedicine, which is at the galley proofs stage, and another with Taylor & Francis on ultrafast processes, which is underway. In April 2016, I presented a seminar at Indiana State University on “Nanomedicine: A Future Medicine.” Wearing my “chancellor’s hat,” I was elected as president of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (comprised of over 90 institutions across the country) at its annual meeting in Washington, DC in October 2016. At this

meeting, I was a panelist/presenter at the following: (1) Presidents’ Globalization Forum and (2) Panel on building an Anchor Mission for Community Impact. http://www.umsl.edu/chancellor/, tfgeorge@umsl.edu Erika Gibb The focus of my research is on volatile composition of comets, especially molecules like water and methane that are astrobiologically important. Undergraduate and graduate astronomy students again had multiple opportunities to gain real experience in astronomical observations of comets. From my lab in 403 Research, we remotely controlled a near-infrared spectrometer on the 3-meter NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, HI. In June 2016 we observed comet C/2013 X1 and in December 2016 and January 2017, we observed comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusáková. These were all part of a project to study volatiles in comets to learn more about how the solar system formed and how molecules that are important for life were distributed. In addition to this, we received an NSF grant with collaborators at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to study comets from near-infrared to submillimeter wavelengths. I am also participating in workshops at the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland that are bringing together scientists who study comets, protoplanetary disks, and astrochemical modeling to bring the fields closer together and better understand the connection between comets and the regions in disks around young stars where planets form. http://www.umsl.edu/~gibbe/, gibbe@umsl.edu Bob L. Henson Just as in the recent past, my activities now are mostly teaching and service for our department. Our number of physics faculty at the professorial level is much lower than it was many years ago when our department only offered the baccalaureate degree. I continue to teach heavy loads at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. This past year in addition to my regular teaching load, I redeveloped the graduate level statistical mechanics course, which I had last taught in 1996. When time permits, I am working on some mathematical physics research problems. Likewise, when time permits I have been writing a text on mathematical methods. As of the present, my retirement plans are incomplete. David Horne Outside of my teaching duties for which I have been developing enhanced presentation material, I have been heavily involved in developing new show material for the recently renovated UMSL planetarium facility. This has involved the use of diverse skills such as sound editing, image editing and voice acting as well as learning the planetarium control software and researching show content. Preparation for these shows has taken much of my time outside of the classroom of late. Eric Majzoub I am a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and hold a joint appointment in the Department

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of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The research focus in my group is on the study and design of new materials for energy storage and conversion, such as hydrogen-storage materials, lithium-ion batteries, and pseudo- and super-capacitors. We employ a combined experimental and computational approach, utilizing first-principles techniques to understand the electronic, mechanical, and thermodynamic properties of the materials we study. Hydrogen storage research in the Majzoub group remains funded through the Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. We have two active grants with DOE, the first one is for $600,000 over three years, and we have two subcontracts (Washington University, Physics and St. Louis University, Chemistry). This work is focused on hydrogen storage in nanoporous functionalized hard carbons. Our other active grant is joint with Ames Research Laboratory in Ames, Iowa and is focused on silicon-based borohydride hypersalts, and high surface area 6rapheme for catalyst support and 6rapheme/hydride combination systems. The most recent list of publications from the group may be found at: http://www.umsl.edu/~majzoube/ Former student updates: My most recent Ph.D. student, Dongxue Zhao, is assistant professor of physics at Greenville College in Greenville, IL. Two other former Ph.D. students, Tim Mason and David Peaslee, are working on the coasts. David is working at an engineering firm in North Carolina, and Tim recently accepted a position at a startup company in Seattle, WA. Bruce A. Wilking I am involved in several spectroscopic surveys to characterize the dynamics of the young stellar cluster in Ophiuchus. An extensive optical radial velocity survey of the Rho Ophiuchi cluster was undertaken in collaboration with alumnus Michael Meyer in support of ESO’s GAIA mission. The results of this study point to numerous stellar interactions soon after stars form in small groups (2016, Astronomy & Astrophysics, v588, A123). Time was granted at a 3-meter telescope on Mauna Kea in June and July to extend this study to the youngest members of the cluster before significant interactions have taken place using an infrared spectrograph. Observations were carried out both remotely from the UMSL campus and at Mauna Kea. Additional time has been granted for this coming April. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Erika Gibb and Dr. Tom Greene (NASA-Ames), and is the main part of graduate student Tim Sullivan’s dissertation. http://www.umsl.edu/~wilkingb, bwilking@umsl.edu

Alumni Information 1972 Paul Koppel (B.S.) is a Senior Systems Administrator at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas.

1974 Patricia Amick (B.S.) is currently a technical fellow in electronics manufacturing at Boeing Research and Technology, supporting both military and commercial aircraft, missiles and proprietary programs. 1977 Paul Noah (B.S.) is an Associate Professor at Manchester Community College in New Hampshire, teaching mathematics and physics. Paul received his Ph.D. in Physics from Washington University in 1987. 1979 Rich Woodford (B.S.) is currently a research associate in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at St. Louis University. 1986 Craig Gulley (B.S.) was recently promoted to be the Director of Residential Sales for Creston Electronics for the Central U.S. covering an 18 state area. 1997 Lebée S. G. Meehan (M.S.) lives in Huntsville, AL and is Alabama’s first Nutritious Movement Certified Restorative Exercise Specialist. Wentao Qin (M.S., Ph.D. 2001) is a TEM Engineer at ON Semiconductor in Phoenix, AZ. 1999 Zhongyu Zhang (M.S., Ph.D. 2003) is a software engineer for Oracle America in the San Francisco Bay Area. 2001 Aaron Tenney (B.S.) is a Principal Scientist at Merck KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany. Aaron received a Ph.D. in computer science from Washington University in 2008. 2002 Bo He (Ph.D.) is a Lead Research and Development Engineer at ANSYS, Inc. in Pittsburgh, PA. Amanda Truong (M.S., Ph.D. 2010) joined Mary Leopold as a physics teacher at Nerinx Hall in Webster Groves, MO. 2004 Chris Favazza (B.S.) is a medical physicist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Chris received his Ph.D. in physics from Washington University in 2008. 2006 Ryan Cleaver (B.S.) is a software engineer at Boeing in St. Louis. Daniel Hopper (M.S.) has left the teaching profession and is now working as an engineer at Boeing in St. Louis. 2007 Melissa Pastorius Shenoy (B.S.) has a full-time business analyst position in Google Technical Solutions. She and her

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husband welcomed their first child in December. Melissa was featured in the UMSL Daily in November. http://blogs.umsl.edu/news/2016/11/15/google/ 2008 Zak Jost (B.S., M.S. 2011) is a Principal Data Scientist at Capital One in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area. 2009 Roxana Contreras (Ph.D.) is currently working for Finland’s Ministry of the Environment. Derek Freund (B.A.) received a M.S. in Medical Physics from Louisiana State University in 2014 and is a medical physicist at West County Radiology in the St. Louis area. Christopher Owen (B.S.) is a research assistant at the Washington University School of Medicine. Kelly Pisane (B.A.) received her Ph.D. in Physics from West Virginia University in 2015. She currently works for Nokomis, Inc. in the Pittsburgh Area. Adam Scott (M.S., Ph.D. 2014) is a research scientist at the Genome Institute at Washington University and was a co-author of a paper published in Nature Genetics entitled “Protein-structure-guided discovery of functional mutations across 19 cancer types”. Steve Taylor (B.S.) is an adjunct professor of mathematics at St. Louis Community College in Wildwood, MO. Steve received the 2015 Wildwood Faculty to Faculty Award for his “excellence in teaching and support of student success”. 2012 Logan Brown (M.S., Ph.D. 2016) is an Image Scientist with Boeing in Springfield, VA. 2013 Nick Kraftor (B.S.) is a senior software engineer at SkyTouch Technology. Shawna Lenz (B.S.) is an Operations Planner at Pfizer in St. Louis. 2015 Stephen Wedekind (B.S.) is a physics doctoral student at the University of Denver. 2016 Alex Bretaña (B.S.) is in the graduate physics program at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Cameron Nunn (B.S.) received a Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship to attend the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. As a doctoral student in the Department of Space and Planetary Science, she will be conducting research on black holes using the Hubble Space Telescope. Cameron was profiled in the UMSL Daily in June. http://blogs.umsl.edu/news/2016/06/06/cameron-nunn/

Contributors 2015-2016 Thanks to all for your generous contributions to our scholarship and gift funds! Please contact us if you have made a contribution in the past year and your name does not appear. Scott D. Alspach and Susan Altman-Alspach Patricia Amick James M. and Janice E. Baker Boeing Company Dr. Ta-Pei Cheng (volunteers to teach Relativity and Cosmology online, shared at MS&T) Dr. Dennis M. Elking David J. Harris Dr. Bo He and Xueqin Fan Hershey Foods Corporation Charles F. and Carol R. Jones Mark S. and Cynthia P. Jones Timothy A. and Dr. Michelle R. Kirchoff Lauren M. Lester Mike Malolepsy Richard Melka Lane R. Miller Dr. Martin G. and Pamela E. Mlynczak Dennis J. and Pauline H. Moore Fern D. Mreen Vincent G. Musielak Dr. Ron J. and Martha E. Pieper Elizabeth M. Ramirez Dr. Lawrence W. and Mary E. Ramsey Dr. Elenore A. Schewe Dr. Chang Shen and Haoran Yi Melissa Pastorius Shenoy Isaac B. Smith Duane A. and Deborah Theilen Howard W. and LaDonna R. Thoele Robert A. Wagner Dr. Michael J. Way Don C. and Susan Winter

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Thank you for your continued support! Contributions can be made to the following: Physics & Astronomy Scholarship Fund: __________________________________________ Richard D. Schwartz Undergraduate Scholarship in Physics & Astronomy: _______________ Physics & Astronomy Gift Fund: . Richard D. Schwartz Observatory Gift Fund: . Elaine & Frank Moss Hospitality Fund: . Don C. and Susan P. Winter Scholarship in Physics &Astronomy:_______________________ You can click on “Give” on the UMSL home page (www.umsl.edu) or make check payable to UMSL, “Physics & Astronomy Fund” and return to: Department of Physics & Astronomy University of Missouri-St. Louis One University Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63121-4499 ************************************************************************************* Alumni Information Form: Keep in touch! Please let us know what’s new with you, both personally and professionally. Name:________________________________________________________________________________ Address:______________________________________________________________________________ City,State,Zip:__________________________________________________________________________ Company Name:________________________________________________________________________ Current Position:________________________________________________________________________ e-mail address:_______________________________________________________________________________ News (to include in our newsletter): _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ When are you available for campus events? _________________________________________________

Thank you.

Comments or Questions: bwilking@umsl.edu.

Department of Physics & Astronomy University of Missouri-St. Louis

One University Blvd St. Louis, Missouri 63121-4499 Office Number: 314-516-5931

Office Fax Number: 314-516-6152