Author: Natalie Holzwarth

Professor Suzanne E. Barbour, Dean of the Graduate School,
University of Georgia
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wednesday, November 7, 2018, at 4:00 PM

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

ABSTRACT

Despite years of support and interventions, the number of underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM disciplines continues to lag behind their representation in the general population. For example, only 14,354 African American male graduate students were training in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in 2016 (according to the 2016 Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering). This represents only ~2% of all STEM graduate students, while African American males make up ~6% of the U.S. population. Although early efforts were primarily focused on recruiting, the impact of retention programs has become evident in more recent attempts to address this disparity. In this talk, we will focus on a variety of strategies to increase and stabilize the pipeline of URM STEM students. Topics addressed will include the value of holistic admissions strategies, value and limitations of undergraduate summer research programs, importance of building a community, impact of “gateway” programs, significance of supportive mentoring relationships, and power of retention programming.

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Dr. Ilias Belharouak, Distinguished Scientist and Group Leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wednesday, October 24, 2018, at 4:00 PM
(Colloquium sponsored jointly with WFU Dept. of Chemistry)

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

ABSTRACT

The worldwide growing integration of renewable energies and electric vehicles will require massive deployment of energy storage solutions. The aim of this seminar is to discuss the potential of batteries to stabilize the grid whilst storing energy, understand various types of batteries used to store energy and address battery life expectancy, and how it can be maintained for maximum efficiency. A case study centered around a 250kW/500kWh lithium-ion battery coupled with a 200kW PV-plant represents an opportunity for investigating the cycling conditions and aging behavior of a grid-connected Li-ion battery. In a second part, the application of the LNMO/LTO cell chemistry will be discussed in the light of recent results which anticipate the potential deployment of this lithium-ion battery in both grid-storage and electric vehicles.

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Dava Newman, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics, MIT
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Tuesday, September 25, 2018, at 4:00 PM

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

ABSTRACT

Recent space science missions to Pluto and Jupiter, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, and orbital missions to monitor Spaceship Earth will be highlighted. Humanity will become interplanetary, and is on a journey to Mars. We are closer to reaching the Red Planet with human explorers than we have ever been in our history. Space agencies, academia and industry are working right now on the technologies and missions that will enable human “boots on Mars” in the 2030s. We are testing advanced technologies for the next giant leaps of exploration. From solar electric propulsion to cutting edge life support systems, dvanced space suits, to the first crops grown in space, the journey to Mars is already unfolding in tangible ways today for tomorrow.

A three-stage plan will be highlighted – from missions close to Earth involving commercial partners and the International Space Station, advancing to missions in Earth–Moon orbit, or deep space, and finally moving on to Mars, where explorers will be practically independent from spaceship Earth. The innovation required to realize humanity becoming interplanetary cuts across science, human exploration and technology.

Fundamentally, education, knowledge and access are the keys to exploring our solar system, Spaceship Earth, and ourselves. The urgency of education about our own planet is shown through supercomputer data visualizations accessible through online open platforms. The presentation concludes with an inclusive message on STEAMD (science-technology-engineering-arts-math-design) about changing the conversation to include everyone: the artists, designers, poets and makers. We are all astronauts on Spaceship Earth!

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that the “future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Note: Professor Newman will also give a public talk Exploring Space for Earth: Earth’s Vital Signs Revealed at 7 PM on Monday, September 24, 2018 at the Porter Byrum Welcome Center.

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George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wednesday, August 29, 2018, at 3:30 PM

Refreshments will be served at 3:00 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

PROGRAM

The purpose of this first seminar is to help new, returning, and prospective students (including both undergraduate and graduate students), faculty, and staff to become acquainted with each other and with the Physics Department. After refreshments in the lounge in the lobby of Olin Physical Laboratory (starting at 3:00), we will meet in the George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall (Olin 101) at 3:30 PM for presentations by some undergraduate students highlighting their summer research experiences, followed by general welcoming
statements and departmental announcements.

Our Colloquium Schedule will resume in Fall 2018!!

WFU senior physics students will present highlights of their honors theses
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wednesday, April 25, 2018, at 4:00 PM

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

PROGRAM

• Laura Jennings — Mentor: Prof. Jurchescu — “Effect of Solvent Vapor Annealing on the Performance of Solution Processed Thin Film Transistors.”
• Zoe Hurtado — Mentor: Prof. Hall — “Quantifying 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine Content for Breast Cancer Detection using Solid-State Nanopores”
• Josiah Low — Mentor: Prof. Guthold — “Quantification of Migratory Behavior in Cancerous and Noncancerous Human Mammary Cells”
• Mary Kinney — Mentor: Prof. Guthold — “Turbidimetry Measurements of Plasma Clots from Healthy Males and Males with Cardiovascular Disease”
• David Ostrowski — Mentor: Prof. Kim-Shapiro — “Effects of Nitrite and Hydroxyurea Combined Therapy on Sickle Cell Model Red Blood Cell Deformability”
• Sajant Anand — Mentor: Prof. Jurchescu — “Investigating Traps in Organic Field-Effect Transistors through Field-Dependent Mobility”
• Daniel Vickers — Mentor: Prof. Cook — “Resolving of Spin-Weighted Spheroidal Eigenvalues for Kerr Black Holes”

WFU senior physics students will present highlights of their honors theses; ΣΠΣ and Physics Awards Ceremonies will follow
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wednesday, May 2, 2018, at 3:30 PM

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:00 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

PROGRAM

• • Manal Ahmidouch — Mentor: Prof. Cho — “MD Simulations of (Benz)acridine: rDNA G-Quadruplex Complexes”
  • Caroline Kuczynski — Mentor: Prof. Cho — “Investigating the Effects of Posttranscriptional Chemical Modifications in tRNA on Molecular Communication Pathways in Arginyl-tRNA Synthetase:tRNAArg Complex”
  • Ben Scharmann — Mentor: Prof. Jurchescu — “Diodes on A Molecular Scale”
  • Katrina Barth — Mentor: Prof. Jurchescu — “Contact Effects in Organic Field-Effect Transistors”
  • Cenji Yu — Mentor: Prof. Salsbury — “The Effect of Sequence Variations on Thrombin Binding Aptamer”

• Physics Honor Society (ΣΠΣ) Ceremony
• Physics Awards Ceremony

Professor Hanli Liu, Professor of Bioengineering; Distinguished University Professor; Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering; University of Texas at Arlington
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wed. Mar. 28, 2018, at 4:00 PM

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

ABSTRACT

In recent years, different forms of non-invasive, transcranial brain
stimulations, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS),
transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial
alternate current stimulation (tACS), have been investigated as
promising neuromodulation tools to treat a variety of neurological
brain disorders. Furthermore, transcranial photobiomodulation
(tPBM) using NIR laser or light emitting diodes (LEDs) has also
demonstrated promises to improve human memory and cognition.
However, underlying principles or mechanisms of these transcranial
brain stimulations are not well understood. It is urgent and
necessary to investigate stimulation-induced changes in cerebral
hemodynamics and brain circuitry.

In this talk, I will present three sub-topics of research in studying
tPBM by 1064-nm laser delivered on the human forehead: (1) A
brief review will be given to show statistically significant
enhancement of human cognition by 1064-nm laser over more than
300 human subjects. (2) Quantitative evidence on upregulation of
cerebral cytochrome-c-oxidase and hemodynamics in response to
tPBM will be explained. (3) Significant alterations in tPBM-induced
electrophysiological patterns across the entire human head,
determined by 64-channel EEG measurements, will be
demonstrated. For the last topic, I will also show what direction of
information flow occurs before, during, and after tPBM by applying
the Phase Transfer Entropy (PTE) analysis on multi-channel EEG
measurements. Overall, this talk intends to shed light on the
mechanism of action of tPBM, which may have great potential to
become a non-invasive, low-cost, intervention device for improving
human cognition in the near future.

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Professor Walter Bradley, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Baylor University & Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University
George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
Wed. Mar. 21, 2018, at 4:00 PM

There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.

ABSTRACT

There is a growing interest in the use of renewable functional fillers in polymer composites and natural fibers in non-woven fabric composites to make more environmentally friendly products by reducing the use of petroleum. This can be done using crops such as kenaf that are grown for this purpose. However, the use of agricultural waste has two advantages: the feedstock is essentially free and the volume of agricultural waste to be burned or buried is reduced. This presentation will explore the possibilities of using coconut shell and coconut husks as feed stocks to make functional fillers for polymeric composite materials and non-woven fabric composites respectively. The properties of the coconut shell and fiber from the coconut husk (called coir) will be presented. Commercial applications that can take advantage of these families of physical properties will be used to illustrate a wider range of possibilities. The necessary materials science research that was performed to make possible their incorporation into commercial products will also be summarized.

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