Physics Graduate Student Annual Awards
In December 2021 the Department of Physics hosted its annual graduate student Poster Gathering. The event included pizza, research posters, and the presentation of awards for excellence in graduate student teaching and research.
The Charles F. Hooper Jr. Memorial Award is made annually to senior graduate students in physics who have shown distinction in research and/or teaching. The award honors the memory of UF Professor Charles (“Chuck”) Hooper, a distinguished teacher, researcher, and former chair. The 2021 recipient is Alexandria “Alex” Tucker, who is working with Professor Clifford Will (APS Einstein Prize winner – Fall 2021 Newsletter) on modeling the evolution of binary black holes and using observational data to locate massive black holes.
The Wayne R. Bomstad II Memorial Award is given annually to two physics teaching assistants who have demonstrated excellence in teaching. One award is usually given for laboratory teaching, and a second award recognizes teaching in discussion sections. The awards honor the memory of Wayne Bomstad, who was a valued member of the graduate student teaching team. The 2021 laboratory award went to LingQin Xue who, according to his nomination by Dr. Robert Deserio, “can answer student inquiries Socratically when appropriate and directly when that is the right choice.” The discussion session award went to Ioannis Michaloliakos, one of whose significant contributions includes authoring and publishing a Python package called AutoCanvas. Physics instructors can use AutoCanvas to streamline the scheduling and management of quizzes in large lecture courses.
The Tom Scott Award is made annually to a senior graduate student in experimental physics who has shown distinction in research. The award honors the memory of UF Professor Tom Scott, a former chair and noted researcher. The 2021 recipients are Daniel “Jake” Rosenzweig, nominated by professors Andrey Korytov and Guenakh Mitselmakher, and Vladimir Martinez, nominated by Professor David Tanner. Jake’s research project in high-energy physics focuses on the mass of the Higgs boson. Vladimir researches the annealing of ultrapure silicon for its possible use as a test mass in gravitational wave detection.
The E. Raymond Andrew Memorial Award is given to a senior graduate student in physics for distinction in research. The award honors UF Professor Raymond Andrew, a world-renowned physicist who made seminal contributions to the field of magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy. The 2021 E. Raymond Andrew Award went to Ammar Jahin and Todd Kozlowski. Ammar is a theory student, working on quantum computation with Professor Yuxuan Wang. Todd is an experimental student, working with Professor Guido Mueller on the search for axion-like particles at the DESY synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany.
