Janessa Renee Slone

Janessa Slone is a Ph.D. Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at West Virginia University. She was awarded her Bachelor of Science in Space Physics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in May 2023, where she focused on a theoretical physics project that aimed to calculate a modification to the Newtonian gravitational force. Janessa was listed as co-author on a paper published in Classical and Quantum Gravity regarding this research in January 2023. 
   
Soon after graduation, she began an internship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She was able to implement a theoretical framework to visualize the proposed microcavity system and take a step further toward characterizing the biexciton. This project solidified her interest in experimental and theoretical optics, thus leading her to apply to West Virginia University. 
   
Janessa moved on to work for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an ORISE Fellow to gain more programming experience outside the classroom. Her role was to write a code to mine internal databases for various parameters that would later improve device reviewers' understanding of regulatory science tools and how they are utilized in device submissions.