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PHYSICS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER Spring 2016

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PHYSICS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER Spring 2016 Department of Chemistry & Physics g 100 Campus Drive g Weatherford, OK 73096-3089 PHYSICS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER Spring 2016 http://swosu.edu/academics/physics g [email protected] g Terry Goforth, Editor Come Fly With Us many will be in your party by worked for the Federal Aviation Come one! then. You can contact us by Administration in Oklahoma City Come all! The email ([email protected]), and Washington, DC. He has 2016 edition of phone (580/774-3109), FAX worked on, led, and managed the SWOSU (580/774-3115), snail main (c/o teams deploying the following Physics Alumni Banquet will be Terry Goforth, 100 Campus Dr, surveillance systems: ASRS-4: A held on Saturday, April 2, 2016, Weatherford, OK 73096), or just 3D, 250 NM Air route Surveil- at the Stafford Air & Space Mu- come by in person! lance radar; ATCBI-6: A modern seum in Weatherford. Preston Air Traffic Control Beacon Inter- Barber (‘82), Airport Radars Preston Barber rogator with Mode-S capability; Systems Manager for the FAA Preston Barber (‘82) is ASR-11: The FAA’s newest Air- in OKC, will be our speaker this the Airport Radars port Surveillance radar; and year. We will be inducting the Systems Manager for ADS-B: Automatic Dependent newest class of students into the Federal Aviation Administra- Surveillance Broadcast, a GPS Sigma Pi Sigma and honoring tion (FAA). Preston manages and based surveillance technology. several students for their hard leads a team that provides work and service. worldwide engineering support Preston’s FAA career has taken for 200 radar-based surveillance him to destinations in Italy, En- Dinner will be served at 7 pm, systems operated by the FAA gland, Scotland, Brussels, and but the museum will be open and Department of Defense. Amarillo, Texas. He now lives in early, so come on out ahead of Oklahoma City with Letricia, his time. Your banquet ticket in- Preston was born in Weather- wife of thirty-seven years. They cludes a chance to walk through ford, OK, and grew up in Oklaho- have two daughters Kelly and the museum and see what AAA ma City. He graduated from Tracy. has designated as a “Gem” in Putnam City High school in 1973 western Oklahoma. You’ll defi- and spent four years in the US What is a scientist after all? It is nitely want to see the Mission a curious man looking through a Control exhibit honoring several Air Force where he repaired keyhole, the keyhole of nature, of our own alumni. automatic pilots and compasses. After leaving the Air Force he trying to know what's going on. attended SWOSU, graduating ~Jacques Yves Cousteau The museum is located at 3700 . E Logan Rd in Weatherford. If with a BS in Physics in 1982. you need directions, just ask. A Chance to Tickets are $20 each, and may Following college he managed Relax the Electronics Technology Lab- be paid for in advance or at the If you close your door. We will need an accurate oratory at OSU and worked at eyes and concen- head count by Wednesday, Boeing Military Airplane Compa- trate, you can almost smell the March 30, so if you plan to at- ny and Frontier Engineering. charcoal and the aroma of tend, please let us know how Since December of 1989 he has SWOSU PHYSICS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER , page 2 SPRING 2016 meat and vegetables being Graduates funded by the National Science grilled. Hungry? This year’s The 2015 Foundation. I worked with a post- Physics Shish-kebab will take SWOSU Convo- doc researcher for the SPACT place on April 30 at Crowder cation took place center in characterizing the proper- ties of Polyaniline (PANI), an organ- Lake. As usual, we’ll have an on May 9, 2015, in ic compound that is conductive if abundance of good food and the Pioneer Event synthesized as nanofibers (NF). plenty of good company. The Center. Two PANI-NF’s, however, become non- Engineering Physics students food should be ready to eat conductive if exposed to high in- walked across the stage and around 6 pm, but be sure to tensity infrared light. I was able to received their bona fides. come early to take in all Crow- characterize all of these properties der Lake has to offer. Whether Congratulations to Amy of PANI while also creating printa- you prefer fishing, canoeing, Fields (Seiling) and Blake ble patterns. During this project I Scott (Greenfield)! hiking, or just sitting and also worked with a professor from watching, it will be a great SDSM&T on technical presenta- Research is what I'm doing when I opportunity to relax and enjoy. tions. At the end of the program I don't know what I'm doing. - We’ll headquarter at the Crow- was able to present my research at ~Wernher von Braun a poster conference with other par- der Lake classroom building. If ticipants who worked on similar you need directions, just give Summer projects from the surrounding area. us a call or drop us an email. The overall experience was defi- Research and nitely eye opening as well as incre- We can lick gravity, but Internships dibly fun! sometimes the paperwork is Last summer, four overwhelming. -Wernher von intrepid engineering J Paul Woods (So/Jr, Weatherford) Braun physics majors from SWOSU set Last summer, I was one of ten stu- dents accepted into the University out for a variety of locations to of Oklahoma School of Community take part in summer research. Physics and Medicine (OUSCM) Undergraduate These students choose to forgo Summer Internship. The internship Engineering much larger summer wages in was six weeks long, and consisted Club Officers order to gain valuable lessons. of the following five activities: com- (This is made possible because munity service, didactics, physician of scholarships which reduce the shadowing, medical research, and President: Connor Holland need to earn as much as possible office help. I’ll give a couple exam- Vice-Pres: J.P. Woods over the summer before return- ples, but there was too much going Secretary: Garet Crispin ing to school.) Here is a sum- on to mention it all. Treasurer: Brennon Cupp mary of what our students did. Sponsor: Dr. Wayne Trail For community service, we helped Connor Holland (Jr/Sr, Duncan) with a summer camp that intro- duced underprivileged teens to I was involved in a research project different careers in the medical The saddest aspect of life right at the South Dakota School of field. Furthermore, I helped raise now is that science gathers Mines and Technology (SDSM&T) funds for a community-wide baby over the past summer. This ten- knowledge faster than society shower that was to be put on by a week program at the Security gathers wisdom. ~Isaac Asimov Tulsa based charity. Our didactics Printing and Anti-Counterfeiting consisted of weekly lectures given Technology (SPACT) center was SWOSU PHYSICS ALUMNI NEWSLETTER , page 3 SPRING 2016 by different physicians at OUSCM, parency and conductivity. The final No amount of experimentation can and covered topics such as elec- goal of the group was to make ever prove me right; a single tronic medical records, medical high-efficiency, smart windows experiment can prove me wrong.~ disparities, the role of fMRI in using this TCO and others, that Albert Einstein studying depression, and much were developed in the group. more. As another part of didactics, Physics Club we were able to spend time Brennon Cupp (So/Jr, Woodward) working with standardized Over the Summer I worked at OSU Activities patients (actors who portray in the Helmerich Research Center The Physics Club different medical needs). In in Tulsa, Ok. There I worked with a has been busy (as usual) with a regards to shadowing, I was able number of people including Dr. variety of projects and activi- to spend a considerable amount of Ranji Vaidyanathan in the Engi- ties. Following the well- time with doctors in pediatrics, neering department. I worked family medicine, surgery, pulmo- there on a project funded by NASA attended Welcome-Back Ham- nology, and psychiatry. to research the ability of thermo burger Fry, the physics students plastics mixed with other com- got to work evaluating and In closing, the summer was very pounds to protect against radiation learning to explain a variety of productive, and it helped solidify and to test their mechanical demonstrations that were plan- my goal of seeking a career in strengths. My work was centered ned for Physics Day. The club medicine. Also, I was able to see on making the thermo plastic mix- members run a hands-on room how beneficial a diverse or tures and helping design and build where the visiting high school nontraditional background can be. a mold to mold the plastics for students can “get their hands My engineering physics major testing. (Ed. note: This work was helped to set me apart from the part of a NASA grant awarded dirty” with angular momentum, crowd, the normal pre-med, in jointly to OSU and SWOSU to standing waves, non-Newtonian that I was able to bring a unique involve SWOSU students in fluids, and many other activi- set of problem solving skills to the research.) ties. Later in the semester, they group, and an overall different way took time to relax before finals of looking at things. The fewer the facts, the stronger at the annual Physics Christ- the opinion. ~Arnold H. Glasow mas Party. The spring semester Garet Crispin (So/Jr, Thomas) has provided an opportunity to This summer I interned at the look at projects they might build University of Texas in Austin as a On and Off the student researcher.
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