HMC Physics News Andrew Higginbotham (’09) is Apker finalist (July 2009) Donnelly-Group Paper Highlighted (July 2009) Letter from the Chair (July 2009) Andrew Higginbotham (’09) wins a Churchill Fellowship (March 2009) Jim Eckert wins APS Prize to a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution (September 2008)

Jim Eckert wins 2008 APS Prize to a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution Professor James C. Eckert was named this year’s winner of the American Physical Society’s Prize to a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution. “The Prize was established to honor a physicist whose research in an undergraduate setting has achieved wide recognition and contributed significantly to physics and who has contributed substantially to the professional development of undergraduate physics students.” Prof. Eckert’s research program has been extraordinarily productive, leading to dozens of papers and presentations, and to two winners of the prestigious Apker Award for the outstanding undergraduate in physics.

The award citation reads:

“For the significant contributions he has made to the understanding of the complex exchange biasing mechanism crucial to spin-valve sensors used in the read-write heads of hard disks and for his skilled and enthusiastic inclusion of undergraduates in physics research.”

Prof. Eckert will receive his award at the APS annual meeting in March, 2009, where he has been invited to give a talk on his research on the exchange bias between adjacent ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers.

Congratulations to Prof. Eckert on this richly deserved recognition.

2008 Hertz Fellowships Harvey Mudd College seniors Gregory Minton and Peter Scherpelz won two of this year's sixteen prestigious Hertz Ph.D. Fellowships. Since 1963, the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation has supported some of the most promising applied scientists and engineers with the nation's most generous academic fellowship. This year's Fellows hail from thirteen different institutions, of which only Harvard, Harvey Mudd College, and MIT could claim more than one winner. Peter will put his Hertz Fellowship to good use at the University of Chicago, where he plans to study quantum optics and atomic physics. Greg will be conducting research in computational biochemistry at D.E. Shaw Research next year and will then head to graduate school in theoretical physics the following year. To win one Hertz in a year is a remarkable achievement. To win two is simply spectacular!

Stan Love (’87) Delivers Convocation Address HMC physics major and NASA astronaut Stanley G. Love returned to Galileo Hall to address the question "Where should we go?" as part of Convocation on 4 September 2008. Dr. Love, who flew on a Shuttle mission earlier this year which included two 7-hour space walks while docked to the International Space Station, spoke insightfully about two approaches to space missions: the Apollo and the Hubble. The Apollo effort was aimed at landing men on the Moon and returning them safely; it was audacious, expensive, and enormously successful. The Hubble has been another spectacular success, although for neither of the two primary investigations for which it was designed. Rather it has allowed scientists to observe that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating, an unanticipated but extraordinarily fundamental and (and baffling) discovery that poses exciting challenges for particle physics and cosmology. Love argued that Hubble-style projects are more likely to succeed in future.

External review The Physics Department underwent a very successful external review in February, 2004. The report of the team of 3 physicists from leading graduate and undergraduate institutions begins:

“The physics program at Harvey Mudd College is truly excellent and among the very best at undergraduate institutions across the country. The curriculum has been carefully conceived and is effective in providing an outstanding education to students, the faculty are skilled teachers who are extremely accessible and wonderfully supportive to students, the research experiences offered to students are top-notch, the department is an important contributor to the excellence of the institution, and the people in the department enjoy an esprit de corps that allows them to work together quite effectively. In short, the department enjoys the admiration of the administration, the faculty in other departments, the students, and now this review team.

“In reviewing one of the best if not the best physics program at an undergraduate institution, there are no major problems for us to address. ...”