Faculty and Student Research

Faculty Research and Student Involvement

Physics Department faculty specialize in a wide variety of research topics. Specializations include:

►Laser Physics (Lowell McCann)
►Liquid Crystals (Eileen Korenic)
►Educational Technology; standardized student assessment (Matt Vonk)
►Astrophysics (Glenn Spiczak, Suruj Seunarine)
►Faculty Development, (SOTL); academic risk-taking (Arriety Lowell)
►Gender Issues in Science (Rellen Hardtke)
►Biophysics and Physics Education Research (Jolene Johnson)

Our students and faculty are exploring some of the most energetic events in the universe. The Physics Department is involved with two astrophysics projects at the South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the South Pole Neutron Monitors. IceCube is a cubic-kilometer size telescope searching for sources of the highest energy neutrinos in the universe, while Neutron Monitors observe lower energy cosmic rays produced in our Milky Way galaxy and nearby Sun, monitoring space weather.

Physics Professor Suruj Seunarine traveled to the South Pole with an undergraduate to conduct research. Students can join the astrophysics research group and conduct research as early as their first year at UWRF.

Summer 2019 student interns helped create online science labs for education. From left: Amal Mohamed and Andraya Rosario - measuring mouse respiration with a C02 meter, Vic Fischer - making a more ideal inductor by cooling it in liquid nitrogen, Carl Bohacek - finding the mass of gases, Matt Vonk - respiration of plants, Aiden Jacobs - chemical buffers, Lisa Fisher - fruit fly genetics, and Payton Weber-Rolfes - determining gas densities by seeing which soap bubbles float.

A team of physics students mentored by Glenn Spiczak created an autonomous vehicle for the 2018 National Robotics Challenge in Marion, Ohio.

A photo of the Orion Nebula from our own observatory.
(Photo courtesy of Matt Vonk)