Congratulations to Fred Salsbury, Professor of Physics, on being awarded the Scott Family Fellowship Award beginning on July 1, 2020 for three years. Prof. Salsbury was given the award in recognition of his “outstanding record of teaching and scholarship”.
Sophomore Physics-Theatre double major Lainey Drake earned the prestigious Brooke Owens Fellowship, As a Brooke Owens Fellow, Lainey will spend the summer as an engineering intern with Virgin Galactic in Las Cruces, New Mexico as they pioneer commercial space travel.
Robert Bradford, a junior physics major/math minor doing research with Professor Oana Jurchescu; Noah Meyer a sophomore, physics/applied mathematics major doing research with professor Timo Thonhauser; and Fernando Rigal, a sophomore physics/applied mathematics major doing research with professor Daniel Kim-Shapiro, have been named 2019-20 Goldwater Scholars. The three were chosen from a pool of 1,200 natural science, engineering and mathematics students who were nominated by 443 academic institutions. Goldwater Scholars have impressive academic and research credentials that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. A maximum of three scholars are awarded to any single university and this is the first year that Wake Forest has had three winners.
Dr. Thonhauser has been awarded the title Wright Family Professor in Physics, effective July 1, 2019. Thonhauser is the founding Director of the new Center for Functional Materials and has been promoted to the rank of Full Professor effective July 1, 2019. The Wake Forest Professorships are endowed positions and are among the highest honors the institution can bestow on our faculty members. The selection criteria included: exceptional skill and sustained dedication in the classroom; outstanding commitment to student learning and growth beyond the classroom; a wide-reaching and significant record in scholarly and creative work; and sustained exemplary service to the department, the discipline, the College, the University, and the broader scholarly community.
On, May 1, 2019 the Department of Physics celebrated the initiation of new Sigma Pi Sigma members, upcoming graduates, and honored outstanding department members.
Please Click Here for a photo gallery of the event.
Congratulations to our Outstanding Teaching Assistant:
Daniel Vickers
Congratulations to the Outstanding Peer Mentor Award winner:
Andrew Zeidell
Congratulations to the recipient of the Physics Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award:
Sam Cho
Congratulations to the Outstanding Graduate Research Award winners:
Zach Lamport
Peiyun Li
Congratulations to the recipient of the Outstanding Service in Physics Award:
Rick Matthews
Congratulations to the William E. Speas Memorial Award winner:
Jacquelyn Sharpe
Congratulations to ΣΠΣ Initiates:
Elmira Alipour
Ritchie Dudley
Austin French
Christopher McAvoy
Daniel Nealon
Fernando Rigal
Jiqing Jacqueline Zhu
Congratulations to those Graduating with Honors:
Jacquelyn Sharpe
Cole Teander
Sean Yan
Congratulations to Graduating Seniors:
Raymond Clark
Austin French
Brady Gales
Martin Gamer
Caroline LeDuc
Robert Link
Lawton Manning
David Martin
Christopher McAvoy
Kevin Ramirez
Jacquelyn Sharpe
Cole Teander
Lucas Tommervik
John Weissenberger
Sean Yan
Congratulations to Dr. Thonhauser for his promotion to Full Professor of Physics. Professor Thonhauser is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Director of the Center for Functional Materials.
On Monday April 15, 2019 the Department of Physics held a reception in honor of Peiyun Li, who successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled: “Rare-Earth and Alkaline-Earth Halides with Scintillation Activators and Co-Dopants Studied by Picosecond Optical Absorption Spectroscopy“. Dr. Li’s thesis was completed under the direction of Professor Richard Williams.
Please click here for photographs highlighting the event.
Professor Timo Thonhauser has been featured by Wake Forest News for his efforts with the local science museum, Kaleideum North in creating a new exhibit. This exhibit, Molecules, allows visitors to learn about and construct models of a variety of molecules. The exhibit is a result of a close collaboration between Dr. Thonhauser and Kaleideum funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. The Wake Forest News article can be found at https://news.wfu.edu/2019/02/28/wfu-professors-expertise-and-nsf-grant-make-new-exhibit-at-kaleideum-north-possible/ .
The Physics department is pleased to announce that Dr. Randall D. Ledford (’72) is the winner of the annual Physics Department Outstanding Alumni Award. The department solicits nominations from alumni and a committee selects the winner. Dr. Ledford will accept the award at a special physics colloquium on April 3, 2019. Dr. Ledford is Chief Technology Officer of Emerson Electric Company, one of the world’s leading electronics companies. Before joining Emerson Electric, Dr. Ledford was president and general manager of several divisions of Texas Instruments Inc. including software, digital imaging, enterprise solutions and process automation. He began his career at Bell Telephone Laboratories where he worked on UNIX development, fiber optic communication and microwave transmissions. While at Texas Instruments, Dr. Ledford led the company’s development of the Digital Light Processor (DLP). Dr. Ledford also generously sponsors scholarships for physics undergraduate majors here at Wake Forest University.
