Physics Department Research Programs
Physics students have multiple opportunities for research and internships:
- Working with a GC professor on their research project.
- Physics students are frequent participants in Goshen’s Maple Scholars summer research program.
- Many Goshen students have spent summers in external programs at other colleges and universities, or national labs, applying successfully to National Science Foundation-funded REU (research experience for undergraduates) programs.
Physics faculty research projects
Goshen students have worked on research with Goshen faculty members. There are opportunities during the school year, and more intense opportunities for summer research, through the Maple Scholars program.
Professor Paul Meyer Reimer‘s research
Using satellite observations and global datasets to evaluate risk of mycotoxin exposure in Tanzanian infants.
> “Environmental variables and mycotoxin risk in Kongwa, Tanzania“, Lisa Nalliah and Samuel Stoner-Eby’s Maple Scholars poster, summer 2021.
Mapping and analysis of groundwater using GRACE satellite data and the Community Land Model.
> Combined GRACE/CLM visualization
X-ray crystallography – Reimer analyzed semiconductor heterostructures and calcium carbonate growth–by bivalves and by humans in labs–using x-ray diffraction and reflectivity in GC’s Turner x-ray laboratory.
Professor John Buschert‘s research
Acoustics – Professor Buschert and students built an electronic holography system and acoustical chamber to probe the vibration modes of handbells.
> Continued research rings a bell…
Electronic musical instruments – Designing music instruments and interfaces for amateurs to *jam*.
> Guthman competition finalists, Buschert and John Miller- X-ray diffraction – Professor Buschert did thesis work on laser annealing of silicon with time-resolved x-ray diffraction.
Maple Scholars
Each summer the Maple Scholars program pairs students with a faculty mentor for 8 weeks of research. Creating a a community of scholars, the students are all housed together and in the Friday colloquium, scholars take turns presenting the work they are doing and answering questions from other students and faculty.
While physics majors often work with professors from the Physics Department, they can and do with professors from other departments. Some recent Maple Scholars projects involving physics majors:
- Austin Hooley, “AI meets the graphic nerd” with Computer Science Professor Jeannette Shown
- Anja Kenagy, Fungal toxins and infant Tanzanians with Physics Professor Reimer
- Reuben Leatherman and Spencer Aeschliman (pictured at right with Prof Buschert), TRAQR air quality monitoring
- Ebtihal Abdelaziz, Group theory and game theory with Mathematics Professor David Housman
External programs
Students have taken advantage of external REU programs, done research at national labs, and worked in engineering bureaus in and around Goshen. A few recent examples:
Drew Smoker ’24, researched forest products in her summer 2022 REU internship at the University of Maine.
Ebtihal Abdelaziz ’22 (at right) analyzed photon polarizations for a cosmology experiment at Fermilab during the summers of 2022 and 2021.
Lucas Sauder ’22 worked part-time for a local water engineer, designing municipal water distribution systems during his college years.
Ryan Haggerty ’20 gathered data on rural bridges for a summer REU in the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.