Physics Graduate Research Articles

Entrepreneurship and Career Development Potentials for Nigerian Physicists

This paper review the entrepreneurial capacity among physicists and opportunities that abound to fresh graduates of physics who frequents white collar jobs. To achieve this, a critical assessment of who is an entrepreneur, features of the entrepreneurial process, levels of entrepreneurial development, essential characteristics of entrepreneurs, and perspectives of physics graduates in Nigeria was critically reviewed. The paper concluded that emphasis on adherences to entrepreneurial principles, practical contents and higher degree training in entrepreneurial physics would open up opportunities for fresh physicists within the myriads of job prospects in physics discipline.

Hansen, Murphy, Receive Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Awards

Lars N. Hansen and Caitlin A. Murphy were awarded the 2013 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award, given annually to one or more promising young scientists for outstanding contributions achieved during their Ph.D. research. Recipients of this award are engaged in experimental and/or theoretical studies of Earth and planetary materials with the purpose of unraveling the physics and chemistry that govern their origin and physical properties.

Mentoring by Design: Integrating Medical Professional Competencies into Bioengineering and Medical Physics Graduate Training

Many students in bioengineering and medical physics doctoral programs plan careers in translational research. However, while such students generally have strong quantitative abilities, they often lack experience with the culture, communication norms, and practice of bedside medicine. This may limit students' ability to function as members of multidisciplinary translational research teams. To improve students' preparation for careers in cancer translational research, we developed and implemented a mentoring program that is integrated with students' doctoral studies and aims to promote competencies in communication, biomedical ethics, teamwork, altruism, multiculturalism, and accountability. Throughout the program, patient-centered approaches and professional competencies are presented as foundational to optimal clinical care and integral to translational research. Mentoring is conducted by senior biomedical faculty and administrators and includes didactic teaching, online learning, laboratory mini-courses, clinical practicums, and multidisciplinary patient planning conferences (year 1); student development and facilitation of problem-based patient cases (year 2); and individualized mentoring based on research problems and progress toward degree completion (years 3-5). Each phase includes formative and summative evaluations. Nineteen students entered the program from 2009 through 2011. On periodic anonymous surveys, the most recent in September 2013, students indicated that the program substantially improved their knowledge of cancer biology, cancer medicine, and academic medicine; that the mentors were knowledgeable, good teachers, and dedicated to students; and that the program motivated them to become well-rounded scientists and scholars. We believe this program can be modified and disseminated to other graduate research and professional health care programs.

Medical Physics Residency Consortium: collaborative endeavors to meet the ABR 2014 certification requirements

In 2009, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center (MBPCC) established a Radiation Oncology Physics Residency Program to provide opportunities for medical physics residency training to MS and PhD graduates of the CAMPEP‐accredited Louisiana State University (LSU)‐MBPCC Medical Physics Graduate Program. The LSU‐MBPCC Program graduates approximately six students yearly, which equates to a need for up to twelve residency positions in a two‐year program. To address this need for residency positions, MBPCC has expanded its Program by developing a Consortium consisting of partnerships with medical physics groups located at other nearby clinical institutions. The consortium model offers the residents exposure to a broader range of procedures, technology, and faculty than available at the individual institutions. The Consortium institutions have shown a great deal of support from their medical physics groups and administrations in developing these partnerships. Details of these partnerships are specified within affiliation agreements between MBPCC and each participating institution. All partner sites began resident training in 2011. The Consortium is a network of for‐profit, nonprofit, academic, community, and private entities. We feel that these types of collaborative endeavors will be required nationally to reach the number of residency positions needed to meet the 2014 ABR certification requirements and to maintain graduate medical physics training programs.PACS numbers: 01.40.Fk, 01.40.gb

Kraus Receives 2012 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award

Richard Kraus received the 2012 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award, given annually to one or more promising young scientists for outstanding contributions achieved during their Ph.D. research. Recipients of this award are engaged in experimental and/or theoretical studies of Earth and planetary materials with the purpose of unraveling the physics and chemistry that govern their origins and physical properties. Kraus's thesis is entitled “On the thermodynamics of planetary impact events.” He was formally presented with the award at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting, held 3–7 December in San Francisco, Calif.

HIGHLIGHTING THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE RADIO ASTRONOMY. 2: KOICHI SHIMODA AND THE 1948 SOLAR ECLIPSE

Just two years after Dicke carried out the first radio observations of a solar eclipse, a young Japanese physics graduate, Koichi Shimoda, attempted to observe 3,000 MHz emission during the 9 May 1948 partial solar eclipse. In so doing he unwittingly became the 'founding father' of Japanese radio astronomy. In this paper as our mark of respect for him, we list Shimoda as the lead author of the paper so that his observations can finally be placed on record for the international radio astronomical community.

Examining Physics Graduate Teaching Assistants’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching a New Physics Curriculum

In this study, we investigated the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that physics graduate teaching assistants (TAs) developed in the context of teaching a new introductory physics curriculum, Matter and Interactions (M#x00026;I). M#x00026;I is an innovative introductory physics course that emphasizes a unified framework for understanding the world and presents physics through a few fundamental principles rather than exposing students to concepts through a series of derived equations. Through a qualitative, multiple case study research design, data were collected from multiple sources: non-participant observations, digitally recorded video, semi-structured interviews, TAs’ written reflections, and researchers’ field notes. The TAs’ PCK included three components: (a) knowledge of M#x00026;I curriculum goals, (b) knowledge of instructional strategies appropriate to the M#x00026;I course, and (c) knowledge of students’ learning. This study shows the complexity of adopting curriculum reforms and the necessity to support the faculty’s and TAs’ knowledge development when a novel science curriculum is adopted.

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

Renowned medical physicist Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, a co-recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, died on 30 May 2011 in New York City.Rosalyn was born on 19 July 1921 in New York City. Although her parents were not able to attend high school, they passed down to Rosalyn their lifetime love of learning. Her fondness for chemistry was influenced by her high school chemistry teacher. In 1941 she became the first physics graduate of Hunter College, part of the City University of New York system and at that time a women’s college. Her love of physics was inspired by two of her professors there.In pursuing a graduate education, Rosalyn faced several obstacles: She was a woman in a man’s field, she was Jewish, and she spoke with the broad accents of New York City. With her usual determination, however, she was able to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she started in 1941. Of the 400 people in the College of Engineering, she was the only woman. Maurice Goldhaber, who would later direct Brookhaven National Laboratory, served as her adviser. In 1943 she married physics graduate student Aaron Yalow, also a New Yorker and the son of a rabbi. Two years later Rosalyn received her PhD in nuclear physics—much of her research involved radioactivity. She received encouragement from Gertrude Goldhaber, a practicing physicist married to Maurice.After graduate school, Rosalyn took a job in New York at an ITT laboratory until it left the area a year later. She then returned to Hunter, this time to teach. Aaron, who by that time had joined Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, introduced her to Edith Quimby, a trailblazer in medical physics. Quimby brought together Rosalyn and Gioacchino Failla, a pioneering biophysicist at Columbia University, who was very impressed with Rosalyn. Failla then convinced Bernard Roswit, chief of radiation therapy at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, to hire her. She would spend her entire career in the VA hospital system.In 1950, while at the Bronx VA Hospital, she began her 22-year collaboration with internist Solomon Berson. Together they developed radioimmunoassay, a revolutionary technique that uses radiolabeled antibodies to measure antigens. They focused their research on the clinical diagnosis of thyroid diseases and the kinetics of iodine metabolism. The team developed an interest in serum proteins. At a time when highly purified insulin was readily available, Rosalyn and Berson soon determined that patients treated with animal insulins built up antibodies to them. They recognized that they had in their hands a means to measure circulating insulin. By 1959 they were able to put to practical use the measurement of plasma insulin in humans. Radioimmunoassay testing has now been largely replaced with fluorescent techniques; however, immunoassay is still used in routine blood tests.Berson died in 1972 and never saw the full recognition of his and Rosalyn’s work. In 1976 Rosalyn was presented with the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, considered by many to be a precursor to the Nobel Prize. The following year she was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She was again recognized in 1988, this time with the National Medal of Science, for her groundbreaking work.Rosalyn and Aaron were deeply involved in the establishment of organizations dedicated to medical physics. In 1948 they helped found the Radiological and Medical Physics Society of New York, and in 1958 they became charter members of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.Rosalyn took great pride in the many physicians and scientists that she and Berson mentored. Later in life, to ease the public’s fears about radiation exposure, she spoke in numerous US venues on the topic.Some 70 years after Rosalyn was the only woman in her graduate program, it is tantalizing to ask how things have changed. She would be the first person to start that discussion. She had made it her mission to inspire talented women in their pursuit of science and mathematics careers. Although Rosalyn would never classify herself as a feminist, many women scientists saw her as a role model, just as she viewed Marie Curie. Those of us to whom she has passed the torch have lost a champion and mentor. We will try to live up to her challenge.Rosalyn Sussman YalowAIP/ESVA, PHYSICS TODAY COLLECTIONPPT|High resolution© 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Jing and King Receive Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Awards

Zhicheng Jing and Daniel King have been awarded the 2011 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award, given annually to one or more promising young scientists for outstanding contributions achieved during their Ph.D. research. Recipients of this award are engaged in experimental and/or theoretical studies of Earth and planetary materials with the purpose of unraveling the physics and chemistry that govern their origin and physical properties. Jing's thesis is entitled “Equation of state of silicate liquids.” King's thesis is entitled “Stress‐driven melt segregation and reactive melt infiltration in partially molten rocks deformed in torsion with applications to melt extraction from Earth's mantle.” They both were formally presented with the award at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting, held 5–9 December in San Francisco, Calif.

Medical physics graduate programs should adjust enrollment to achieve equilibrium between graduates and residents

Medical physics graduate programs should adjust enrollment to achieve equilibrium between graduates and residents

WE‐G‐BRC‐04: A Hub‐and‐Spoke Residency Model for Meeting the 2014 ABR Mandate

Purpose: Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center (MBPCC) has established a Medical Physics Residency Program to provide clinical training to M.S. and Ph.D. graduates of the CAMPEP‐accredited Louisiana State University (LSU)‐MBPCC Medical Physics Graduate Program. It graduates approximately six students yearly, which equates to a need for twelve residency positions in a two‐year program. To address this need for residency positions, MBPCC decided to expand its maximum capacity of 6 residents to a total of 12 residents by developing a Consortium consisting of partnerships with radiation oncology physics residency programs located at regional outside clinical institutions. Methods: We feel that the proposed Consortium model offers:• broader range of procedures than available at most single institutions• exposure to more commercial products than training at most single institutions• various approaches to clinical topics than may be available at most single institutions• potential reduction of CAMPEP workload by producing smaller number of large programs• broad evaluation and examination of all Consortium residents, regardless of training location, by representatives from each of the Consortium partner sitesMBPCC will be responsible for organization, accreditation, administration, and operation of the Consortium program. Partner institutions could then focus on clinical training of the residents. Results: The Consortium institutions have shown a great deal of support, both from their medical physics groups and administrations, in developing these partnerships. We are currently working with administrative personnel at each location to finalize the details of these partnerships through a Memorandum of Understanding. All partner sites are expected to begin resident training in July of this year. Conclusions: The Consortium is a network of for‐profit, non‐profit, academic, community, and private entities. These types of collaborative endeavors will be required to reach the number of residency positions needed to meet the 2014 ABR mandate and to maintain graduate medical physics training programs.

Catalli, Sundberg receive Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Awards

Krystle Catalli and Marshall Sundberg have been awarded the 2010 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award, given annually to one or more promising young scientists for outstanding contributions achieved during their Ph.D. research. Recipients of this award are engaged in experimental and/or theoretical studies of Earth and planetary materials with the purpose of unraveling the physics and chemistry that govern their origin and physical properties. Catalli's thesis is entitled “The effect of trivalent cation substitution on the major lower mantle silicates.” Sundberg's thesis is entitled “Chemical interactions amongst phases during diffusion creep: Applications to the Earth's upper mantle.”

On the Declining Interest in Physics among Students—From the perspective of teachers

This study examines physics teachers’ views on factors that contribute to the declining interest in physics among school students. A total of 190 physics teachers from 91 secondary schools and nine junior colleges in Singapore participated in this study, which used a survey instrument to seek their views. Rasch analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings showed that teachers are uncertain about the career prospects of physics graduates and are not very optimistic about the market demand for physics graduates. They feel that physics seems to be difficult and abstract to students. The perception that physics is for boys seems to be rooted in society. The teachers emphasized the importance of co‐curricular activities and laboratory work to enhance interest of students in learning physics. We provide several recommendations to arrest the declining interest in physics at the school level.

Recommended ethics curriculum for medical physics graduate and residency programs: Report of Task Group 159

The AAPM Professional Council approved the formation of a task group in 2007, whose purpose is to develop recommendations for an ethics curriculum for medical physics graduate and residency programs. Existing program's ethics curricula range in scope and content considerably. It is desirable to have a more uniform baseline curriculum for all programs. Recommended subjects areas, suggested ethics references, and a sample curriculum are included. This report recommends a reasonable ethics course time to be 15-30 h while allowing each program the flexibility to design their course.

Dimensional analysis in physics and the Buckingham theorem

Dimensional analysis is a simple, clear and intuitive method for determining the functional dependence of physical quantities that are of importance to a certain process. However, in physics textbooks, very little space is usually given to this approach and it is often presented only as a diagnostic tool used to determine the validity of dependences otherwise obtained. This paper presents the basics of dimensional analysis in two cases: the resistance force of the fluid that occurs when a body moves through it and the speed of propagation of waves on water. After that, a general approach to dimensional analysis based on the Buckingham theorem is shown. The material presented in the paper could be useful to both students of physics and physics graduates.

2009 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award to Yu and Austin

Yonggang Yu and Nicholas J. Austin have been awarded the Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award, given annually to one or more promising young scientists for outstanding contributions achieved during their Ph.D. research. Recipients of this award are engaged in experimental and/or theoretical studies of Earth and planetary materials with the purpose of unraveling the physics and chemistry that govern their origin and physical properties. Yu's thesis is entitled “Structure properties and phase transitions in earth minerals: A first principles study.” Austin's thesis is entitled “Grain size evolution and strain localization in deformed marbles.” They were both formally presented with the award at the Mineral and Rock Physics focus group reception during the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting, held 14–18 December in San Francisco, Calif.

Lester S. Skaggs

Medical physics lost one of its innovators when Lester S. Skaggs died of natural causes on 3 April 2009 in Chicago. Skaggs made seminal contributions to the application of radiation to cancer treatment and the development of its technology and instrumentation.Skaggs, who was born on 21 November 1911, was raised on a farm in northern Missouri. He went to a one-room country elementary school and made the three-mile trek to high school on a pony. He studied at the University of Missouri and received a BS in chemistry with a minor in mathematics in 1933 and an MS in physics in 1934. At the University of Chicago he worked under Samuel Allison on the precise determination of the energy released in the production of deuterium from proton bombardment of beryllium, which earned him a PhD in 1939.Skaggs spent the following two years as a postdoctoral fellow in nuclear physics at the University of Chicago. At the same time, he held a part-time job at the nearby Michael Reese Hospital. The radiation oncologist there was interested in acquiring a betatron, recently invented by Donald Kerst, to extract an electron beam and use it to treat cancer. However, because of World War II, the project did not get off the ground. Instead, Skaggs was drafted to work at the department of terrestrial magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and developed an antiaircraft detection system. After moving to the Manhattan Project in 1943, he transformed his system into a fuse to detonate the first atomic bomb. He created a radar-based proximity device with two backup systems. After the first test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, he decided to delay the time of detonation by an additional 30 seconds to ensure that the aircraft would reach a safe distance.At the end of the war, Skaggs was still interested in the possible use of electrons for cancer therapy. He was hired by the Michael Reese Hospital and sent to work with Kerst at the University of Illinois in Urbana, where they succeeded in extracting the 22-MeV electron beam from the betatron. Soon after, he and several other scientists developed a radiation-treatment technique to use on a physics graduate student who had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. It was the first such treatment that used electrons.In 1946 Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act, which provided for the creation of the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital at the University of Chicago. Skaggs took a position with the university in 1948 and led the development of the radiation therapy facility at the ACRH, which was completed in 1953. With Lawrence Lanzl, Skaggs designed, built, and calibrated a 2000-curie cobalt-60 rotating treatment unit, the first in the US. Skaggs arranged for a 5- to 50-MeV linear accelerator, developed at Stanford University, to be installed at the ACRH. To obtain multiple electron beams aimed at the tumor from different angles without moving the patient, he contracted with Varian Co in California to build a rotating gantry. The electron beam was 12 cm in diameter mechanically scanned over a custom-shaped irregular field. The design, construction, and calibration of the project cost $450 000. First used to treat a patient in 1959, the linac was in clinical use for 34 years.To foster the growth of medical physics, Skaggs started a graduate training program at the master’s level in the mid-1950s, expanded it to the doctoral level in the 1960s, and added postdoctoral training in the 1970s. He directed the program until 1979.In the mid-1960s the ACRH got funding for a small cyclotron to produce short-lived isotopes for diagnostic research. Contemporarily, at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, cyclotron-produced neutrons from the Be(d,n) reaction were being tested as a possible cancer treatment tool. In the early 1970s, after I joined Skaggs’s group, we developed a high-pressure cryogenic deuterium-gas target used for the D(d,n) reaction to produce a neutron therapy beam; it was the first hospital-based neutron therapy facility in the US. After leaving the University of Chicago, Skaggs spent five years at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia, where he installed a commercial cyclotron-based neutron therapy facility and established a dosimetry calibration laboratory. He returned to the university and continued as a professor emeritus in the department of radiation and cellular oncology until his death.Skaggs was a natural teacher and a true gentleman who graciously shared his wisdom, common sense, and deep knowledge of medical physics. His students, colleagues, and friends deeply miss his guidance and generosity.Lester S. SkaggsPPT|High resolution© 2010 American Institute of Physics.

A Nationwide Survey of Medical Physics Graduate Programs in Japan

A Nationwide Survey of Medical Physics Graduate Programs in Japan

Widening the Sphere of Activity of Physics Graduates

Widening the Sphere of Activity of Physics Graduates

From gene to protein

This article describes a 3-week intensive molecular biology methods course based upon fluorescent proteins, which is successfully taught at the McGill University to advanced undergraduates and graduates in physics, chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and medicine. No previous knowledge of biological terminology or methods is expected, so the material could readily be adapted to earlier undergraduates or students in other fields. The course emphasizes hands-on experience with one half-hour of lecture and 3 and a half hours of laboratory 4 days per week, for a total of 39 hours. The materials are simple and low in cost and all software used is free, making the budget accessible to small universities and community colleges that possess basic teaching wet labs. Conceptual understanding is reinforced with lab reports and an independent final paper on a subject of the student's choice. The final paper describes a possible thesis project, not necessarily the student's own, with assessment based upon grasping of key concepts and methods of molecular biology.