PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS

THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN • 2007 NUMBER 1

Van Harlingen Exotic relatives discovered named 10th BY RICK KUBETZ playing a major role in the analysis of head of Physics the data, Pitts, along with his team n October, the CDF collaboration— of engineers, postdoctoral researchers, Iwhich includes researchers from the and graduate students, developed University of Illinois—announced at important components in the CDF n July 1, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 2006, data acquisition system that made O the discovery of two rare types of this measurement possible. Dale J. Van particles, exotic relatives of the much Harlingen, “To observe a handful of these more common proton and neutron. new particles, we had to sift through Center for Kevin Pitts, an associate professor of Advanced more than 100 trillion Tevatron physics at Illinois, is one of the co- collisions,” said Pitts. “This discovery Study Professor leaders of the CDF physics group of Physics and would not have been possible were performing this measurement. it not for the high-speed processing Donald Biggar “This is the first observation of Willett Postdoc Anyes Taffard and graduate system developed here in Urbana.” the ∑b (“sigma-b) baryon, which is an Another key component of the Professor of extremely heavy cousin to the proton, student Christopher Marino working on Engineering, became the 10th head the CDF high-speed digital processing CDF detector is the “Central Outer much like an atom of iron is an Tracker” (COT), which is heavily of the Department of Physics at the extremely heavy cousin to an atom of system University of Illinois at Urbana- utilized in event identification and hydrogen,” Pitts explained. “We have reconstruction. Pitts, along with Tony Champaign. just added to the mankind’s knowledge discovered two types of ∑b particles, Van Harlingen has spent his entire each one about six times heavier Liss of Illinois, played major roles of the ‘periodic table of baryons’.” in the construction of the COT. professional career at Illinois, joining Utilizing Fermilab’s Tevatron than a proton. The new particles are the Physics faculty in 1981 as an extremely short-lived and decay within “The University of Illinois has collider, currently the world’s most been a one of the leading groups assistant professor. He received his powerful particle accelerator, physicists a tiny fraction of a second. bachelor’s degree in physics in 1972, To overcome the low odds of on the CDF experiment since its can recreate the conditions present inception,” said Liss, who was the and his PhD in physics in 1977, from in the early formation of the universe, producing bottom quarks—which in The Ohio State University. After a turn transform into the ∑ —scientists co-leader of the CDF working group reproducing the exotic matter that b responsible for the discovery of the year as a NATO postdoctoral fellow was abundant in the moments after take advantage of the billions of in the Cavendish Laboratory at the collisions produced by the Tevatron top quark in 1995. “We are proud of the big bang. our contributions to this important University of Cambridge, England, Baryons (derived from the Greek each second. working with Professor John Waldram, One of the largest university work, and as we continue to take word “barys,” meaning “heavy”) are data at unprecedented rates, we look Van Harlingen held a postdoctoral particles that contain three quarks, the groups in the CDF collaboration is research position at the University of from the University of Illinois at forward to many more discoveries in most fundamental building blocks of the coming months and years.” California, Berkeley for three years, matter. The CDF collaboration Urbana-Champaign. In addition to where he worked on non-equilibrium superconductivity and dc SQUID electronics with Professor John Clarke. Focusing on the study of superconductivity and superconductor device physics, Van Harlingen has Logbook: single top production pioneered experimental techniques in low-temperature physics to investigate BY KURT REISSELMANN phase coherence and quantum phenomena in solid-state materials. His ground-breaking experimental n 1985, ten years before scientists at Fermilab discovered confirmation of the orbital d-wave Ithe top quark, Scott Willenbrock was a graduate student at pairing state of high-temperature the University of Texas at Austin. He and Duane Dicus were superconductors has led to major wondering how likely it would be for a particle collider such progress in superconductivity. as the Fermilab Tevatron to produce a single heavy quark. Current interests are determining the Willenbrock remembers that the eureka moment came pairing symmetry in unconventional when he was sitting in a UTexas shuttle bus on his way home. superconductors, fabricating Josephson There he realized that a subatomic process called “W-gluon pi-junctions for the design of solid- fusion” could lead to a single heavy quark. To outline the state qubits, developing scanning calculation, Willenbrock made this to-do list and included magnetic microscopy instruments, and the remark, “Could even be t quark!” characterizing transport in nanoscale “Back then we were thinking about a hypothetical superconducting structures. fourth generation of quarks [labeled U,D in the list],” says Van Harlingen is a Fellow of the Willenbrock, now a professor at the University of Illinois at American Physical Society, a member Urbana-Champaign. “Physicists had no idea how heavy the of the American Academy of Arts and [third-generation] top was, and we didn’t know whether Sciences and the National Academy of this calculation would be relevant to the top.” Sciences, and a recipient of the 1998 In 1995, the CDF and DZero experiments at Fermilab APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in observed top quarks for the first time, produced in pairs via Condensed Matter Physics. the strong nuclear force. The particle was so heavy that Former heads of Physics are scientists began to search for single top quark production as Samuel W. Stratton (1890–1896), well.In December 2006, about twenty-one years after Dicus Albert P. Carman (1896–1929), and Willenbrock published their predictions [Phys. Rev. D 34, Production of heavy quarks from W-gluon fusion F. Wheeler Loomis (1929–1957), 155–161 (1986)—ed.], the DZero collaboration reported the Frederick Seitz (1957–1963), first evidence for single top production at the Tevatron. Gerald M. Almy (1963–1970), Ralph O. Simmons (1970–1986), Story courtesy Symmetry Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 1, January/February 2007. Reprinted with permission. Ansel C. Anderson (1986–1992), See www.symmetrymag.org/cms/?pid=1000431. David K. Campbell (1992–2000), and Jeremiah D. Sullivan (2000–2006).

2 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1

Message from the Head a new dean in the College of Physics has ambitious plans also. Schrieffer in 1957. This is arguably Engineering, a new provost, a new One of my goals as head is to re-establish the single most significant academic chancellor, and a new president. the strong infrastructure and support for achievement ever to come out of the ver six We live in a new world—one that is the research programs of the department University of Illinois, and we will honor Omonths have rapidly changing and facing new threats that have always been a hallmark of our it by holding a major international passed since I to our economy and our security. program. Initiatives to strengthen the conference in Urbana this October, became the All of this will bring new challenges technical facilities, nucleate an Institute a great opportunity to celebrate work 10th head of the and new opportunities and in turn for Theoretical Condensed Matter that exemplifies the impact that our Department of requires and inspires new ideas. Physics, and partner with departments department has and can have when Physics. In that The campus has undergone an across the campus in STEM (science- we approach problems in the “Urbana time, I have extensive strategic planning exercise and technology-engineering-mathematics) style,” bringing strong theoretical and attended more is focusing emerging programs into the education are in motion. experimental expertise to bear on a meetings, signed challenges of information, sustainable Physics has a broad wavefunction single goal. more forms, and answered more emails energy, and human health care. At the that extends into a wide range of We are always appreciative of the than in the whole of my 25 years as a same time, initiatives are underway to interdisciplinary areas. We are interest and support from our Physics professor of physics here. But I have extend the impact of the University of committed to maintaining our core alumni and friends, and I hope that this also had the unique opportunity to learn Illinois on the international stage, by disciplinary strengths while expanding newsletter helps to give you a glimpse about the ambitions and accomplish- globalizing our research portfolio and our impact via exploration at the of the energy and quality of this ments of the talented faculty and staff launching a global online campus intersections of physics and other remarkable Department of Physics. that make up this great department. designed to educate a larger and more fields across campus, including Our message of creativity and This experience has reinforced what diverse student population. Such engineering, materials sciences, biological discovery that you help us spread I have long believed, that there is no initiatives are not without costs and sciences, environmental sciences, and the generous contributions you better place to do physics and no commitments by the already busy medical sciences, nanoscience, and make to the Department continue to warmer community in which to work faculty, so the University is information technology. drive and enhance our programs as than here in Urbana. simultaneously undergoing an internal This year marks the 50th we move forward. The Department of Physics and the evaluation of its educational programs, anniversary of the famous BCS paper University of Illinois are undergoing research infrastructure, diversity profile, on the theory of superconductivity significant changes—in just the last year and financial model in order to face the produced on this campus by John or two we have a new department head, challenges of the 21st century. Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and J. Robert Dale J. Van Harlingen

Changing the teaching of physics FROM 1956 TO 2006

BY CYNDI PACELEY technical and scientific training in the United States. Tradition of physics education innovations continues he 1950s’ Cold-War global MIT professor Jerrold Zacharias, Tstruggle with the Soviet Union in some of the earliest meetings of the set the stage for launching a new Office of Defense Mobilization’s Science ccording to a study of U of I physics undergraduate students published physics high school curriculum in Advisory Committee, heard repeatedly Ain Physical Review Special Topics, multiple-choice tests are better than the United States, one with central how “the Russians were getting ahead test questions that require students to work out extended problems with a ties to the Department of Physics of us and that we had to do something pencil and paper (M. Scott, T. Stelzer, and G. Gladding, “Evaluating multiple- at the University of Illinois. about education.” choice exams in large introductory physics courses,” Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Ed. With the outbreak of the With the backing of his colleagues Korean War in 1950, concern on the Science Advisory Committee Res. 2, 020102/1–14 [2006]). about a shortage of scientists grew and officials at the National Science The work of Physics Education Research (PER) group members Gary to encompass its implications for Foundation, Zacharias began assembling Gladding, associate head for undergraduate programs, Timothy Stelzer, national security. The 1955 a team in July 1956 that would come to research assistant professor, and graduate student Michael Scott was also publication of an in-depth be known as the Physical Science Study included in the American Physical Society’s August 7 EurekAlert. assessment of Soviet technical power Committee (PSSC). Their study evaluates the conversion of mid-term and final exams from focused the American public’s view In a paper prepared for the PSSC a free-response to a multiple-choice format as part of the department’s of the situation. The 1957 launch 50th anniversary celebration in Summer reform of the introductory physics sequence, which started in Fall 1996. of Sputnik added to fears that 2006, former Physics faculty member A comparison with longer-format tests showed not only that multiple- American schools lagged dangerously Edwin L. Goldwasser recalls in “PSSC behind in science. In response, Reminiscences” how Illinois became choice questions are roughly as good at evaluating students’ relative the federal government provided involved in PSSC. performance, but they also provide additional benefits over calculation- funding for the development of crammed test booklets. Multiple-choice tests ease grading demands in large classes, minimize grading ambiguity and inconsistencies between graders, and significantly reduce the number of contested grades. To assess the exams’ reliability, the PER group performed a split-exam analysis to determine the uncertainties in students’ semester exam scores for all four introductory physics courses. The analysis involved splitting a semester set of exam questions (~130) into two equivalent groups of questions to form “even” and “odd” exams and then evaluating the differences in these scores. By looking at cumulative results for 32 different course semesters (this data set includes 128 exams, 4250 questions, and 12,281 students), a Gaussian fit to PER data reveals that students’ semester exam scores vary by only 3.1 percent. For A+ to C– students in these courses, this exam uncertainty translates to a letter grade uncertainty of less than 1/3 of a letter grade. To assess validity, PER’s intensive study looked at how 33 students answered twenty questions from a final exam they took in the calculus-based E&M course. Using a Monte Carlo simulation and a log-likelihood fit, the PER researchers found that the true correlation between the students’ multiple- choice score and their score based on their written work on the same questions was greater than 0.94 at the 95-percent confidence level.

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 3

Goldwasser shares APS Excellence in Physics Education Award

he inaugural award for the 1951 as a research associate, working on TAmerican Physical Society’s new the 22-MeV and 300-MeV betatrons. Excellence in Physics Education prize In 1959, Goldwasser was asked to was presented to Edwin “Ned” chair the Illinois group that was Goldwasser at the 2007 March collaborating with MIT’s Physical meeting. Goldwasser and co-recipients Science Study Committee to create a John H. Dodge, A.P. French, Robert new high-school physics curriculum. Gardner, Robert Hulsizer, John G. Illinois’ assignment, which took three King, and Uri Haber-Schaim were years, was to create the teacher’s guide honored for their contributions to the for the new textbook. He also became Physical Science Study Committee, a an active advocate for bringing a collaborative effort by MIT and Illinois frontline accelerator to the Midwest. in the late 1950s that transformed the In 1967, with an Illinois site chosen, way physics was taught in U.S. high Goldwasser was appointed deputy schools. The citation reads, “For the director of the new facility, Fermilab. revitalization of subject matter through He returned to the University eleven the involvement of teachers and years later as provost, a position in which researchers at all levels, the elevation he served for eight years. He next went of the instructional role of the to Berkeley where, for two years, he laboratory, the development and joined the Central Design Group for utilization of innovative instructional the “Supercollider.” Following his media, and the emphasis on discipline- “retirement,” Goldwasser was asked to centered inquiry and the nature of fill temporarily the position of director physics, PSSC Physics has had a major of the University of Illinois’ Computer- and ongoing influence on physics assisted Education Research Laboratory education at the national level.” and, following that, he was appointed a Goldwasser shares his reminiscences “Distinguished Scholar” at Caltech to of the PSSC project, and his hope for work on the LIGO project. the future of physics teaching, in a Goldwasser is a member and fellow companion article. of the American Physical Society and Goldwasser is a graduate of the the American Association for the Horace Mann School in New York Advancement of Science. He has City, received his bachelor’s degree in received Fulbright and Guggenheim physics from Harvard (1940) and his fellowships and has served on the AEC’s PhD in physics from the University of General Advisory Committee and on California, Berkeley (1950), where his the University of California’s committees Ned Goldwasser with Physics, the new approach to teaching high-school physics thesis research was on cosmic rays. He that oversee its three national developed by the Physical Science Study Committee in the 1950s then joined the University of Illinois in laboratories. PSSC reminiscences

As my memory has it, sometime improvement of the teaching of offer physics. Of those who do, 54 percent during the fall of 1956, Wheeler physics at the university level, and he of the physics classes are taught by Loomis, head of the University of felt that the number of students someone whose certification is in a Illinois Physics Department, was enrolled in those courses could be discipline other than physics.] approached by Jerrold Zacharias, significantly increased and their quality Following the December meeting, initiator and chairman of a newly enhanced by improving the preceding a few of us agreed to spend the formed steering committee of a high school courses and teaching. He summer at MIT to participate in Physical Sciences Study Committee readily agreed to serve as chairman of a further discussions about the project (PSSC) that he had established at cooperating Illinois group—if he could in general, to engage in a more sharply MIT. The membership of that steering find sufficient interest in forming one. focused development of the text, and, committee, replete with university His own enthusiasm was contagious. finally, to explore, seriously, a number presidents, CEOs, and Nobel Prize Initially about a half a dozen of different roles that the Illinois winners, is convincing proof that, in individuals expressed an interest in group might possibly play. those days, we lived in a world very attending a December planning Everyone agreed that a multi- different from the one in which we meeting at MIT to get a better feel for pronged approach would be required find ourselves today. Leaders in the direction in which the project was to accomplish the necessary major government, industry and academia moving and to get some idea about changes to bring the teaching of were deeply concerned by the rate at how an Illinois contingent might fit physics more closely in touch with which the USSR was building its in. Our interest in pursuing the matter the modern philosophy and hopes of Ned Goldwasser as a young Physics strength in science and engineering, further was motivated largely by a currently active physicists. To realize faculty member and they felt that national security deep dissatisfaction with the quality that kind of improvement, it was demanded that this nation take action of high school physics courses of that decided, among other things, to give t is always a mixed pleasure for me to retain its leadership in those areas. day (textbooks in particular). As I up the standard packaging and Ito attempt to describe events of my Loomis and Zacharias had worked remember it, our bête noir was a ordering of the various parts of past. On the one hand, I enjoy the closely together at MIT during World widely used textbook featuring a standard physics curricula and to start nostalgia that accompanies any such War II. That relationship led Zacharias picture of a steam shovel on the the course, for example, with a broad effort. On the other hand, in the to approach Loomis with a suggestion frontispiece—misguidedly suggesting look at the universe—developing some process, I invariably realize that my that the latter might explore with his that was an informative basic understanding of the concepts of reconstruction of events would have faculty the possibility of a collaboration characterization of the discipline of space and time and of the process of been far easier had I done it when I between Illinois and MIT to pursue the physics. Another weakness in high measurement. still had a reliable memory. In any ambitious goal that had been embraced school physics teaching stemmed The multi-pronged approach case, as I sit down to write about my by his PSSC Steering Committee— from the fact that it often was that was envisioned included, first early days in the PSSC project I’ve creation of a new high school physics relegated to the care of any available and foremost, a new textbook, and decided that my memory of those days course that would represent a staff member—often, if not usually, work on such a book had already is probably more to the point than dramatically different alternative to to the coach of a football, basketball been started at MIT. A set of new, would be the results of research that then-current high school courses. or baseball team. We all knew that had inexpensive classroom demonstrations any nonparticipant could undertake Loomis himself had always had to be changed. [Eds. note: Today, fewer to ferret out what officially recorded a strong commitment to the than 80 percent of Illinois high schools continued on page 4 facts might be found. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

4 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1

PSSC reminiscences (continued from page 3) and new laboratory experiments were was needed. We strongly believed that, Teacher’s Guide,” I felt that the work commented that democracy would thought necessary to supplement the wonderful though the new course of our group had reached a natural work only if there were an educated text and, for those demonstrations or was in the minds of a group of highly end. A set of “yellow pages,” to guide electorate. We don’t have one today— experiments that might turn out to be experienced, senior physics teachers teachers through the lab experiments, certainly not in the areas of scientific too difficult or too expensive for the and researchers, many high school was added to the Illinois materials by fact and fiction. average high school, a set of movies physics teachers would need help to the group at MIT. Improving, editing, One possible attempt at a solution should be made as stand-ins. Those understand the why and wherefore of and updating were a continuing to this problem would be to simply movies were to feature distinguished, the new approach and to learn how process, and a new corporation, require a more vigorous exposure to currently active physicists as principal best to put it across. The Teacher’s Educational Services Inc., had been physics throughout students’ protagonists. Finally, it was agreed that Guide was our attempt to provide created at MIT to take over those elementary and secondary school years. a guide would be necessary to help that help. There was a heavy traffic functions. I soon became more deeply In addition to that, though, I can teachers implement the new course. of materials—text book chapters from engaged in my own research and gave imagine the creation of a new course, Somewhat independently, an effort MIT to Illinois and Teacher’s Guide up any direct communication with the taught by physics teachers, that would was to be made to enlist the help of chapters from us to them. Those PSSC project. I also brought to a attract more attention and interest, a number of distinguished physicists exchanges gradually led to a meeting close the formal involvement of the and therefore higher enrollments, than to contribute to a series of small, of the minds and to the preparation Illinois group. do today’s courses. Such a new course, paperback books presenting of two independent books, the PSSC Shortly afterwards I was for example, might be structured so descriptions of their specialties or Text and the PSSC Teacher’s Guide. unexpectedly called back for one final, that it indirectly introduced introducing readers to the giants in Even before the first edition was fascinating adventure. A group of fundamental physics principles by the history of physics. (One of my published, drafts were used at a faculty members at Makerere College directly addressing those technical and favorites was a biography of Galileo, number of schools by “master in Uganda had learned of the PSSC scientific issues that face our society authored jointly by Laura Fermi, a teachers,” many of whom had been program and had asked that they be today. For example, the problem of one-time physics teacher herself, and actively involved in the production of given the PSSC materials and the providing for our energy needs while Gilberto Bernardini, highly respected the materials and were ready to take training necessary to introduce the reducing today’s dependence on fossil for his research in elementary particle the plunge of teaching the new course. new course to schools in Uganda. fuels could be studied. Such a study physics.) At Illinois, we were fortunate in Zacharias felt that it would not be could lead to the development of an Finally, and very importantly, finding a mathematician, David Page, wise to have PSSC materials used in understanding of energy itself and to Zacharias realized that with the whose home was in our College of a setting in which students were the existence of accessible energy in adoption of the new course there Education, but who himself had both inadequately prepared to be successful. wind and in solar radiation. It also would certainly be a a strong background in I was asked to go to Uganda, to visit could lead to studies of radiation, disconnect between Our interest...was physics and experience in a cross section of schools, and to see absorption and reflection; to studies that course and the the creation of a ground- whether or not such an experiment of the binding energy of molecules, then-standard college motivated largely by a breaking new math had a good chance of succeeding. of the process of burning and the entrance examinations. deep dissastisfaction course, the “New Math,” That I did, and it is a whole story of dissociation of molecules, and of the He successfully that had been developed its own. I was joined in Uganda by existence of atoms and nuclei and of persuaded those with the quality of high at Illinois several years Francis Friedman, the principal the phenomena of fusion and fission. responsible for the school physics courses earlier. He taught the author of the PSSC textbook. Whenever the wonders of a hydrogen- development of those embryonic PSSC physics In closing I’d like to express my fueled economy might be promoted in of that day. exams to create a course at our University personal views concerning the impact the future, any student who had been different set of physics High School. One or of the PSSC venture on the teaching exposed to such a course would examinations for students who had another member of our group attended of physics at the high school level. immediately ask about the source of been taught physics the PSSC way. each of his classes. We and he fed First and foremost, it is clear to me the hydrogen and the energy required As for the Illinois group, we experiences, reactions, comments, that the new course spoke and speaks to free it. Other current problems that decided that major participation in and advice to the group at MIT. Our in a language that was and is could be studied could be the energy continuing work on the text would be group was also fortunate to have as consistent with the savings of so-called difficult at a distance of 1,000 miles a colleague Gilbert Finlay, another widely accepted “hybrid” cars and global from the principal authors at MIT. faculty member of our College of physicist’s view of what Every opportunity should warming, with its (Remember that there was no Internet Education having a specialty in the the essence of physics melting of glaciers be seized to remind and no e-mail in those days.) We felt teaching of high school physics. He really is. Furthermore, and raising of the seas. that our group, to work effectively, served as an adviser to us while also the course has been students that the beauty The above examples should have a large measure of serving as a liaison between the PSSC enthusiastically received of physics lies in its illustrate the approach autonomy so that our work could and teachers who were trying out the by most students and of such a new course. proceed as an almost independent new materials. One of the conclusions teachers. That support of the unstinting In implementing that entity. We asked for and were assigned that was reached during the “dry run” observation has been drive of human beings to approach, it would be the creation of the Teacher’s Guide. of the course was that it would be amply supported by essential to treat We believed that such a guide would desirable to add to the program a set of talks that have been understand more about subjects with scrupulous be an important feature to upgrade teacher institutes, which would provide given as well as by their surroundings objectivity, presenting the performance of experienced some further guidance to teachers opinions that have all the “pro’s” and “con’s” teachers and an absolute necessity to interested in using the PSSC materials. been expressed in in a manner that would introduce neophyte teachers to the In addition to the production of celebrative articles that be a self-teaching PSSC course. Homework problems the Teacher’s Guide, several members have been published on the web demonstration of how scientists treat that were devised at MIT were sent to of our group made substantial and elsewhere to mark the project’s experimentally established facts Illinois, where solutions were worked contributions to other parts of the 50th anniversary. and data. At the same time, every out and imbedded in the Teacher’s project. As I remember it, Charlie On the other hand, successful opportunity should be seized to Guide. Slichter, Jim Smith and, later, Leon though the course has been, I believe remind students that the beauty Wheeler Loomis chaired the Cooper (one of PSSC’s bevy of Nobel that it has addressed only one part of of physics lies in its support of the Illinois group during 1957/58. I had Prize winners) made significant a major problem—and a small part unstinting drive of human beings a previous commitment to spend that contributions to rewrites of Parts 1 and at that. The general public in this to understand more about their year in Italy on sabbatical leave. When 3 of the text as well as to one of the country remains abysmally ignorant surroundings—from the sub- I returned to Urbana, I was taken by movies. (Leon Cooper participated in about science in general and about microscopically small to the surprise when Loomis asked me to PSSC meetings at Illinois, but most of physics in particular. Today, decisions unlimitedly large. take over the chairmanship of the his contributions to the PSSC project must be made about a host of group, by then comprising about came after he left Illinois for Brown complex, technical, and scientific Edwin L. Goldwasser 20 members. Various chapters of University.) David Lazarus and Geoff problems. The general public is ill Urbana, Illinois the text were assigned to individual Ravenhall round out the membership equipped to make rational judgments January 2, 2007 members of the group in accord with of the original group still to be found about the performance of its their expressed preferences, and they at Illinois. government in addressing those issues. produced drafts of what they thought With the “completion” of the I believe that Thomas Jefferson once

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 5 Faculty News Two elected to National Hubler wins Academy of Sciences 2006 Nordsieck Award hysics professors David bbott Ceperley and Laura tauffer lfred W. Hubler received the sixth annual Arnold uss A R

P rian S Greene were among ANordsieck Award for Teaching Excellence in Physics L. B for exemplary classroom teaching on April 20, 2006. The 72 scientists elected in Nordsieck Award, named in honor of former Professor of 2006 to membership in Physics Arnold T. Nordsieck and endowed by a gift from the National Academy of his family, was established to recognize and reward Sciences, considered one outstanding teaching in the Department of Physics. In of the highest honors that particular, Hubler was cited for “bringing passion and skill can be accorded a U.S. to teaching and for inspiring his students to be great scientist or engineer. They teachers.” Legendary for his enthusiastic teaching, Hubler has Alfred Hubler will be formally inducted David M. Ceperley Laura H. Greene in April 2007. taught physics at every level at Illinois—from freshman “discovery” courses for In addition to serving on the Physics faculty, Ceperley is also a staff non-physics majors, to the introductory physics courses for engineers, to upper-level graduate courses. Taking examples from systems as different as corn fields and scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and a resonant oscillators, he makes the wonder of complex systems and nonlinear researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology dynamics come alive for his students. Their teaching evaluations sparkle with and at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. superlatives: “interesting and enthusiastic lectures,” “highly skilled,” “wants to make An expert in developing methods for microscopic simulations of quantum sure students learn.” Hubler also strives to involve undergraduates in his research systems, Ceperley has created computational techniques that are used by group, and many have published papers on their work—usually as first author. physicists, chemists, and engineers to predict the behavior of matter. Ceperley The director of the Center for Complex Systems Research, Hubler and his group won the Eugene Feenberg Memorial Medal in 1994 and the APS Aneesur study the phenomena of systems having large throughput, such as turbulence, Rahman Prize for Computational Physics in 1998. He is a Fellow of the lightening, and information flow on the Internet. Nonlinear dynamics, neural nets, American Physical Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts cellular automata, genetic algorithms, and artificial life models are used to describe and Sciences. Ceperley joined the Department of Physics in 1987. these systems. Ultimately, the researchers try to build simple physical systems that can self-assemble, self-repair, and adapt to their environments. Greene is a Swanlund Professor of Physics and a researcher at the Frederick Hubler has pioneered developments in nonlinear science research, including Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. Her research interests focus on strongly the control of chaos, the resonant coupling of nonlinear oscillators, and resonant correlated electron systems, primarily the investigation of the mechanisms of stimulation and novel spectroscopies in nonlinear systems. He was among the first to unconventional superconductivity. recognize that seemingly erratic, random motion associated with deterministic chaos A leading experimentalist in the physics of novel materials, Greene has could, in fact, be controlled and that chaotic systems could be more adaptable than performed pioneering experiments that elucidate how the electronic properties systems undergoing more regular motion. of low- and high-temperature superconductors interface with other materials. Hubler received his diplom in 1983 and PhD in 1987, summa cum laude, from She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Department of Physics, Technical University of Munich. After a postdoctoral the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. fellowship at the University of Stuttgart, he came to the University of Illinois as a She won the APS Maria Goeppert-Meyer Award in 1994 and the Ernest visiting assistant professor in 1989 and became an assistant professor in 1990. Later Orlando Lawrence Memorial Award for Materials Research in 1999. Greene that year, he also became the associate director of the Center for Complex Systems Research at Illinois, of which he is now the director. Hubler served as a Toshiba Chair joined the Illinois faculty in 1992. Professor at Keio University, Tokyo, in 1993/94, and he is the executive editor of “David Ceperley and Laura Greene each have made fundamental Complexity, the premier international journal on complex systems. contributions to advancing scientific knowledge,” said Chancellor Richard Arnold T. Nordsieck, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois from 1947 Herman. “Their presence on the faculty of this university is a great source to 1961, was a brilliant theorist with an uncommon affinity for experiment. A specialist of pride, and their work exemplifies the discovery and innovation that in the mathematics of computation, he (with Hicks and Yen) successfully solved the happens at Illinois.” full nonlinear Boltzmann equations for several nonequilibrium flow problems—a pioneering computational effort and a breakthrough in computational fluid dynamics and rarefied gas dynamics. He also proposed the first electrostatically supported gyroscope and built the first computer to be used at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Nordsieck Analog Computer. In 1953, he proposed the “Cornfield

oss System,” a naval air-defense system that was one of the first applications of digital

wame R computer technology to complex decision-making. K

John Bardeen Faculty Scholar Paul R. Selvin, professor of physics and of biophysics, has been named a 2007 University Scholar, one of six selected campus-wide this year. The University Scholar program recognizes excellence, while helping to identify and retain the University’s most talented teachers, scholars, and researchers. “The University Scholars Program is the premier recognition accorded to faculty at the UI by their colleagues,” said Richard Herman, the Urbana chancellor. “In honoring these outstanding members of the faculty, selected by their peers, we recognize at the same time the highest values of the university.”

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6 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 Faculty News Ceperley named Founder Selvin wins inaugural Professor of Engineering Sackler Prize in Biophysics

n November 10, 2006, David Physical Society, “for important and OM. Ceperley was invested as a deep methodological contributions to tauffer Founder Professor of Engineering at computational physics, and for highly rian S the University of Illinois. Longtime significant research using those L. B friends and collaborators Malvin H. methods in multiple areas of physics.” Kalos (MS ’49, PhD ’52) of Lawrence He received the Eugene Feenberg Livermore National Laboratory and Memorial Medal in 1994 for his Richard M. Martin of Illinois, spoke seminal contributions to many-body eloquently of Ceperley’s contributions physics. to condensed matter physics. A fellow of the American Physical Combining incisive physical Society and a member of the American insight with computational virtuosity, Academy of Arts and Sciences, Ceperley has profoundly influenced Ceperley was elected to the National modern understanding of strongly Academy of Sciences in 2006. interacting quantum many-particle The College of Engineering systems. He has turned the path created the four Founder integral formulation into a precise Professorships in Engineering to tool to understand quantitatively the recognize distinguished senior properties of electrons in solids, of members of the faculty for their liquid and solid helium, and other achievements in teaching, research, systems. His computational methods and service. The name commemorates have defined the state of the art. Stillman Williams Robinson, the first His electron gas equation-of-state faculty member to teach engineering calculation with Alder—a tour de at the University of Illinois, and the force, with some 4000 citations—is first dean when the College of one of the most valuable results in Engineering was organized in 1878. aul R. Selvin, John Bardeen Faculty been successfully applied to molecular computational science, providing Robinson is also the reason that PScholar and professor of physics motors, voltage-controlled ion- basic input data for numerical Physics is located administratively and of biophysics, shared the Raymond channels, dynamics of the bc1 family of applications of density functional in the College of Engineering at and Beverly Sackler International Prize proteins involved in electron transport, theory to electronic systems. Illinois—in 1870, he introduced and in Biophysics in 2006, the first year the and protein-DNA interactions. Ceperley’s groundbreaking work taught a course in physics, believing prize was awarded. Selvin was selected The Sackler Prize in Biophysics was was recognized by the 1998 Aneesur that a knowledge of physics is for his pioneering experimental work in established through the generosity of Rahmen Prize in Computational fundamental to the education of single-molecule biophysics—specifically Raymond and Beverly Sackler and is Physics, awarded by the American every engineer. his development of novel tools to reveal administered by Tel Aviv University. The prize is intended to encourage atomic-scale conformational changes in dedication to science, originality, and biological macromolecules, both in vitro excellence by rewarding outstanding and in vivo. scientists of age 45 years or younger. A major focus of Selvin’s work has Selvin and his co-winner, Dr. Harvey T. been the development of new methods McMahon (Medical Research Council, of resonance energy transfer, including Laboratory of Molecular Biology, single-molecule detection, ultra- Cambridge, England), were awarded sensitive instrumentation, and new the prize in Tel Aviv on May 23, 2006, luminescent lanthanide-based reagents. during the annual meeting of Tel Aviv His ground-breaking techniques have University’s Board of Governors. ong y ua M S

Taekjip Ha, professor of physics and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, received the Michael and Kate Bárány Award for Young Investigators from the Newly invested Founder Professor of Engineering David M. Ceperley American Biophysical Society at its annual meeting on March 5, 2007, in Baltimore. addresses the audience while Department Head Dale J. Van Harlingen, Ha is being honored for his development and application of novel single-molecule Dean Ilesanmi Adesida, and Professor Richard M. Martin look on fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy methods and for his groundbreaking discoveries in protein-DNA interactions and enzyme dynamics. He also received the Fluorescence Young Investigator Award of the Biophysical Society in 2002. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a Cottrell Scholar Award, and a Searle Scholar Award.

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 7

Wandelt makes major contributions to Planck space mission

BY CYNDI PACELY

University of Illinois Physics and College, London. He worked as a AAstronomy faculty member’s postdoctoral fellow at the Theoretical significant involvement in the Astrophysics Center in Copenhagen, European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Denmark, and as a research associate Planck space mission brought a at Princeton University’s physics model of the spacecraft to the department before joining the Loomis Laboratory lobby. University of Illinois in August 2001. Building on the award-winning legacy of NASA’s 1989 Cosmic Measure Twice, Install Once Background Explorer (COBE) Made in Europe by a company satellite, the Planck mission seeks to that builds mock-ups for ESA, the obtain definitive maps of the cosmic Planck model crossed the Atlantic microwave background anisotropies before making stops at institutions and detailed all-sky observations of whose scientists are involved in the other components of the microwave project. sky. When it launches in Summer During 2005, the model was 2008, Planck will look for traces housed on the campus of the Jet of the fundamental structure and Propulsion Lab at Caltech. In 2006, components of the infant Universe it made an appearance at the annual and for the details of how individual meeting of the American and giant clusters of galaxies formed Astronomical Society (AAS) in out of the initial fireball. Washington, D.C., then took up Benjamin Wandelt, an residence for a semester at Haverford internationally recognized expert in College in Pennsylvania before the analysis of cosmic microwave arriving in Urbana in June 2006. background (CMB) data, is a member Once it arrived, Wandelt and of the theory and simulations team his students moved the crated model for the ESA/NASA Planck space from the loading dock into the space mission. He co-leads Planck’s between the classrooms on the ground harmonic analysis effort and has floor of Loomis Laboratory before invented innovative algorithms that Ben Wandelt with the Planck spacecraft mock-up realizing there were no doorways wide make the analysis of huge new data enough to move the crate into the sets tractable. Through Wandelt’s lobby. work, the UI physics department is formation of our Galaxy, our solar COBE/DMR space mission to After considering various routes, one of only a few elite American system, and life,” he added. constrain the non-linearity of they found that the second floor door institutions to be involved in this In addition, Wandelt is training the perturbations created during to the staircase leading into the lobby major international cosmology the next generation of researchers to inflation. He has also participated in is slightly wider and would allow endeavor. work on the analysis of the Planck efforts to predict the properties of passage of the uncrated model. “Displaying the model in the project and the following round of exotic forms of dark matter, “It took three of us to carry the lobby of Loomis was a great way to CMB observations. designed to solve puzzles related model into the elevator in the center show our involvement in such a A theoretical cosmologist, to observations of the clustering of Loomis, then up to the second front-line, international space project Wandelt’s recent projects include properties of matter on galaxy scales. floor and through that doorway with in cosmology,” Wandelt said. studying the bispectrum of the CMB Wandelt received his PhD in not one-tenth of an inch to spare,” The model’s companion poster— anisotropy as measured by the theoretical physics from Imperial Wandelt said. visualizing the immense leaps in knowledge of the CMB background that the Planck mission hopes to achieve—was displayed at the entrance to the Astronomy Building.

Related Research Wandelt’s graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher are now developing new techniques for analyzing the data that will be sent back to Earth from the Planck spacecraft. It was Wandelt’s creation of new algorithms, which are a billion times faster than previously known approaches, that will make the analyses possible. “Analyzing the data will be one of the most challenging computational problems ever attempted,” Wandelt commented. “The payoff of solving these analysis problems is massive. The Planck data promise to be the best data set for years to come for understanding the detailed composition of the Universe, the physical processes that occurred when the Universe first formed, and the primordial seeds of all structure in the Universe that eventually led to the

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8 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1

Department News Gordon Baym

Celebrating Vijay!

Participants in the special symposium Celebrating Vijay!, September 29–30, 2006 BY GORDON BAYM

special symposium was held September 29–30, 2006, at Loomis Laboratory Vijay R. Pandharipande Prize in Nuclear Physics Aof Physics to celebrate the life and science of Vijay R. Pandharipande (1940–2006), Donald B. and Elizabeth M. Willett Professor of Physics. Vijay, who joined the faculty in 1972, was the leading figure of his The Department of Physics is very pleased to announce the Vijay R. generation in the development of the nuclear many-body problem. His seminal Pandharipande Prize in Nuclear Physics. In addition to his extraordinary research program to describe nuclear systems in terms of elementary two- and scientific achievements, Vijay will be remembered with great affection for three-body interactions of the constituent nucleons led to a state-of-the-art his unstinting dedication to his students. comprehensive, quantitative, and reliable theory of nuclei, neutron matter, and neutron stars, as well as strongly interacting atomic and condensed matter A special fund has been endowed at the University of Illinois Foundation systems. for the prize; earnings from the endowment will be used to present in Vijay remained throughout his life the center of a close scientific family, perpetuity an annual cash award and plaque to the year’s outstanding including the new generation of nuclear and many-particle theorists that he nuclear physics graduate student. trained and his other coworkers. This symposium brought together his scientific If you would like to make a gift to the prize fund, please send your family and other friends, not only to remember his manifold contributions, but also to look forward to nuclear and condensed matter physics made all the richer check to the University of Illinois Foundation, 1305 West Green Street, by Vijay. Urbana, IL 61801-2962. Be sure to include the fund number (773489) The keynote speaker, Nobel Laureate Ben Mottelson (NORDITA), opened with your remittance. the symposium Friday afternoon with the provocative question, “Do we really You may also make a gift online at www.physics.uiuc.edu/support. understand the nuclear shell model?” That evening, the participants shared Once you enter your gift amount, you will be directed to the secure memories of Vijay and a sumptuous Indian feast, hosted by Vijay’s wife, Dr. Rajeshwari Pandharipande, at the new Alice Campbell Alumni Center. University of Illinois Foundation’s “Online Giving” site for your personal Speakers on Saturday included Gordon Baym (Illinois), Bob Wiringa and credit card information. (MS ’74, PhD ’78, Argonne National Laboratory), Chris Pethick (NORDITA), If you have questions about the prize or about giving to the University of Tony Leggett (Illinois), Joe Carlson (MS ’79, PhD ’83, Los Alamos National Illinois, please contact Celia Elliott, Department of Physics, 217.244.7725, Laboratory), Ingo Sick (Basel), and Wick Haxton (U. Washington). Copies of [email protected]. all talks are available for download at www.physics.uiuc.edu/vijay.htm.

Remembering Larry Bell

BY JANET L. KANE conference rooms, and many research Outside of work, Larry’s life laboratories. As Physics’ “go-to guy,” revolved around his church, his arry L. Bell, Physics facility he also handled day-to-day facility family, and anything to do with Lmanager for the past six years, problems, such as burned-out lights, airplanes. In recent years, his hobby died Monday, September 11, 2006, leaking pipes, contrary locks, and was constructing intricate airplane following an early-morning bicycle strange smells, with tireless efficiency models, but the first 20 years of his accident. Larry began his employment and friendliness. career were spent in the U.S. Air in the Department of Physics in 1996 Larry’s most recent contribution Force, repairing B-52s. During his as a cryotechnician for the helium has benefited researchers across the Air Force career, he was stationed liquefier. campus—he oversaw the installation both in the United States and abroad Larry’s contributions to the of a new helium liquefier in Loomis. and served in some harsh locations. department were broad and deep. This complex and challenging project Larry was a talented, He assisted in the oversight of many consumed much of Larry’s energy and conscientious, and very likable man. of the recent construction and time through the summer of 2006. He is sorely missed by all of us, remodeling projects—the main Thanks to his experience, insight, and although we are doing our best to lecture halls in Loomis, the theoretical plain hard work, we now have a “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”— condensed matter physics floors in reliable, high-capacity liquefier that Larry’s approach to his work and the the Engineering Sciences Building, will serve the campus for the next tag line on all his email messages. Loomis’s new roof, two new decade or more. Larry L. Bell

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 9

James S. Koehler, 1914–2006

rofessor James Stark Koehler was a Research Committee. His original understanding the atomic details Ppioneer in metal defects and their focus was on plastic waves in metals of radiation damage, and the interactions. During wartime, he upon impact. By 1944, Koehler joined Magnuson–Palmer–Koehler studied deformation of metals and the Manhattan Engineer District, to experiment, the first to show the measured self-diffusion in uranium. study effects produced in solids by existence of interstitial-vacancy After the war, he formulated the first irradiation. One of his many close-pairs. Extensive further work, accurate theory for the motion and contributions was measurement of on interstitial-impurity interactions, damping of pinned dislocations. the self-diffusion activation energy of demonstrated that these interactions, At Illinois, his students perfected uranium, which was used to calculate specific to each impurity, play a methods to quench point defects into the change in shape of the cylindrical decisive role in the annealing of very pure metals and to study their uranium slugs in the Hanford radiation damage. Finally, the properties and subsequent interactions plutonium-producing reactors. Bauerle–Koehler experiment on through careful temperature-time After the war, the new Office of gold first showed convincingly how sequences of annealing. He led a Naval Research in 1947 began support vacancy properties can be studied comprehensive program of radiation for his work on plastic deformation. quantitatively by rapid quenching damage investigations, with studies In 1949, Koehler was invited to and systematic annealing. of both metals and semiconductors. join the new Illinois department Jim Koehler was an inquisitive, After visiting Cambridge in 1957, he program in condensed matter physics. critical and cheerful man. Every organized the first Illinois capability Koehler moved his Navy equipment to morning he would appear in the lab, for direct study of defects in solids Urbana, and ONR support continued Jim Koehler, 1959, in his laboratory often with a glint in his eye and the through transmission electron through 1970. Upon his arrival, greeting “I’ve got a wild idea!” This microscopy. The classification scheme substantial support from the Atomic them Columbia, Illinois, Missouri, frequently led to critical discussion proposed by Koehler’s group, Energy Commission began for a Northwestern, Utah, Wisconsin and sometimes to experimental identifying the mechanisms involved program in radiation damage, which and abroad in Tokyo, Seoul, and exploration and improvement. in the various stages of radiation used the Illinois cyclotron. Later his in Europe) and of research and He was tightly focused when working damage annealing in metals, was often dream was realized to have a dedicated administration at national laboratories on a problem, he spoke and wrote challenged but remains in place today. facility for “simple” radiation damage (Argonne, Oak Ridge, Sandia, and economically, and he could ignore Koehler was born November 10, (2-MeV electrons) in the abroad in Japan and bureaucratic demands. 1914, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. new Illinois Materials Germany). Koehler had many scientific His study of physics began in the Research Laboratory. Jim Koehler was an Koehler was a visitors, for example, Gunther local college (now the University of Koehler also enjoyed inquisitive, critical, and Fellow of the Leibfried of Jülich. Although their years of research support American Physical personal styles could only be described Wisconsin, Oshkosh), where he cheerful man. Every graduated in 1935. For graduate from the Army Research Society and was as complementary, their mutual focus study he went to the University of Office (Durham). morning he would appear awarded a J.S. and honesty about the basic questions Altogether, Koehler of defect physics, not to mention Michigan, then notable for its in the lab, often with a Guggenheim summer symposia on theoretical supervised 45 doctoral Fellowship. He tennis, drew Leibfried and Koehler physics, which began in 1928. These dissertations, 7 at glint in his eye and the retired from teaching together, with Leibfried making annual visits. symposia brought leading theoretical Carnegie Tech (now greeting, “I’ve got a in the summer of physicists from Europe to spend their Carnegie Mellon 1981, and that fall Jim and his wife Harriet wild idea!” summers in Ann Arbor. At Michigan, University) and 38 at attended the Yamada entertained warmly and often in Jim did theoretical research on the University of Illinois Conference V on their home in Champaign. Local hindered rotation in methyl alcohol Urbana-Champaign, Point Defects and Defect Interactions students and staff got to meet many with David Dennison, discoverer of where he enjoyed the contributions of in Metals, Kyoto, Japan, where he was internationally known personalities in the spin of the proton. In his 1940 over two dozen postdoctoral associates honored by his many colleagues who defect physics informally in this way. thesis, Jim acknowledged Professor and the presence of frequent visitors had spent periods of time in Urbana. The Koehlers’ interests in music were Dennison’s stimulation and also from other research centers in defect His name is easily attached to obvious. For a time, their living room thanked Professor H. M. Randall physics. In part because of this some fundamental properties of was filled with two grand pianos, for his “encouragement and advice.” widespread scientific family, and defects in crystals. The Peach–Koehler which Harriet and her friend Betty Randall, beginning in 1910, had built in part because of his pioneering formula gives the basic relation now Seitz played together. Jim loved Michigan Physics into a prominent discoveries, Koehler had a big presence widely used for the force on a reading, upon which he increasingly department. It was in Ann Arbor at many international conferences dislocation in terms of an applied relied for pleasure in his retirement. in 1938 that Jim met his future on defects in metals. stress, and the vibrating string model In later years, he was devoted to the colleague Frederick Seitz, one of In theory, Koehler continued is the first formulation of the equation welfare of Harriet, who even as her the summer lecturers. personal research on defect problems, of motion underlying dislocation health deteriorated before her death Michigan awarded Koehler a and he supervised the work of several dynamics. Almost nobody believed six years before his, retained Rackham Traveling Postdoctoral students in dislocation-related theses. Koehler’s 1952 prediction of L2 and L4 remarkable talents on the piano. Fellowship, which he used at the In experiment, his students and loop segment length dependence of He died in Urbana on June 19, 2006. University of Pennsylvania with associates used many different the elastic modulus and internal Seitz. At Penn, his research interests techniques: internal friction, friction, respectively, until 1956 Ralph O. Simmons changed to the theory of solids, in macroscopic deformation, electrical measurements by Thompson and Andrew V. Granato particular to problems of mechanical resistivity, X-ray diffraction, energy Holmes of Oak Ridge National Urbana, Illinois deformation, and his second release, transmission electron Laboratory showed it to be correct. 2006 publication was already in this microscopy, X-ray anomalous Thereafter, this signature became the field. The next year he went to transmission, proton channeling, and standard for identifying dislocation Westinghouse as Research Fellow, one the emission of channeling radiation. losses, and one of the most sensitive of the positions created in Pittsburgh Koehler’s publications span 57 years. detectors of interstitials available. by Ed Condon as associate director of Among the achievements of Basic results in radiation damage research. Koehler became a physics Koehler’s many students and were the Cooper–Koehler–Marx instructor at Carnegie Tech in 1942, postdoctorals were prominent careers experiment, the first to show that where a substantial commitment to in industry (Bell Laboratories, General interstitials move at very low research in the solid state was being Electric, Philips, several aerospace temperatures in metals, which meant made, and he set up an experimental companies, and others), of teaching that previous room-temperature lab, funded by the National Defense and research at universities (among measurements were of little use in

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10 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 Department News Bumper crop of APS Fellows in 2006 A legacy of achievement

fter 28 years on articles. He was the Athe Physics faculty, thesis adviser of 33 Enrico Gratton retired doctoral students in 2006. With William and supervised Mantulin, Gratton 26 postdoctoral established at Illinois researchers and the first national numerous visiting facility dedicated to scientists at the LFD. fluorescence Charles F. Gammie Robert G. Leigh Mats A. Selen Scott S. Willenbrock Recently, spectroscopy, the Gratton developed Laboratory for record four Physics faculty, two dedicated service to the American a non-invasive Fluorescence Dynamics former Physics postdocs, and Physical Society. diagnostic tool to A (LFD). The LFD, five distinguished alumni were study changes supported by the recognized in December as 2006 Peter M. Gehring (MS ’84, PhD ’89), occurring at the National Center for APS Fellows for their seminal a physicist at the National Institute of surface of the brain. Research Resources division of the contributions to physics. Standards and Technology in The technique behind the tool is National Institutes of Health, grew to Gaithersburg, Maryland, was cited based upon near-infrared spectroscopy become the premier national research Charles F. Gammie, professor of for his major contributions to our and is less expensive that other facility in biomedical fluorescence physics and of astronomy, was understanding of the lattice dynamics methods, such as functional magnetic spectroscopy. The LFD designed, honored for his work on elucidating of relaxor ferroelectrics and for resonance imaging and positron tested, and implemented advances astrophysical turbulence, particularly elucidating the nature of the spin emission tomography. in technology, especially hardware, in black hole magnetospheres, star- dynamics of cuprate oxides by Gratton explained how the automation software, and forming interstellar clouds, and neutron scattering. technique works. “Whenever a region applications, for the biomedical circumstellar disks. Associate of the brain is activated—directing community. The state-of-the-art user Professor Robert G. Leigh was Eli I. Rosenberg (MS ’66, PhD ’71), movement in a finger, for example— facility was known internationally recognized for his pioneering a professor in the Department of that part of the brain uses more for developing instrumentation contributions to string theory, Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State oxygen,” he said. “Our technique for time-resolved fluorescence supersymmetric gauge theory, the University, was honored for his works by measuring the blood flow spectroscopy using frequency domain theory of the electroweak phase definitive contributions to the first and oxygen consumption in the methods and providing technical transition, and the theory of measurements of quark structure of brain.” assistance to visiting scientists. D-branes. the pion, the electronics design for Most recently, this technology has Gratton was born in Merate the DELPHI electromagnetic been used to study brain oxygenation (Como) Italy and received his His leadership and hardware calorimeter, and the development and hemodynamic changes in doctorate in physics from the contributions to the CLEO of the BaBar on-line software. individuals with obstructive sleep University of Rome. He came to collaboration and contributions to apnea syndrome (OSAS). For the the University of Illinois in 1976 the understanding of charm hadronic Lawrence B. Schein (PhD ’71) was first time, physicians and researchers as a research associate under the decays and excited states were cited recognized by the Forum on Industrial gained information on how the direction of Gregorio Weber in for Professor Mats A. Selen. And and Applied Physics for his lifelong brain’s vascular system responds to the Department of Biochemistry. Professor Scott S. Willenbrock was contributions to electrophotography, diminished oxygen supply during He joined the Department of Physics honored for his pioneering work in electrostatics, and transport in organic apnea episodes. in 1978. He is a fellow of the single top quark production at solids. A holder of 10 patents, Schein “Through our current research, American Physical Society. hadron colliders and for has pioneered copier and printer we verified that we indeed ‘see’ the A short list of Gratton’s scientific contributions to understanding of technology advancements at Xerox brain,” said physician and physiologist achievements includes the the associated production of Higgs Research (1970–1983), IBM Antonios Michalos, a staff scientist at development of multi-frequency and vector bosons as a discovery (1983–1994), and as an independent the LFD. phase and modulation fluorometry; channel at the Tevatron and the consultant (1994–present). Other recent research efforts firsts in lifetime data analysis, Large Hadron Collider. include the use of frequency-domain including distributions and global David W. Snoke (MS ’84, PhD ’90), methods to obtain near-infrared analysis; seminal contributions to Former postdocs Girsh Blumberg an associate professor in the optical images of thick tissues, single- the Laurdan generalized polarization and Jörg Schmalian were recognized Department of Physics and molecule studies of protein dynamics, approach; pioneering work in the for their outstanding work in Astronomy at the University of and the development of optical analysis of FCS data, including PCH condensed matter physics. Blumberg, Pittsburgh whose current interest is monitors to detect vascular and RICS; and the use of frequency a researcher at Bell Labs Innovations Bose–Einstein condensation of insufficiency in peripheral tissues. domain methods for optical imaging. in Murray Hill, New Jersey, was excitons in two and three dimensions, Friends and colleagues worldwide Gratton is the inventor or co- cited for his seminal contributions was cited for his pioneering work on celebrated Gratton’s legacy of such inventor of 11 patents and has to elucidating the physics of spin, the experimental and theoretical discoveries with a retirement published more than 400 scientific charge and superconducting understanding of dynamical optical symposium—which coincided with correlations in 1D and 2D complex processes in semiconductor systems. his 60th birthday—on May 20, 2006. oxide compounds using Raman “It was clear that I am not alone scattering techniques. Schmalian, an Each year, no more than one-half in my admiration and respect for associate professor in the Department of one percent of the then-current Professor Gratton,” said Julie Wright, of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa membership of the Society is who worked with him for 20 years. State University, was recognized for recognized by their peers for election “His friends and colleagues eagerly his pioneering contributions to the to the status of Fellow. Each new took time from their busy schedules theory of strongly correlated Fellow is elected after careful and and came from as far as Denmark, materials, including studies on competitive review and Italy, and Germany to celebrate his the role of disorder, frustration, recommendation by a fellowship career.” and unconventional pairing in committee on the unit level, After his retirement from Illinois, quantum many-body systems. additional review by the APS Gratton moved to the University of Fellowship Committee, and final California, Irvine, where he is a Shirley Suiling Chan (MS ’71, PhD approval by the full APS Council. professor in the Department of ’77 [Biophysics]), a research associate Fellowship is therefore a distinct Biomedical Engineering. The LFD in physics at Princeton University, honor signifying recognition by one’s has also moved to UCI. was recognized for explorations of the professional peers. We congratulate all spectra, structure, and dynamics of our Fellows on achieving this major proteins and nuclei acids and for her career milestone. Enrico Gratton as a brand new assistant professor, 1978

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 11

It’s all in the timing A look at Jeremiah Sullivan’s 39-year career

BY CYNDI PACELEY Sullivan commented. “All of us are postdocs and students, and of all of proud of that collegial atmosphere, the upper-level teaching laboratories. which goes back to the era of Wheeler Completing the two-year project freed Loomis, and each subsequent up much-needed office and research generation has been careful to space in Loomis to accommodate the preserve it.” hiring of additional faculty members. Sullivan advanced rapidly. From his later role in leading the Department Following the trends of the field his start as an assistant professor in of Physics. and the needs of the department, 1967, he was promoted to associate “Working with an interdisciplinary Sullivan oversaw the addition of professor two years later and attained framework was a great experience,” professors in astrophysics, condensed the rank of full professor in 1973. In Sullivan explained. “With representation matter and nanoscience, optical those early years of his career, Sullivan in ACDIS from political science, physics, biological physics, high- made significant contributions to geography, history, engineering, energy physics, and nuclear physics, as particle physics, particularly to mathematics, philosophy, and numerous well as in physics education research. electromagnetic interactions and to other fields, we contributed to sound, “I’m proud to have increased the hadron-hadron processes at high interdisciplinary perspectives on diversity of our faculty as well,” he energy. important issues of peace and security.” added. “Now, 7 of the 69 full-time In 2001, he was selected by the faculty members are women.” A change of direction Secretary of Energy to lead the Nuclear Another positive change was In 1974, he began what ultimately Nonproliferation Subcommittee of the the addition of a departmental Jeremiah Sullivan in 1992 developed into his major research U.S. National Nuclear Security information technology administrator, direction when he accepted an Administration Advisory Committee. for whom Sullivan secured partial invitation to become a member of In addition, he received a four-year funding from the College of eremiah Sullivan is certain of two JASON, a group of experts who appointment to the Advisory Panel of Engineering. Jfacts concerning his academic provide technical analyses to the the security-related Civil Science and “The IT sophistication of the career: the timing was one of the United States government on scientific Technology Sub-Programme of the department is state-of-the-art on the most exciting periods for the field of issues relevant to national security. He NATO Science Committee. U of I campus and also stacks up well physics and the University of Illinois became increasingly interested in arms His detailed calculations of shock among departments nationwide,” was the best place to spend those control and nuclear nonproliferation. wave profiles from underground Sullivan said. 39 years, the last 6 of which he served In part, his participation in nuclear tests—a collaboration with as department head before retiring in JASON prompted faculty members Professor Fred Lamb, his Physics Retirement plans July 2006. involved with the Illinois Program in colleague at Illinois—along with Now Sullivan and his wife, Sheila, After receiving his PhD from Arms Control, Disarmament, and studies of technologies for enhancing are looking forward to spending more Princeton University in 1964, Sullivan International Security (ACDIS) to the effectiveness of peace operations, time with their son, daughter, and spent three years as a research name Sullivan as the first paid, part- comprehensive nuclear test ban issues, granddaughter, as well as to their first associate in the theoretical physics time director in 1986. Established in science-based stockpile stewardship, retirement travel adventure—a much- group at the Stanford Linear 1978, the program brought together technology and policy of ballistic anticipated trip to New Zealand. Accelerator Center (SLAC). In his a core group of faculty, as well as missile defenses, arms control His career-long commitment to third year, the lab became operational associates, affiliates, and students from verification, military and civilian uses the Department of Physics, the and began producing ground-breaking more than 20 disciplines, in pursuit of space, and science and public policy University of Illinois and to arms results. of progressive and relevant academic were recognized with the Leo Szilard control work remains his focus for the Award from the American Physical coming years. Through connections High-energy theory research in international security. Sullivan’s directorship of ACDIS Society in 2000. with his former colleagues at ACDIS SLAC’s success paved the way for strengthened his commitment to other and elsewhere, Sullivan is still working future complementary experiments at roles in the evolution of U.S. defense At the helm to influence the future—giving talks a higher-energy accelerator to be built policy. Through his work with a Named interim head of Physics in in U of I classes, presenting in Illinois. Sullivan knew that the number of important studies and March 2000, Sullivan became head in information to students and faculty at decision to site the laboratory—later reviews, he became known for his March 2001. At the outset, he was other universities around the country, named the Fermi National Accelerator significant contributions to the involved in remodeling the five floors and working with government and Laboratory (Fermilab)—in Illinois technology of peace over the course of of Physics space in the Engineering non-government agencies. would provide great possibilities for 20 years. The campus-wide experience Sciences Building, which enabled the He points to recent renewed the state and its universities. of being ACDIS director was, he feels, relocation of the condensed matter interest in the ultimate goal of the “I saw that the new laboratory one of the best preparations he had for theory faculty, together with their global elimination of nuclear weapons, would be the next place where a vision endorsed by President Ronald exciting discoveries would be made Reagan and Soviet General Secretary in my area of physics,” Sullivan said. Mikhail Gorbachev at their historic The potential for major 1986 Reykjavik Summit. In an early discoveries in particle physics led January 2007 Wall Street Journal op- many universities across the nation to ed, George Schultz, William Perry, expand their faculty numbers in high- Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn energy physics. That was good news called for urgent new action to be for a promising new PhD. Sullivan taken toward fulfilling the Reykjavik was recruited by both Illinois and the vision. In a late January 2007 WSJ University of California, San Diego, op-ed, Gorbachev added his full but chose Illinois and “never doubted” endorsement. that he had made the right decision. “The growing spread of nuclear “When I first visited Illinois, I weapons poses a threat to all and sensed a warmth of spirit here—often new initiatives are badly needed,” referred to as the ‘Urbana spirit’,” Sullivan said.

Marion Evans and Jeremiah Sullivan setting up a demonstration for Physics 108.

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12 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 Department News Salamon named dean at UT Dallas

yron B. Salamon, former Institute of Technology (now Mprofessor of physics and Carnegie-Mellon University) and associate dean of the College of a PhD degree in physics from the Engineering at the University of University of California, Berkeley. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, In 1966, he joined the Department became dean of the School of of Physics at the University of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Illinois. Since 2000, he has been the (NS&M) at The University of Texas associate dean and director of the at Dallas (UTD) on October 15, Experiment Station in Illinois’ 2006. Salamon also holds a newly College of Engineering. endowed distinguished chair position A condensed matter in physics. experimentalist, Salamon is noted “I was attracted to UTD by its for his work on phase transitions, Julie Wright drive to become a major public superconductivity, and the properties research university and, in particular, of magnetic materials. Most recently, experiences the by NS&M’s pivotal role in achieving Daniel and Salamon were his research has focused on the rewards of retirement that goal,” Salamon said. “My aim is colleagues at Illinois, where Daniel magnetic behavior of oxides and to make the school a model for 21st- served as dean of the College of nanophase materials and on phase transitions in high-temperature fter 20 years in a variety of century academic research and Engineering before he became the superconductors. He supervised capacities with the Department of education. It will draw strength from fourth president of UTD on June 1, A 25 PhD theses while at Illinois. Physics, Julie Wright retired in October traditional disciplines, but will attack 2005. During 1995/96, Salamon served 2006. Wright spent most of her scientific and technological problems “Having worked closely with as a distinguished visiting professor 20 years working with Enrico and the training of young scientists Dr. Salamon, I know him to be both with the Japan Ministry of Education Gratton and William Mantulin in the from an integrated, cross-disciplinary an expert researcher and gifted at Tsukuba University, and in 1996 Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics perspective.” administrator,” Daniel said. “In was the Berndt Matthias Scholar at (LFD). Wright joined the LFD in “We are delighted to have such particular, he is a very effective Los Alamos National Laboratory. 1986, one month after it was founded. a highly regarded scientist and recruiter of academic talent, which He received an Alexander von “I’ve enjoyed working for Physics,” administrator as Myron Salamon will serve NS&M well as it continues Humbodt Senior Scientist Prize Wright said. “It’s a good department accept this important academic to expand its faculty, degree programs, in 1975 and was an A.P. Sloan that really tries to accommodate its leadership position at UTD,” said and areas of research. Dr. Salamon is Foundation Fellow. He is a Fellow of staff.” university president David E. Daniel. exceptionally well prepared to make a the American Physical Society and a Prior to coming to Physics, she “This is a key hire for UTD as it very significant, positive impact at member of the American Association worked for the Office of University pursues its goal of joining the ranks UTD.” for the Advancement of Science and Audits and for the Atmospheric of the nation’s top research Salamon received a bachelor’s the Neutron Scattering Society. Sciences Section of the Illinois State universities.” degree in physics from the Carnegie Water Survey. Her first campus position was with the Department of Agronomy. Wright points to the advances in computer technology as the biggest change during her entire 40-year working career. She’s experienced the progression first-hand, starting with her Robinson moves to University College first job as a keypunch operator for Zenith Corporation. “While working at the Illinois an K. Robinson has left Urbana surfaces and interfaces. These State Water Survey, we procured one of Ifor the Department of Physics and surface methods are still used today the first word processing machines—a Astronomy at University College, at the major SR facilities, including Wang system that was the size of a desk London, in part to take advantage the National Synchrotron Light and recorded on cassette tapes,” Wright of research possibilities offered by the Source (Brookhaven), the said. “At University Audits, I used an new Diamond Light Source (DLS), European Synchrotron Radiation IBM “recording typewriter” and then a synchrotron radiation (SR) facility Facility (Grenoble), the Advanced moved up to a DOS-based personal presently being built at the Photon Source (Argonne) and computer. When I came to Physics, I Rutherford Laboratory near Oxford. Synchrotron Radiation Source became familiar with the Macintosh Robinson received his doctorate (Daresbury). computer, along with D-Base III and in biophysics from Harvard in 1981, More recently, Robinson has programs for preparing manuscripts. after receiving an MA in physics exploited the very high coherence The World Wide Web, as it was known from the University of Cambridge of the latest SR sources to enable then, was just coming over the in 1976. He was a member of the direct three-dimensional imaging horizon.” technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs of structure. Coherent X-ray A native of Paris, Illinois, Wright (Murray Hill, New Jersey) from diffraction methods, which now lives near Villa Grove, nearer her 1981 to 1992, where he shared Robinson will further expand at son and daughter and their families. responsibility (with P. Fuoss) for the A condensed matter DLS, may be useful for examining In her free time, she enjoys reading, development and implementation of experimentalist, Robinson specializes strain distributions inside complex scrap booking, and crocheting. She is an X-ray surface diffraction beamline in X-ray diffraction using synchrotron materials. also very involved in activities at her at the National Synchrotron Light radiation. During his years at Bell The DLS is the largest church. Source at Brookhaven National Labs, he developed techniques for UK-funded scientific facility to be And, at least for a little longer, Laboratory. He came to the studying surface structure using X-ray built for more than 30 years. It is Wright is still on the University of University of Illinois as a professor diffraction. These methods, based on located in south Oxfordshire on Illinois campus, serving as an of physics in 1992. He supervised crystal truncation rods, have become the Harwell Chilton science administrative assistant with the nine PhD theses while at Illinois. the definitive technique for campus. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, determining atomic positions at working part-time for Physics Professor Taekjip Ha, an HHMI investigator.

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 13

Weaver joins Physics are available on Weaver’s faculty page ormerly a professor in the Department dynamics of optical lasers,” Weaver said. tauffer of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics “It is our hope that the ultrasonic analog, on the Physics website at rian S F www.physics.uiuc.edu/people/WeaverR.

L. B at Illinois, Richard Weaver joined the with its longer wavelengths and Department of Physics in August 2006. convenient frequencies, should allow Weaver received the Hetényi Award Weaver’s current research on the experiments not possible on optical from the Society for Experimental locking of nonlinear auto-oscillations in lasers.” Mechanics in 2004 and was elected a an ultrasonic system—called a uaser His theoretical work on the statistics fellow of the Acoustical Society of (pronounced wayzer)—has shown that the of waves in random and multiply America in 1996. He was a guest editor oscillations exhibit stimulated emission or scattering media has applications to for the journal Ultrasonics in 1997, absorption, depending on details of their mesoscopic electronics, to quantum 2001, and 2003, and currently serves as properties, and that they exhibit super- chaos, to seismology, and to structural associate editor of the Journal of the radiance, in that their power output scales acoustics. His experimental work Acoustical Society of America. He with the square of the number of oscillators. explores the subject using ultrasound received a PhD in astrophysics from “We anticipate that the systems may be in solids. Preprints of selected recent Cornell University. useful for asking questions about the publications on these and other topics

Wolfe retires classical gas of excitons in contact with short-lived biexcitons—a sort of excitonic “dark matter” yet to be observed directly. In the MRL Laser Lab, Wolfe’s group combined picosecond laser spectroscopy and micro-imaging to measure the in-plane motion of photoexcited carriers in semiconductor quantum wells. Rapid transport (at near sonic velocities) was found at low temperatures. They also performed photoluminescence experiments on excitons and biexcitons in GaAs quantum wells, observing ideal-gas-like thermodynamics at low densities and Jim Wolfe as a brand new assistant evidence for the onset of Bose–Einstein professor, 1976 statistics at higher densities. An amazing offshoot of the ames P. Wolfe, who spent his entire group’s exciton experiments was the invention of a technique for imaging Jfaculty career at the University of The physicist as grandfather—Anne is underwhelmed by maximizing the free the ballistic propagation of phonons Illinois, retired in Summer 2006 after energy of the conduction electrons 30 years in Urbana. He was a principal at low temperatures. Since its investigator in the Frederick Seitz introduction in 1978, “phonon He has supervised the theses of 25 Wolfe directed multi-investigator Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), imaging” has contributed graphically doctoral students during the course of projects for the National Science where he concentrated on the physics of and quantitatively to far-reaching his busy and productive career. His Foundation and the U.S. Department excitonic matter and phonons in solids. topics in phonon physics. Utilizing advice to young and aspiring professors: of Energy at the MRL. Between 1999 Wolfe received his bachelor’s and tiny superconducting detectors and “Position yourself for discovery and keep and 2002, he served as the Physics doctoral degrees in physics from the laser-scanned heat sources, phonon an open mind, because nature is full of associate head for University of California, Berkeley. imaging has wonderful surprises.” graduate programs, He remained at Berkeley as an assistant provided graphic In 2004, Wolfe was awarded the directing graduate research physicist, and with Carson insights into the Frank Isakson Prize of the American student admissions and Jeffries’ group, he applied optical and areas of phonon Physical Society “for contributions to the appointments, which microwave techniques to the newly focusing, lattice fundamental understanding of excitonic he says was “a terrific discovered phenomena of electron-hole dynamics, and matter in semiconductors, including its opportunity to meet droplets in Ge. Using infrared imaging, phonon scattering propagation, made possible by pioneering and assist faculty and they took the first photo of an electron- at interfaces, development of imaging techniques that students in the hole droplet. He joined the Department superlattices, and lend graphic insights to electronic and department.” of Physics at Illinois in 1976. defects. Phonon vibrational processes in solids.” He has a He also served on Best known for developing novel imaging techniques number of collaborations in the United several high-level imaging techniques to study excitonic were later extended States and abroad. He received an campus committees matter and phonon propagation at low to study ultrasound Alexander von Humboldt Foundation over the years. temperatures, Wolfe’s group created in anisotropic media U.S. Senior Scientist Award in 1988 A dedicated and time-resolved luminescence imaging and to probe the (Munich), and a Japan Society for the gifted teacher, Wolfe techniques to determine the spatial acoustic properties Promotion of Science Fellowship in developed a textbook distribution and mobilities of electron- of “phononic 1991 (Hokkaido). He is a Fellow of the Phonon imaging of internal entitled “Elements of hole droplets and excitons in bulk lattices.” diffraction of ultrasound in silicon American Physical Society. Most recently, Thermal Physics” that semiconductors, such as Si, Ge, and (Hauser and Wolfe) While Wolfe is maintaining his Wolfe’s group has is used in our Cu2O. They discovered a Cerenkov-like research interests, retirement is allowing introductory thermodynamics course. “sonic barrier” for droplet motion in Si observed a highly selective absorption him and his wife, Kathy, who recently His research book Phonon Imaging and observed (and explained) extremely of ballistic phonons caused by retired from a career in nursing, to (Cambridge University Press, 2005, high excitonic mobilities in Cu O. quasiparticles (unpaired electrons) in spend more time with their coast-to- 2 ISBN-10: 0521620619) has been Their early spectroscopic evidence for superconducting Pb. They are using coast family and enjoy the thrill of described by his peers as a “masterpiece” Bose–Einstein condensation of excitons this new probe to test Overhauser’s grandparenting. hypothesis of an unusual spin-density- and a “comprehensive and highly in Cu2O led to extensive studies of this system that now point instead to a wave ground state in Pb. readable review” with “spectacular graphics.”

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14 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1

Student News Alumni News Svazas appointed Fermilab medical director Guttenberg named first Edelheit Fellow

icholas Guttenberg, a BY CYNDI PACELEY vices er graduate student in Nigel N edia S Goldenfeld’s group, has been rian Svazas’s career proves once isual M selected as the first recipient of the Bagain that a physics degree is a V L.S. Edelheit Family Biological flexible and useful tool—however milab Physics Fellowship. The focus of you choose to use it. er

Guttenberg’s research is evolutionary As a University of Illinois ahn, F dynamics; he uses numerical models undergraduate, Svazas completed R. H to understand the consequences of his pre-med requirements while evolutionary mechanisms and the majoring in physics. He went on to properties exhibited by real evolving earn a medical degree from Chicago systems. He was selected for his Nigel Goldenfeld and Nicholas Guttenberg Medical School at Rosalind Franklin demonstrated research ability and his University and interned at great promise for making substantial contributions to biological physics. “I see physics Hines/Loyola University Medical as a toolbox for science,” said Guttenberg. Center. Ten years later he returned to By developing computer simulations to model evolutionary behavior, Guttenberg the U of I—this time at Chicago— hopes to unravel the important behavioral factors observed in biology—diversity of to earn a master’s degree in public species, complexity in biological systems, and the evolutionary effects of mechanisms health, concentrating in occupational such as horizontal gene transfer, mutation, crossover, and homologous and environmental health sciences. recombination—and to learn how to build non-biological systems having biological He also completed his residency at properties. His thesis topic is exploring how invariance leads to structure in turbulent UIC. flows. The same sort of invariance would allow making a model of complexity that did Over the last 22 years, Svazas has not saturate—an actual mechanism is gene mutation. pursued his interest in occupational Guttenberg has already studied how model biological systems evolve more and medicine in various ways—as Brian Svazas at Fermilab more structure and why they never seem to stop evolving at some point. He has principal physician for Lockheed discovered some very simple approaches to creating artificial life computationally that Missiles and Space and in a similar can continue to evolve complexity without stopping, and he has begun to analyze and capacity for a Japanese–American “The thing I loved most about systemize the behavior. These early results indicate that the popular model of a “free auto plant, as a practicing physician the subject was that no matter how energy landscape” may not be a good starting point for evolution studies. for Edward Hospital in Naperville, you approached the problem, the Guttenberg is also working in more mainstream areas of condensed matter theory; and as medical director for British answer came out the same,” he added. he has published results on scaling behavior in the dynamics of Abrikosov vortices in Petroleum Company’s North “That was very reassuring and almost superconductors. His other non-biological research project concerns the attempt to American operations. He was also magical. The concept of the elegant understand the flow behavior of two-dimensional fluids in the turbulent regime. a medical officer in the Navy solution is like studying the moves of Goldenfeld refers to Guttenberg’s work as “representing an outstanding balance of Reserves for 24 years. the grand chess masters and is akin to analytical and computational theory, which, when coupled to Nicholas’ inexhaustible In June 2006, he was named “form following function”—when you curiosity, promises to be an excellent recipe for success in biological physics.” medical director at the Fermi provide the function in an efficient Guttenberg enjoys programming and has written “a bunch of games.” He is also National Accelerator Laboratory. manner, you truly have something an accomplished bread baker. “I commented to the Fermi beautiful.” interview panel that I anticipated coming home to physics, but in Giving Back Walsh named 2006/07 Hayward Scholarship recipient retrospect it’s only a more formal In addition to his depth of relationship now because I never professional experience, Svazas offers ngineering Physics undergraduate stopped using what I learned,” his expertise to the occupational and ubetz T. Patrick Walsh has won one of Svazas said. environmental medicine field.

E Rick K eight College of Engineering Harold After spending much of his In conjunction with his master’s and Ruth Hayward Scholarships for career in a treatment-based role, one degree, he received the Donaldson 2006/07. The scholarships are awarded of the most exciting opportunities Award for academic excellence and for academic achievement, leadership, at Fermilab is his interaction with significant contributions to public service, and initiative. colleagues in a prevention-based health. He also was elected to A senior from Riverside, Illinois, capacity. fellowship in the American College Walsh is a double major in engineering “Currently, I’m using of Occupational and Environmental physics and economics. Cited for his experience I gained in silicon chip Medicine and in the Chicago Institute involvement in the Illinois chapter of manufacturing to help in some of Medicine. Engineers Without Borders, Walsh spent Patrick Walsh comparing the light exotic metal work,” he said. “I’m He currently serves as the summer of 2005 bringing electricity output of a kerosene lamp with that of included on projects from the design secretary/treasurer on the board of and hope to a village in rural India far his proposed solar-powered LED lantern stage, so not only do I get the joy of governors for the Central States from the country’s power grid. learning, but also the satisfaction Occupational Medicine Association, His experience in India taught Walsh that the problem of energy production that the human element is and for 10 years he has been a clinical and distribution in the developing world must be addressed much more thoroughly considered and instructor for DePaul University’s comprehensively. “I’m now interested, first, in long-term development of protected.” nurse practitioner program. technologies that will increase global energy production by orders of magnitude, With his new position, Svazas is and second, in short-term development of technologies that will directly benefit Hooked on Physics clearly in an ideal place to continue the world’s poor.” He is currently working on a project to design, fabricate, and Svazas found van de Graaff calling on his love of physics in order mass produce small, highly efficient solar panel-charged and battery-operated generators and other such to make further contributions to LED lanterns to replace some of the >1 billion inefficient kerosene lamps now experiments “very cool,” but occupational medicine. used in the developing world. credits a gifted high school teacher “I’ve always been curious about “Light emitting diodes—LEDs—have recently become more affordable and with cementing his decision to Fermilab from my undergraduate more power efficient,” explained Walsh. “We seek to create the very first design pursue the subject in college. days when professors and teaching providing a real, economically sensible alternative to kerosene lighting for a large “Dr. Tchalo—dubbed the Mad assistants would discuss experiments portion of the people who lack access to electricity.” Macedonian for his zany teaching conducted at the lab,” Dr. Svazas said. Walsh’s project won a 2006 Phase-I, $10,000 grant from the U.S. style—resembled Wolf Man Jack in “Though this is familiar ground in Environmental Protection Agency in what is called the “P3” (People, Prosperity, appearance and speech, which made terms of the industrial operations, and the Planet) award program. him all the more memorable,” Svazas the lab is constantly evolving, which The Hayward Scholarships are made possible by a generous bequest from said. “He taught that physics is at brings a welcome challenge to learn the estates of Harold and Ruth Hayward to the Illinois chapter of the Tau Beta the root of all science. I decided I new things.” Pi association. “Hap” Howard was a longtime member of the electrical couldn’t go wrong doing something engineering faculty and served as the director of the measurements program in I liked that was so universally the Engineering Experiment Station at the University of Illinois. applicable.”

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1 15

Dubson wins Scott Anderson, AAPT award Mitchell receives 2006 COE 1913–2006 Distinguished Alumni Award

Standard (Springer, New

ado Boulder oan L. Mitchell (MS ’71, York, 1996)—which give PhD ’74), a Fellow and J both the professional and Master Inventor at IBM, was the student answers and wood, U. Color honored with a 2006 College ar guidance on these

y H of Engineering Alumni Award compression standards. Larr for Distinguished Service. Inside IBM, Mitchell’s A member of the National innovations have resulted in Academy of Engineering, fundamental advances in Mitchell is a leading authority high-performance on the compression of image compression/ data for more efficient decompression hardware Scott Anderson (right) presents the 1987 processing, storage, and and software for a variety Outstanding Physics Teaching Assistant Joan L. Mitchell distribution. Facsimile of products, from special- Award to Alain Kaloyeros machines, video conferencing, the Internet, purpose microprocessors to high-quality digital photography, and printing all reflect printers. She has received six IBM cott Anderson (MS ’36, PhD ’40) her major contributions to industry Outstanding Innovation Awards for Sdied on October 1, 2006, in standards such as G3 and G4, JPEG, achievements ranging from improved Urbana. He was 93. A strong supporter and JBIG-1 and JBIG-2. image compression algorithms to the of the Department of Physics, Anderson Immediately after graduate school, Q-Coder. She was elected to the IBM served as the first president of the Mitchell joined the Exploratory Printing Academy of Technology in 1997 and Physics Alumni Association and Technologies group at the IBM T.J. Watson named an IBM Fellow in 2001, the highest spearheaded the creation and distinction that the company awards to Michael Dubson, University of Research Center. Since 1976, she has endowment of the graduate-student its employees. Mitchell is a Fellow of the Colorado at Boulder worked in the field of image processing and teaching award that bears his name. Institute of Electrical and Electronic data compression and is a co-inventor on Anderson was the founder of 68 patents. Engineers and was elected to the National Anderson Physics Laboratory (APL), Mitchell was a leader of the Joint Academy of Engineering in 2004. ichael Dubson (BS ’78), a senior the predecessor of APL Engineered instructor in the physics Photographic Experts Group, the Mitchell has remained connected to M Illinois, spending a sabbatical semester Materials, Inc., of Urbana, which is the department at the University of organization that developed JPEG image in 1996 as a visiting professor in the world’s leading provider of metal halides Colorado at Boulder, received the compression, the first color still-image data Department of Electrical and Computer and amalgams for the lighting industry. American Association of Physics compression international standard. She headed the U.S. delegation in 1991–92 and Engineering and as a visiting scientist at He started APL in 1944 to provide Teachers’ 2006 Excellence in also served as an editor of the standard’s the Beckman Institute for Advanced industry with the services of a physics Undergraduate Physics Teaching Award documentation—a very important role in Science and Technology. In February 2005 laboratory for sponsored research. earlier this year. ensuring its dissemination and adoption. and April 2006, she returned to campus to There he developed techniques for In addition to receiving the award, She has coauthored two popular books— share career advice with the Society of the ultra-purification and controlled Dubson delivered a special lecture at JPEG: Still Image Data Compression Women Engineers, physics women sizing of metal halides and mercury the July AAPT national meeting on Standard (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New graduate students, and undergraduate alloys. This work proved to be of great the school’s move from traditional York, 1993) and MPEG Video Compression students in physics and electrical and utility for the lighting industry and is instruction toward methods that more computer engineering. largely responsible for the success of fully engage students. According to the metal halide lamp industry. Dubson, “Over the last 10 years, the Prior to founding APL, Anderson way we teach freshmen and sophomore was the first physicist to be hired by the physics at the University of Colorado Arnold earns scholarship to study abroad Aluminum Corporation of America at Boulder has evolved away from (later ALCOA) of New Kensington, yle J. Arnold (BS ’06) was one of four students traditional instruction toward a format Pennsylvania, and he taught physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana- full of interactive engagement, concept K briefly at Carleton College in Champaign to be awarded a National Security tests and peer instruction, online Northfield, Minnesota. He worked in Education Program (NSEP) Boren Undergraduate homework, Washington Tutorials, the Manhattan Project’s metallurgy Scholarship for study abroad during the 2006/07 interactive computer simulations, laboratory at the University of Chicago academic year. He is the only Illinois scholarship and exams that emphasize qualitative during World War II. recipient in the sciences; the other three students reasoning. Student morale has A founding member of the majored in international studies. improved, and we have seen dramatic Urban League of Champaign County, Arnold, who earned dual degrees in learning gains as measured by standard Anderson and his wife Annabelle engineering physics and mathematics, is spending exams. Our main strategy is the created Project Goodstart, a morning the year at Konan University in Japan. He took “Zeroth” Golden Rule—Reinvent meal program for disadvantaged school three Japanese language courses at Illinois, in Nothing. We let our esteemed children. He and Annabelle, who died addition to his other coursework. colleagues at other institutions do the in 2001, were also instrumental in According to David Schug, program director hard work, and then we import their founding New Beginnings, a faith-based of the campus’s Scholarships for International successful techniques.” effort to assist felons to successfully Study Office, Illinois has been among the national A member of the Colorado faculty reenter society upon their release from leaders in numbers of recipients for Boren since 1995, Dubson has worked on prison. Undergraduate Scholarships. “This year will innovative teaching techniques, Kyle Arnold visiting the To¯dai-ji Anderson was the holder of 11 match the most students we have ever sent abroad curriculum reform, and public (“Great Eastern”) Temple, Kyoto U.S. patents, and APL materials under this grant,” Schug said. “It is a testament to outreach. Before that, he spent 10 years dominate the global market. In 2004, the strong study-abroad programs and international emphasis at Illinois.” in research on superconductivity, metal- James L. Schoolenberg, president and The merit-based scholarships provide undergraduates who are U.S. citizens the insulator transitions, and surface science chief executive officer of the company, opportunity to study in Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and at The Ohio State University and at stated “Eighty-five percent of the metal the Middle East. Arnold is one of 141 recipients from a national applicant pool of 720 Michigan State University. He was halide lamps in the world use our undergraduates. Scholarship recipients are required to seek employment with the federal trained as a condensed matter materials.” government in the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the experimentalist and received his PhD If you walk down a street at night Department of Defense, or the national intelligence community, generally within three at Cornell University, where his thesis anywhere in the world and can see years of graduation. They also receive priority-hiring status from these agencies. adviser was Donald Holcomb (MS ’50, where you’re going, thank Scott While at Illinois, Arnold did independent research in Paul Kwiat’s quantum PhD ’54). Anderson. Physics faculty member Gary information group, where he worked on developing low-loss optical switching and Gladding (BS ’65) won the 2005 storage for a single-photon source for parametric down conversion. His ultimate career AAPT Excellence in Undergraduate goal is to earn a PhD in physics and carry out research in quantum information and Physics Teaching Award. quantum computing, which are applicable to cryptography. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

16 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2007 NUMBER 1

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Four graduate teaching assistants in the Department of Physics competed in 1978 in the then-newly revived GE If you have suggestions for stories or features that you College Bowl. Their team, The Coulomb Gauge, swept all six local matches to become the University of Illinois’ would like to see, comments about this edition, or representative in the regional meet, which was held at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. The team was requests for an electronic version of the newsletter, please write to us. We’re listening! undefeated in that tournament as well, earning the right to compete nationally at the College Bowl finals in Miami The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Beach, Florida. Team members, shown above, were Greg DeWitt (MS ’78), John Gardner (MS ’78, PhD ’80), is an equal opportunity and affirmative action institution.

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