Category Archives: Prof. Vineyard

Professors Vineyard, LaBrake, and their Students Present Paper at Accelerators in Research and Industry Conference

Professor Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, presented an invited paper, “Characterization of Atmospheric Aerosols in the Adirondack Mountains Using PIXE, SEM/EDX, and Micro-Raman Spectroscopies,” at the 23rd Conference on Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry in San Antonio, TX, in May. Scott LaBrake, Senior Lecturer and Accelerator Manager, and five undergraduate students were co-authors on the paper.

Physics Students and Faculty Present at Oct. 2013 Nuclear Physics Conference

Five students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy were among 170 undergraduate students who presented posters at the 2013 Meeting of the Nuclear Physics Division of the American Physical Society (APS) in Newport News, Virginia, in October. Chris Allen ’14 presented a poster on his research in nuclear astrophysics with Professor Rebecca Surman, who also presented on “The sensitivity of r-process nucleosynthesis to beta-delayed neutron emission probabilities”. Salina Ali ’15, Alexandrea Safiq ’14, and Josh Yoskowitz ’16 reported on work they conducted with Professor Michael Vineyard on the analysis of pollutants in aerosol samples collected in the Adirondack Mountains using proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and Micro-Raman spectroscopy. Jeremy Smith ’14 presented a poster on work he performed with Professor Scott LaBrake on the PIXE analysis of aerosol samples collected in Schenectady. The students all won competitive awards from the Conference Experience for Undergraduates program of the APS for travel and lodging.

Salina Ali '15
Salina Ali ’15

Alexandrea Safiq '14
Alexandrea Safiq ’14
Chris Allen '14
Chris Allen ’14
Jeremy Smith '14
Jeremy Smith ’14
Josh Yoskowitz ’16
Josh Yoskowitz ’16

Professor LaBrake Presents Results at Accelerator Conference

Professor LaBrake presents a poster coauthored by Professor Vineyard and three Union students at CAARI 2012, the 22nd International Conference on the Applications of Accelerators in Research and Industry in Fort Worth, Texas.
Professor LaBrake presents a poster coauthored by Professor Vineyard and three Union students at CAARI 2012, the 22nd International Conference on the Applications of Accelerators in Research and Industry in Fort Worth, Texas.

Scott LaBrake, Senior Lecturer and Accelerator Manager in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, presented a poster titled “Construction of a Scattering Chamber for Ion-Beam Analysis of Environmental Materials in Undergraduate Physics Research” at CAARI 2012 the 22nd International Conference on the Applications of Accelerators in Research and Industry in Fort Worth, Texas, in August. A paper of the same title was submitted for the conference proceedings. Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, and three Union students were co-authors on the paper.

Prof. Vineyard Presents at AAPT meeting

Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, gave a talk titled “Rutherford Back-Scattering Experiment in the First-Year Seminar at Union College” at the 2011 Winter Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Jacksonville, FL, in January. The meeting celebrated 100 years of nuclear physics that began with the discovery of the atomic nucleus in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford. Scott LaBrake, Senior Lecturer and Accelerator Manager, was co-author of the paper.

Prof. Vineyard Presents at AAPT Meeting, Gordon Conference

Michael F. Vineyard, the Frank & Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, presented a poster titled “The Upper-Level Laboratory at Union College” at the 2010 Gordon Research Conference on Physics Research and Education at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass. in June, and at the 2010 Summer Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Portland, Oregon, in July. The poster, co-authored by physics senior lecturer Scott LaBrake, professor Seyffie Maleki and associate professor Chad Orzel, highlighted some of the development work they did on experiments in an advanced laboratory course.

Physics and Astronomy Summer Research 2010

Once again, we are happy to have a large collection of students and faculty working on research this summer. Many (but not all) of them are shown here:

Summer Research Students and Faculty 2010

In this picture: Front row (left to right): Katie Schuff, Ana Mikler, Katie O’Brien, Colin Gleason, Chad Harrington. Second row: Anna Sise, Erin Osgood, Prof. LaBrake, Prof. Maleki. Third row: Prof. Orzel, Tim Kuehn, Prof. Reich, Mark Sullivan, Prof. Marr. Fourth row: Pavel Aprelev, Hannah Ryan, Rob Moore, Prof. Koopmann, SreyNoch Chin, Colin Turley, Prof. Vineyard. Back row: Adam Margulies, John Sheehan, Pengfei Zhang, Prof. Wilkin, Prof. Newman, Amer Khraisat, Prof. Amanuel.

For more information on summer research at Union, see the Undergraduate Research Page, or come to the Summer Student Seminar Series.

Physics Faculty and Students Present at Conference in Hawaii

Five students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy were among some 140 undergraduate students from the U.S. and Japan who presented posters at the Third Joint Meeting of the Nuclear Physics Division of the American Physical Society (APS) and the Physical Society of Japan in Waikoloa, Hawaii, in October. Daniel Barringer ’11 and Ana Mikler ’12 presented posters on their research in nuclear astrophysics with Professor Rebecca Surman, who also presented on “Nucleosynthesis of Nickel-56 from Gamma-Ray Burst Accretion Disks”. Colin Gleason ’11 and Chad Harrington ’11 reported on work they conducted with Professor Michael Vineyard on the elemental analysis of pollutants in aerosol samples using proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE). Katie Schuff ’12 presented a poster on the PIXE analysis of pollutants in rain water performed with Professor Scott LaBrake. The students all won competitive awards from the Conference Experience for Undergraduates program of the APS for travel and/or lodging.

Prof. Vineyard Publishes in Phys. Rev. Letters

Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, is co-author of a recent article in Physical Review Letters, titled “Precise Measurement of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor GMn in the Few-GeV2 Region.” This paper reports on the results of an experiment performed with the Large Acceptance Spectrometer in Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va., that provides important information about the motion of quarks inside the neutron. The experiment was proposed to the Program Advisory Committee at Jefferson Lab by Professor Vineyard and Will Brooks, a research professor at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile and formerly a Jefferson Lab staff scientist.

Prof. Vineyard Co-Authors Ten Papers

Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, was co-author of ten articles published in 2008 by the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer Collaboration at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia. Eight of these articles appeared in the journal Physical Review C and two were published in Physical Review Letters. All of these papers are aimed at developing an understanding of nuclear structure in terms of the fundamental constituents — quarks and gluons.