California-Nevada APS 2012--Prizes

The CA-NV Section offers awards for the best presentations by undergraduate and graduate students.

Award Winners for Contributed Speakers at the 2011 Annual Meeting

Undergraduate Awards

Steven Chu Award (Best Research)

1st Prize (Theory): B. Busemeyer (UC Davis) "Exploring Half Metals in Li-based Half Heusler Alloys"
1st Prize (Experiment): Trinity Pradhananga (CSU East Bay) "Direct Frequency Comb Spectroscopy of Alkali Atoms"
2nd Prize (Experiment): Melinda Soares (UC Santa Cruz) "VERITAS Investigation of Very High Energy Emission from B2 1215+303"

Graduate Student Awards

Kennedy Reed Award (Best Theoretical Research)

1st Prize (tie): Steve Wilburn (CSU Fresno) "A conflict of quantum predictions related to the equivalence principle"
Thomas E. Baker (CSU Long Beach) "Jacobi Elliptic Functions and their Application in Classical Mechanics, Superconductivity and Magnetism"

Margaret Burbidge Award (Best Experimental Research)

1st Prize (tie): Erik Swanberg (UC Berkeley) "Searching for the Decay and Half Life of the 7.6 eV Excited State in the Thorium-229 Nucleus"
Andrea Rodarte (UC Merced) "Spectral and polarization modulation of quantum dot emission in a one-dimensional liquid crystal photonic cavity"
2nd Prize: Amy Furniss (UC Santa Cruz) "The VERITAS Extragalactic Sky: Contemporaneous Modeling of Very High Energy Blazars with Constraints from Swift"