Students Present Research In Georgia

While most of the Houghton College community retired home for holiday celebration over Thanksgiving Break last week, senior physics students Thomas Eckert and August Gula, and associate dean of natural sciences and mathematics Professor Mark Yuly travelled to Savannah, Georgia. The trio, together with faculty and students from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo attended the American Physical Society’s (APS) fifty-seventh annual meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics. Eckert and Gula presented their research, which they had worked on under Yuly, to hundreds of attendees, many of them distinguished scholars and physicists.

Eckert explained the students’ research was “part of a much larger project that spans over 20 years.” He said the goal of the project was the development of an efficient, time-and-cost-effective way to measure the areal density of an Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) reaction. The areal density is a parameter of ICF that must be above a certain threshold to have a reaction that releases more energy than is put in. “As one of the key goals of studying ICF is to have net-positive energy output which would allow us to use the reaction as a source of electrical power,” Eckert said. “Overcoming this threshold is important. While this value can be measured today, current measurement techniques lack the efficiency of our system.”

This research will likely impact efforts to creating clean, sustainable energy. It also may have applications in astronomy. “An ICF reaction is quite similar to the Gravitational Confinement Fusion that occurs in the core of a star,” Eckert said.

Eckert and Gula’s findings were presented in a poster presentation at the conference. A “poster presentation” is fairly self-explanatory: researchers, using visual aids, present their research to other professionals. There are usually many presenters gathered at a poster presentation, explaining and dialoguing with attendees as they pass by.

Aside from the honor of having their research selected for presentation, Gula and Eckert were recognized for an “Exceptional Undergraduate Poster Presentation” at the conference. Eckert said, “It was a big deal that we received that honor out of hundreds of submitted posters. We were given tickets to a banquet and we were asked to stand and be recognized for our accomplishment. It was a shining moment for both of us.”

Notable attendees to the conference included Masaaki Yamada, recipient of the APS Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics. His pioneering contributions to the field of laboratory plasma astrophysics, according to the APS website. Another well-regarded member of the physics community, Richard Rhodes, was in attendance. Rhodes is the author of the acclaimed work, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Besides these distinguished scholars, Eckert said there were “loads” of other interesting and brilliant scientists at the conference. He expressed his enthusiasm over the networking opportunities he took advantage of. “This conference was one of the most rewarding experiences  

of my time as an undergraduate,” he said, noting how the contacts he made will likely impact his career for many years to come.

Eckert stated, “For me, I am weaker in mathematical and theoretical knowledge, but I find my strength is in experimentation and presentation of my work. For that reason, showing a poster at a research conference is something I feel right at home doing.” He continued, “One of the great things about Houghton Physics, however, is that no matter where your strengths lay, you are able to pursue opportunities tailored to your aptitude.”