2008-2009 Physics & Astronomy Colloquia

19 Sept. Physics and Astronomy faculty – Williams College
Title: “All about graduate school”
26 Sept. Prof. Scott Hill ’97- University of Dallas
Title: “An Introduction to Small-world Networks”
3 Oct. Prof. Elizabeth Rhoades – Yale University
Title: “Adventures on the energy landscape: watching singleproteins fold”
17 Oct. Prof. Marek Demianski – Warsaw University and Visiting Professor of Astronomy at Williams College
Title: “Planck Mission: A new window at the very early universe”
24 Oct. Prof. Anthony Dinsmore – University of Massachusetts
Title: “How Crystals Form: Colloids as a Tool to Study Phase Transitions” [abstract]
31 Oct. Prof. Christina (Reynolds) Dunn ’97 – Bennington College
Title: “Creating the Giant: Fabricating the Mirrors of the European Extremely Large Telescope” [abstract]
7 Nov. Dr. Andrew Speck ’00 – Harvard University
Title: “Manipulating Atoms and Other Physical Systems with Half-Cycle Electromagnetic Pulses”
14 Nov. Prof. Alán Aspuru-Guzik – Harvard University
Title: “Quantum computation for quantum chemistry”
21 Nov. Prof.Emily Maher – Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Title: “Final Tau-Neutrino Results from the DONuT Experiment”
5 Dec. Prof. David Griffiths – Reed College
Title: “Hidden Momentum”
9 Jan. Hornor Thesis Progress Talks
6 Feb. “Summer Research Extravaganza”
13 Feb. Prof. Jonathan Friedman – Amherst College
Title: “Relaxation and Tunneling in Single-Molecule Magnets” [abstract]
27 Feb. Prof. Laura Cadonati – U Mass Amherst
Title: “LIGO and its progress towards gravitational wave astronomy” [abstract]
6 Mar. Prof. Alain Laederach, Department of Biomedical Sciences & School of Public Health – SUNY Albany
Title: “Identifying RNA folding through kinetic model enumeration” [abstract]
13 Mar. Prof. Jorge Moreno – Haverford College
Title: “Do mergers of dark matter halos trigger quasars?” [abstract]
10 April Toby Schneider ’07 – MIT/Woods Hole and Joseph Shoer ’06 – Cornell University
Title: “Engineering after Williams” (Autonomous Marine Vehicles, Flux Pinned Spacecraft and a tour of engineering reseach
16,17 April Prof. James Carlton – Williams/Mystic Seaport Program
Sigma Xi Faculty Research Lectures
24 April Dr. Steve Maxwell – NIST – Gaithersburg, MD
Title: “Dynamics of a sodium spinor condensate” [abstract]
1 May Prof. Jack Harris – Yale University
Title: “How an atomic orbital can flow through a resistive wire ” [abstract]
8 May Dr. Seth Shostak – SETI Institute
Title: “Efficiency in SETI Searches” [abstract]
18 May Honors Thesis Presentations