Summer 2024 in review: around the world in 12 weeks with Physics and Astronomy

2024 Quantum Summer School

Professor  Alan Bristow and  Professor Ned Flagg  kicked the summer off by hosting the inaugural 2024 WVU Quantum Summer School in May. Students majoring in science, technology, engineering, or math from colleges and universities across the United States gathered at WVU for an introduction to quantum mechanics. By the end, students were able to understand the fundamental mechanisms underlying quantum computing, explain how quantum cryptography works, construct and analyze basic quantum circuits, and use IBM's python package Qiskit to interface with real quantum computers via the Internet. Bolstered by support from graduate students Maggie Emig and Ankit Poudel as well as Professor Micky Holcomb, QSS 2024 was a hit!

NASA MAVEN Conference (Toulouse, France)

The NASA Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) science team held a week-long conference at the Cité de l'Espace, in Toulouse, France in June. Professor Christopher Fowler and graduate students Samy Salem and Annie Kate Turner attended the meeting to present their scientific research using MAVEN measurements. They were joined by one of our incoming postdoctoral researchers, Dr. Catherine Regan. The MAVEN spacecraft orbits the planet Mars, making measurements of the plasma environment around the planet and within its atmosphere. The MAVEN mission is focused on understanding how Mars lost a significant chunk of its atmosphere over its history, turning the planet from one that once had lakes of flowing liquid water on its surface to the arid planet we see today. 

IPTA@ITALY 2024 (Sexten, Italy)

The 2024 International Pulsar Timing Array Science Meeting occurred in Sexten, Italy in June. Professor Sarah Burke-Spolaor and graduate student Swarali Shivraj Patil attended the conference to present and meet with colleagues. While there, they had the opportunity to meet Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Burnell discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967 as a postgraduate student. 

Presentations, Research, and Workshops

• Nikita Agarwal, a graduate student in Professor Sarah Burke-Spolaor's research group, traveled to two workshops this summer to polish her skills. In May, she attended the 20th NRAO Synthesis Imaging Summer School in Socorro, NM. About the summer school, Nikita shared, "[it] was a fantastic opportunity to learn about radio interferometry and interact with astronomers working on different sub-areas of the field." Later in the summer, Nikita traveled to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN for the Vanderbilt Initiative in Probes of Extreme Relativity (VIPER) Summer School. "VIPER is definitely the best pulsar timing array gravitational summer school," she said. "It was interactive, lots of fun, and a very hands-on learning experience."
• Professor Jason E. Ybarra traveled to Karnataka, India to visit the Drepung Loseling Monastery. There, they presented research being done in the WVU Department of Physics and Astronomy and the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Collaboration on the detection of low-frequency gravitational waves. Read more about Prof. Ybarra's trip.
• Bikash Kharel, a graduate student in Professor Emmanuel Fonseca's research group, traveled to Harvard University in Cambridge, MA for the AstroAI Workshop. There, he presented a research project titled "The Morphological Study of CHIME-FRBs with Machine Learning." Bikash wrote, "My trip to the AstroAI Workshop at Harvard was incredibly rewarding. I learned a great deal about the intersection of machine learning, AI, and astronomy, and I had the opportunity to present my work on fast radio bursts."
• Professor Sean McWilliams visited Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. At Trinity, he visited Gaia, an illuminated sculpture of the Earth designed by Luke Jerram on display in the Old Library.
• Zhi Gu "Patrick" Li, a graduate student in Professor Weichao Tu's research group, received the Best Student Poster Presentation award at the 2024 Geospace Environment Modeling Workshop in Fort Collins, Colorado. Li's presentation was titled “ULF Wave Transport of Relativistic Electrons in the Van Allen Belts: Criteria for Transition to Radial Diffusion." Read more about Patrick's award.
• Christopher Jacobs, a graduate student in Professor Subhasish Mandal's research group, attended the Electronic Structure Conference (ES24) in Boston, MA as well as the U.S. Quantum Information Science (QIS) Summer School at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN. "At Oak Ridge, experts in QIS presented and taught classes for two weeks. I also presented a poster on my work with high-temperature topological superconductivity," Chris explained. "ES24 was over three days, where we met and learned from experts in the electronic structure community. I also presented a poster of the same work. Both events were great for networking, and the first time I visited Boston and Oak Ridge."

Offsite, but Hands-On

• Graduate student Sulaiman Al Ghadani spent part of the summer performing research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. Sulaiman is a member of Professor Ned Flagg's research group in condensed matter physics. While at NIST, he had the opportunity to collaborate with members of their Photonics and Optomechanics Group, including Junyeob Song.
  
• Undergraduate student Aidan Sheppard and graduate students Ghadendra Bhandari and Femi Akinrinola joined Professor Micky Holcomb on a visit to the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA. While there, they performed measurements on superconducting devices for NASA. 
• Jackson Taylor, a graduate student in Professor Emmanuel Fonseca's research group, visited Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, WV to learn new skills. "I learned about the practical issues involved with observing with a radio telescope from calibration techniques to how to deal with radio frequency interference," Jackson said. "I appreciate the Green Bank Telescope a lot more now that I have physically seen many of its instruments. Besides astronomy-related activities, I explored the Green Bank Observatory grounds with many awesome future colleagues."

Center for KINETIC Plasma Physics Annual Workshop

In July, the Center for KINETIC Plasma Physics hosted their annual workshop at WVU. At the workshop, center members and collaborators gathered to share highlights of their research over the past year. Topics addressed include space physics, fusion, low temperature plasma, spectroscopy, and theory. Attendees also had the opportunity to go on an excursion to the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania for whitewater rafting!

COSPAR 2024 (Busan, South Korea)

Professor Weichao Tu, graduate students Annie Kate Turner and Patrick Li , and postdoctoral researchers  Dr. Xingzhi Lyu and Dr. Jinbei Huang traveled to Busan, South Korea for the 2024 Committee on Space Research Annual Scientific Assembly (COSPAR 2024). While at the conference, they presented research they have been working on at WVU in the Plasma Physics group. "Traveling to COSPAR in South Korea was an eye-opening experience. Aside from communicating science, we spent enough time to see Korean cultures and eat delicious Korean foods," Patrick said. "It was really fascinating to see the vibrant streets and the unique lifestyles in South Korea, where the bustling markets, modern cityscapes, and rich cultural traditions offer both striking similarities and distinct differences compared to my life here in America."