News from the Chair

Physics Day 2024

On Saturday, April 13, the Department of Physics and Astronomy held UNM Physics Day 2024, an undergraduate research conference.

The annual event, held at UNM's Physics, Astronomy, and Interdisciplinary Science Building, was a great success: there were seven talks as well as several posters by our majors, and Prof Mousumi Roy gave a fascinating keynote presentation, Have Physics, will Travel: My Journey from Everest to the Center of the Earth. 

Oral presentations followed, including subjects ranging from Proteins Under Pressure to Study of 3D and Low Gain Avalanche Detectors.

During lunch, Teaching Lab Supervisor Hatem Babaa presented several Physics Demonstrations including the superconductor levitating ring track, the copper tube magnet, the 9-person Van de Graaf generator, and the instant cloud.

In the afternoon, participants enjoyed a poster session and a continuation of student presentations. The event concluded with an awards and recognition ceremony.

Winners

The cash awards went to:

• Best Oral Presentation: Sol Samuels, Molecules as Neural Networks
• 2nd Best Oral Presentation: Fernando Garcia Cortez, Exploring Physics Beyond the Standard Model through the Early Universe Cosmology
  
  
• Best Poster: Stephen Luttrell, Identifying Trends in the Radio Frequency Environment of the South Pole's Dark Sector
• 2nd Best Poster – a tie: Christian Pereira, Development of a Microwave Chain for Low-Phase Noise Resonance Control of Cesium Atoms and Stephanie Paiva-Flynn, Using Clustering to Analyze Geochemical Datasets

Congratulations to the winners, but more importantly, thanks are due to everyone who participated.

The conference was organized by the Outreach Committee and presented by Distinguished Professor Greg Taylor and Assistant Professor Diana Dragomir. Special thanks to the Rayburn Reaching Up Fund which sponsored the event.

See photos of Physics Day 2024