University of Rochester
Physics
Department: Graduate Research Seminars Spring 2010
Arie Bodek
Updated Feb 5 , 2010
Jan 29 ,
2010 Eldred
Chimowitz Chemical Engineering
Enhanced Thermal Transport Near the Critical Point
Abstract: Given the need to use energy more cost effectively, as
well
as reduce environmental emissions linked to conventional fossil fuel
based processes, the current U.S. Administration has identified the
efficient use of energy resources as one of its top
scientific/engineering priorities. The U.S. electricity sector, for
example, accounts for about 34 % of the fossil fuels consumed in the
U.S. and about 40 % of U.S. CO2 emissions. Our research focuses on
questions related to exploiting the unique attributes of near-critical
fluid mixtures as thermal transport media in advanced heat recovery
processes. The two projects will also provide theory/computational and
experimental opportunities for two graduate students. This will include
the prospect of spending a year abroad, on the computational project,
under the supervision of Professor Pierre Carlés at the
Universitat de Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France 7 , with whom the
PI has established a good working relationship. Professor Carlés
is a leading scientist in this area and the PI this past summer made a
planning visit to his laboratory which resulted in the PI‚s most recent
doctoral student from Physics (Dr. Chia-Ling Chen) -who was
co-supervised by Prof. Shapir of the physics dept.-being offered a
post-doc position in Dr. Carlés‚ group starting fall 2009).
(there is an opening for one PhD graduate student in this group).
Feb 5 ,
2010 Teaching Seminar: Steven Bloch, University of
Rochester
Construction and structure of teaching a summer course. (Difference in
preparing for a TA led workshop and preparing to teach a course).
Feb 12 , 2010 Edward
Thorndike, Charm Physics at
BES3. (Thorndike's group has openings for new students).
Feb. 19, 2010
Cynthia Ebinger, EES
"Earthquakes as recorders of molten rock movement through Earth's plate"
Feb 26 , 2010
Regina Demina, Physics at the
LHC (Grad recruiting weekend) -
has
positions for 1 or 2 students ;
March 5 ,
2010 John Howell
(has
one opening)
March
12 , 2010 No seminar Spring break
March 19 ,
2010 Doug Turner, Predicting RNA Structure."
Abstract: RNA molecules have many biological functions that
depend on 3D structure. In principle, physics based models should
be able to predict the 3D structure of RNA. There are gaps,
however, in our understanding of the important intermolecular
interactions and how to approximate them. Our research is using
quantum mechanics along with molecular mechanics simulations and
nuclear magnetic resonance experiments to improve the understanding and
approximation of molecular interactions in RNA. The theoretical
work is being done in collaboration with Harry Stern in Chemistry and
Dave Mathews in Biochemistry and Biophysics. (there is one
opening for PhD reserach in Turner's group)
March 26, 2010: 12:00-12:30 pm
BL208 pm. Teaching
Seminar ( followed by Research
Seminar at 12:30 pm in BL375)
Arie Bodek TA/TI Mid-semester
Evaluation Meeeting
TA's and Tis will have an opportunity to look over the
Mid-semester evaluations, read the feedback from students and apply any
suggestions, etc. to help them become better leaders. It is expected
for all TA's and TI's to attend.
March 26 , 2010
12:30-1.00
Chunlei Guo, Institute of
Optics, Femtosecond
laser-matter interactions
What would happen if one gathered all the energy transmitting on the
power grid of the entire North America and force it running through a
tiny area of the size of a needle point? The answers may lie behind
some equivalent problems in studying high-intensity femtosecond
laser-matter interactions. In this lab, a number of research directions
are currently available for PhD student thesis research. These include
studying how molecules break apart in laser light, how to excite strong
waves on a solid surface, and how to transform a shiny piece of metal
pitch black.
Guo group research website: http://www.optics.rochester.edu/workgroups/guo/index.htm
(Guo's group is recruiting students)
April
2 ,
2010 Prof.
D. Meyerhofer (Physics and LLE) "Research Opportunities at
the Laboratory for Laser
Energetics"
April
9 , 2010
Prof. Ha Youn Lee Dept. of Biostat Computational Biology,
University of Rochester
Talk Title: Tracking HIV/SIV evolution within host using single
genome amplification and ultradeep pyrosequencing
(has openings)
April
16, 2010 Prof. Stephen Teitel Dept. of Physics &
Astronomy, University of Rochester
Talk Title: Granular materials and the jamming transition
Granular materials, such as powders, seeds, grains, sand, rocks,
etc., are ubiquitous both in nature and in industrial processes. They
pose both challenging fundamental scientific questions, as well as
problems of considerable technological importance. True granular
materials are usually thought of as athermal systems; grain sizes are
large enough that thermal fluctuations are irrelevant. Yet as the
volume fraction of the grains increases, the system is observed to
undergo a "jamming transition" from a flowing liquid-like state to a
rigid but disordered solid. The amorphous structures found in
dense granular materials have led to close analogies with behavior in
supercooled glass forming liquids and coloids. Understanding the
behavior of granular materials may thus lead to a greater understanding
of behavior in thermal glassy systems. In this talk we will
discuss simple models of granular materials, discussing their behavior
under applied uniform compression and uniform shear, to introduce
the notions of random close packing and the jamming transition.
Analogies to ordinary equilibrium phase transitions will be made to
develop a scaling theory of granular materials undergoing steady
sheared flow. Numerical simulations are used to test this scaling
theory and the good agreement found suggests that jamming is indeed an
example of a critical phenomena.
(has an opening in his research group)
April
23, 2010 Prof. Ruola Ning and Dr. Weixing
Cai,
Department of Imaging Sciences, Radiation Oncology, Oncology (URMC) and
Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering,
University of Rochester, New York
Title: Cone Beam CT Imaging
This presentation gives a quick introduction of research projects
currently conducted at the Cone Beam CT Imaging Lab at the Department
of Imaging Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center. We are now
open to new PhD students in physics. The presentation includes the
basic principle of cone beam CT (CBCT) imaging technique as well as
several applications of CBCT imaging systems, including CBCT
angiography, high-resolution 3D small animal imaging and cone beam
breast CT. Besides the conventional absorption-based imaging
techniques, phase-contrast cone beam CT is included as well. (Lab
has openings for PhD graduate
students). Dr. Weixing Cai received a PhD in our department
on research in this lab in Sept. 09.
Faculty
who replied with possible positions for summer 2010 and Fall/Spring 2010
About
12-14 possible positions and up to 24 under most optimistic
scenario in which all proposals are funded)
Y. Gao - Exp Condensed Matter (Received NSF
grant April 2010 and has opening for
students)
Chunlei Guo Professor of Optics, Femtosecond
laser-matter interactions (has two positions, will give a short seminar
March 26, 10)
ldred
Chimowitz /Shapir - Chemical Physics (one position,
Seminar Jan 29, 10)
Ed Thorndike paticle physics (one position) Seminar Feb.
12,
10
Cynthia Ebinger - Earth and Environment Science (may have a
position, seminar Feb. 19, 10).
Regina Demina - Particle Physics (one or two positions)
Seminar Feb. 26, 10
J. Howell - Quantum Optics (one postion) Seminar March 5, 10
D. Turner (Dept of Chemistry)
Predicting RNA Structure ( has one position) Seminar March 19, 10
R. Betti - Plasma Physics (positions at LLE) seminar
April 2, 10
D. Meyerhofer Plasma Physics (exp/LLE) (2-3 positions in
experimental plasma physics at LLE)
Ha Youn Lee - Medical Physics (1 position, talking to one
student)
seminar April 9, 10
Steve Teitel - Condensed Matter theory (1 position,
Seminar, April 16, 10)
Ruola Ning - Medical Physics (1 postion, Seminar April 23, 10)
AND
L. Novotny exp quantum optics (already taking one of the
students, name identified )
K. McFarland - Exp particle/neutirno physics (has
positions)
Aran Garcia Bellido - Particle Physics/CMS one position (can give a
seminar)
Jianhui Zhong - Medical Physics, possible one position
(waiting for funding decision) - students should contact him.
Carlos Stroud (quantun optics) (at most one student)
Hanan Dery - Condensed Matter Theory (full but one possible
position for excellent student, could give a seminar)
U. Schroder - Nuclear Physics (full, but may have
position later in AY10/11) (could give a seminar).
C. Ren - Plasma Physics - Theory (full but one
possible
for excellent student , could give a seminar)
S. Manly Exp particle/neutrino physics (talking to one
student, may have a position, no seminar)
David Mathews - possible one position (waiting for funding
decision)
F. Wolfs - Exp. Dark Matter -(may have one position if NSF
proposal is funded).
G. Agrawal (Optics) (full, but may have a
position if a new NSF grant is funded)
D. Watson - Astrophysics (possibly one position, more likely to wait
till a year from now)
Bill Forrest (Astrophysics) - (possible one position if Grants are
funded, could give a seminar)
S. Rajeev Particle theory (one opening, already talking to a
couple of students)
E. Brown - medical physics , (annot
be
sure for now, will only know in a few months about funding)
A. Badolato - exp condensed
matter (has one year student, and two 2nd year students expressed
interest)
W. Knox (Optics)
(full, but will talk to
students and direct them towards
faculty in optics who have openings)
For additional
faculty who were not contacted yet (from Cross Disciplinary Web
page)
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/urpas/page/cross_disciplinary
Stephen Craxton - Senior Scientist LLE Plasma Physics, Lasers and
fusion (supervised several physics PhD students in the past)
William R. Donaldson, Senior Scientist , LLE Optical
Physics and Lasers (supervised several physics PhD students in
the past)
James M. Farrar, Professor of Chemistry, - Chemical Physics
(supervised physics PhD students in the past , but not recently)
James Fienup, Professor of Optics, Image Processing, Wave
Front Sensing (did not have physics students in the past)
Chunlei Guo Professor of Optics, Femtosecond
laser-matter interactions (supervised one physics PhD student in the
past)
Jim Knauer, Senior Scientist, LLE Plasma Physics and
Fusion (supervised several physics PhD students in
the past)
Todd Kraus, Professor of Chemistry,
Spectroscopy of
nanometer scale materials (supervised several physics
PhD students in the past)
Misha Ovchinnikov, Prof, of Chemistry Quantum molecular
dynamics (supervised physics PhD students in the
past)
Wolf Seka, Prof of Optics and Senior Scientist, LLE
optical
physics and lasers (supervised several physics PhD
students in the past)
Gary Wicks, Professor of Optics, Material
Science, Condensed Matter Physics, Nano-materials (supervised
several physics PhD students in the past)
Alexandre Pouget, Prof. of BCS, Biological
Physics,cortical mechanisms of motion and form perception; visual
memory (supervised one physics PhD student in
the past)
John Marciante, Professor of Optics and Senior Scientist LLE,
Laser, waveguide and fiber optics (supervised physics PhD students in
the past)
Waiting to hear from
Ben Miller - medical physics , (supervised physics
PhD students in the past)
P. Fauchet - exp Condensed matter physics
(supervised physics PhD students in the past)
Thomas B.
Jones, Prof. of Electrical Engineering, High-speed
microactuation of liquid for the laboratory
on a chip (did not have physics students in the
past)
David
Wiliams, Professor of Optics- Biological Optics (did not have physics students in the
past)
David Wu, Prof. of Chemical
Engineering, Biological and Medical
Physics (did
not have physics students in the past)
Hong Yang, Prof of Chemical
Engineering, nanoparicles (did not have physics students in the
past)
Matthew Yaters, Prof. of Chemical
Engineering, Colloids and
Interfaces (did
not have physics students in the past)
Jes Zavislan, Prof. of Optics,
Biomedical Optics. (did not have physics students in the past)
Duncan Moore, Professor of Optics, Optical engineering (did not have physics students in the
past)
Chen,
Shaw-Horn, Professor of Chemical Engineering - Chemical Physics
(did not have physics students in the past)
Jacob Jorne Professor of Chemical Engineering -
Chemical Physics (did
not have physics students in the past)
Thomas Hsiang, Professor of ECE, Optoelectronics,
superconductivity, ultrafest phenomena (did not have physics students in the
past)
Robert Waag, Prof. of Electrical Engineering, bio-ultrasound; tissue characterization; nondestructive
testing (did not have
physics students in the past)
Faculty who will only have positions in fall 2011
John Tarduno (EES) (full now, may
have a position for Fall 2011).
E. Mamajek (Astrophysics) (full now, but may have a
position in Fall 2011 and may give
a seminar next spring)
Walter O'Dell (Medical Physics) -
wodell@rochester.edu (seminar in Spring 2011 will
have new funding for students at that time)
Adam Frank Astro/Plasma Physics (no openings
for new students, but maybe in 2011 - will give a seminar),
A. Bodek (probably no positions for now, will likely to have positions
in Fall 2011).
R. Sobolewski exp condensed matter (full now, will be
on sabbatical, probably will have positions for Fall 2011)
Faculty who were contacted and are not
likely to have positions for graduate students in physics in
summer 2010
R. Boyd - Optics (probably no positions)
A.
Berger - Optics (no opening now but could give a seminar)
Andrew Jordan - Condensed Matterr Theory
(but could give a seminar)
Nick Bigelow - Quantum Optics (but could give a
semianr)
L. Orr - Particle theory - no openings at this time
Quillen
Astrophysics (no openings for new students),
Kevin Parker - Medical Physics (no openings for new students)
E. Blackman Astrophysics (full, no openings)
J. Eberly - Quantum Optics Theory (full, no openings)
John Thomas - Astrophysics (no positions now or in future)
A. Das - Particle Physics Theory (full no positions now)
Ching Tang - Chemical physics (full , no positions at this time)
Nicholas Kuzma Medical Physics (full, no positions at this
time)
M.
Alonso - Optics (full, no positions at this time)
L. Rothberg - Chemical and Biological Physics (full,
no positions this year and possibly no positions next year)
T. Foster - Biological Physics (no positions at this time)
Mark Bocko - Electrical Engineering (no positions at this time)
D. Cline - nuclear physics (does not take gradaute students any more)
E. Wolf Optics ( probably does not take garduate students any
more)