2022-2023 Physics and Astronomy Colloquium Series

Unless otherwise noted, all talks take place at 2:35 p.m. in Thompson Physical Laboratory 205

Sept. 9 Field Day
Sept. 16 Katherine Aidala, Mount Holyoke College
Title: Studying charge trapping in organic semiconductors using time resolved Kelvin probe force microscopy
Sept. 23 Physics after Williams:  grad school, jobs
Sept. 30 Ralf Bundschuh, The Ohio State University
Title:  Quantitative modeling of RNA-protein interactions
Oct. 7 Jim Bern, Williams College
Title: Harnessing Differentiable Simulation to Design and Control the Next Generation of Soft-Rigid Robots
Oct. 14 Mountain Day
Oct. 21 Jennifer Winters, Williams College
Title: Measuring the Masses of Small Stars and Tiny Planets with the Doppler Method
Oct. 28 Sigma Xi Lecture with Michael Allison, Williams College
4:15PM, Bronfman Auditorium in Wachenheim Bldg.
Nov. 4 POSTPONED
Al Crosby, UMass-Amherst
Title: Autonomously Moving and Assembling Soft Matter Systems
Nov. 11 Bill Wootters, Williams College
Title: Entanglement, Bell’s Theorem, and This Year’s Nobel Prize in Physics
Nov. 18 Libby Maret, Intel
Title: An Introduction to Optical Proximity in Semiconductor Fabrication
Nov. 25 (Thanksgiving Break)
Dec. 2 Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi, Amherst College
Title: Reconstructing Planet Formation Using Dynamical and Chemical Fossils
Dec. 9 Day One Senior Thesis Short Talks
TPL 205  2:35-4PM
Dec. 12 Day Two Senior Thesis Shorts Talks
TPL 205 2:00PM to 5PM
Feb. 3 All about Physics and Astronomy Research
(including summer and thesis research opportunities!)
Physics and Astronomy Faculty
Feb. 17 (Winter Carnival)
Feb. 24 Kirsten McMichael, RPI
Title:  Searching for New Physics with the nEXO Experiment
Mar. 10 Clara Sousa-Silva, Bard College
Title: Life, and how to find it” 
Mar. 17 / Mar. 31 (Spring Break)
Apr. 6 Charlie Doret, Williams
Faculty Lecture, Wege 4:15PM
Title:  Learning Something by Measuring Nothing
Apr. 7 Diana Powell, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Title: “Connecting Planetary Formation and Characterization”
Apr. 14 Al Crosby, UMass-Amherst
Title: Autonomously Moving and Assembling Soft Matter Systems
Thursday
Apr. 20
4PM, Wachenheim 113
Amy Graves, Swarthmore College
Title: “Myths, Memes and Marginality: A Conversation about Gender and Physics”
Apr. 21 Amy Graves, Swarthmore College
Title: “Oh Snap!  The physics of jammed solids”
May 1 Quaid Morris, Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute
Title: “RBPzoo: the motifs, binding interface and evolution history of 30,000 eukaryotic RNA-binding proteins (RBPs)”
4:15PM, TPL 205
May 5 Matthew Payne, Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Title: “Interstellar Interlopers”
May 15 Honors thesis talks with physics and astronomy seniors
TPL 205 beginning at 2PM