Welcome to the Department of Physics and Astronomy!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Upcoming Physics Dept. Colloquium:

Spring 2009 Colloquium Schedule

Physics Colloquia are over for the semester. Stay tuned for a new schedule in the fall!

CONGRATULATIONS!
Congratulations are in order for Samuel T. Hess, who just received word of his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure in the upcoming academic year. Way to go Sam!

 

Have a great summer, everyone!

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Upcoming Events:

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RECENT NEWS IN 2009:

• Strengthening Biotechnology & Supporting the STEM Education Initiative in Maine, $883,000
  Prof. Susan McKay and Prof. Sam Hess
  Excerpted from "UMaine Receives $6.8 Million in R&D Awards" Press Release in UMaine News, 6/9/2009
  
       Scientists at the University of Maine have developed a new way of looking at the molecular organization of cells by creating a microscope system they call FPALM (Fluorescence Photoactivation Localization Microscopy).
       They already have used FPALM to image living cells with membranes that contain a protein that enables infection by the influenza virus. They also have used the system to image a variety of other biological and some non-biological systems.
       The MTAF funding will be used to renovate and expand Bennett Hall to include an image processing laboratory, equipment to enhance FPLAM capabilities, an office suite for visitors, collaborators and graduate students, an incubator space for commercialization, and a business and communication laboratory for multimedia presentations and internet video conferencing.
       The upgrades will enhance the types and number of samples which can be imaged by FPALM and will increase new technology development.
       Project collaborators include, Cancer Care of Maine, the Eastern Maine Medical Center, Jackson Laboratory, and the Center for Science and Mathematics Education Research.
  Ascendant Energy, Owls’s Head, $575,000 (working with Professors Rosemary Smith and Robert Lad from LASST) “A Solar Center of Excellence: Advanced Photovoltaic Production Facility" (APPF)
  
  
• Congratulations to the following people for awards received this Spring:

• GRAD ASSISTANTS RECEIVE TEACHING AWARDS
  The UMaine Center for Teaching Excellence has honored graduate teaching assistants Anna J. Schliep (PHY Graduate Student) and Adam Barker-Hoyt (MST Graduate Student) with 2009 Teaching Assistant Awards. Schliep, a Bangor native, who teaches in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, will receive the Teaching Instructor Collaboration Award. Barker-Hoyt, of Howard Lake, Minn., will receive the Teaching Instruction Award; he teaches in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
• UMAINE COLLEGE HONORS FACULTY, STUDENTS
  Outstanding faculty and students in the University of Maine College of Liberal Arts and Sciences received awards for their accomplishments from Dean Jeff Hecker at an April 16 reception on campus. The annual ceremony, co-sponsored by the University Credit Union, also recognized faculty members recently promoted to associate professor with tenure, and graduating seniors earning top honors in their academic departments.
  From the Dept. of Physics:
       Neil Comins - Service and Outreach Award
       Dahan Kim - Outstanding International Student
       Samuel T. Hess - Promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure

• Special Physics Colloquium - Physics alum, Duncan T. Moore (BA Physics, '69), Vice Provost of Entrepreneurship and Kingslake Professor of Optical Engineering at the University of Rochester, came to the University of Maine on Thursday, April 2 to present a special Physics colloquium on "Gradient-index Materials Manufacturing in Nature and Manmade". To read the article in UM Today, click here.
• Meulenberg excels at powerlifting event
  Bangor Daily News 3/30/09
  Monday's Bangor Daily News includes a story describing UMaine physics professor Rob Meulenberg's performance at Saturday's Maine Games State Powerlifting Championships in Brewer. Meulenberg, who joined the UMaine faculty in September and is also associated with the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology, set a new state record in the squat with a personal-best lift of 832 pounds. The previous state record was 650 pounds. He also set a state record by lifting a combined total of 1,913 pounds in three lifts: bench press, squat and dead lift.
• Catch a Bright Comet in the Maine Skies
  Maine will have a solar system visitor in the evening sky, which anyone can find from the backyard during the last week of February. Comet Lulin will be closest to planet Earth on Feb. 24, and viewable from backyards through binoculars, or telescopes like the Clark refractor at the Maynard F. Jordan Observatory on the University of Maine campus, which will be open for free public viewing each clear evening Feb. 22 through March 1, from 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. According to Alan Davenport, director of the Jordan Planetarium and Observatory, Lulin was discovered in 2007 by Japanese astronomers and officially labeled C/2007 N3. It has been growing brighter, so it should be visible in a clear sky to the unaided eye when it is closest to Earth on Feb. 24. Comets do not streak across the sky like meteors, but they do move noticeably against the background stars from night to night, Davenport explains. "The star chart here shows where Lulin will pass by Saturn in the constellation of Leo on the 23rd of February and visit the bright star Regulus, on the 27th of February," Davenport says. "It passed closest to the sun on January 10, but will appear larger on the 24th when it is just 38 million miles away."
  
• UMaine Professor Receives Prominent German Research Award
  University of Maine Physics Professor R. Dean Astumian has received a Humboldt Research Award, one of the most prestigious scientific honors in Germany. The prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is given to distinguished foreign scholars in recognition of their lifetime academic achievements. The Humboldt Research Award is presented annually by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to up to 100 internationally renowned scientists and scholars residing outside of Germany.
  
• Edward T. Bryant Recognition Banquet 2008 - Physics Department recipients for 2008 are Michael Mihalco (Engineering Physics Graduate Student Teaching Award) and Sam T. Hess (Early Career Teaching Award).
  Some previous winners of the Graduate Student Teaching Award from the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy are Travis Gould (2007), Vincente Guiseppe (2003), and Matthew Robinson (2002).
  
  
  

Physics Dept. News Archives

Selected Recent Publications:

J.P. McClymer and H.M. Shehadeh, Photon Localization in a Nematic Liquid Crystal, Phys.Rev. A 79, 031802(R) (2009)

Yongfeng Wu, D.J. Batuski, A. Khalil. 2008, "The Fractal Structure of the Universe",
(VDM Verlag Dr. Muellere.K ISBN-978-3-369-03629-9)

Neil Comins, "What would happen to Earth if the moon were only half as massive?" Scientific American, 299(4):104, October 2008.

Travis Gould, Joerg Bewersdorf and Samuel Hess, "A quantitative comparison of the photophysical properties of selected quantum dots and organic fluorophores," Journal of Research in Physical Chemistry & Chemical Physics, 222(5-6):833-49, 2008.

T. Gould, M.V. Gudheti, J. Zimmerberg and S. Hess, "Methods for quantification of lateral organization in biological membranes," Microscopy and Microanalysis, 13:12-13, Suppl. 2, 2007.

Dean Astumian, "Microscopic reversibility and reciprocal relations for Brownian molecular machines," Tetrahedron, 64(36):8287-91, Sept. 1, 2008.

Jayendran C. Rasaiah, Shekhar Garde, and Gerhard Hummer, "Water in Nonpolar Confinement: From Nanotubes to Proteins and Beyond", Ann. Rev. Physical Chemistry 59, 713-740, (2008)

IN MEMORIAM:

KENNETH R. BROWNSTEIN

EDWARD F. CARR

GEORGE C. KRUEGER