Bulletin of the American Physical Society
49th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics
Volume 52, Number 11
Monday–Friday, November 12–16, 2007; Orlando, Florida
Session PI2: Education and Outreach |
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Chair: Rick Lee, General Atomics Room: Rosen Centre Hotel Salon 3/4 |
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 2:00PM - 2:30PM |
PI2.00001: Educating the next generation in the science and technology of plasmas, beams and accelerators Invited Speaker: Accelerators are essential tools for discovery in fundamental physics, biology, and chemistry. Particle beam based instruments in medicine, industry and national security constitute a multi-billion dollar per year industry. More than 55,000 peer-reviewed papers having accelerator as a keyword are available on the Web. Yet only a handful of universities offer any formal training in accelerator science. Several reasons can be cited: 1) The science and technology of non-neutral plasmas cuts across traditional academic disciplines. 2) Electrical engineering departments have evolved toward micro- and nano-technology and computing science. 3) Nuclear physics departments have atrophied. 4) With few exceptions, interest at individual universities is not extensive enough to support a strong faculty line. The United States Particle Accelerator School (USPAS) is National Graduate Educational Program that has developed an educational paradigm that, over the past twenty-years, has granted more university credit in accelerator / beam science and technology than any university in the world. Governed and supported by a consortium of nine DOE laboratories and two NSF university laboratories, USPAS offers a responsive and balanced curriculum of science, engineering, and hands-on courses. Sessions are held twice annually, hosted by major US research universities that approve course credit, certify the USPAS faculty, and grant course credit. The USPAS paradigm is readily extensible to other rapidly developing, cross-disciplinary research areas such as high energy density physics. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 2:30PM - 3:00PM |
PI2.00002: Plasma Physics Research at an Undergraduate Institution Invited Speaker: Undergraduate research experiences have motivated many physics majors to continue their studies at the graduate level. The Department of Physics and Astronomy at SUNY Geneseo, a primarily undergraduate institution, recognizes this simple reality and is committed to ensuring research opportunities are available to interested majors beginning as early as their freshman year. Every year for more than a decade, as many as two dozen students and 8 faculty members have worked on projects related to high energy density physics and inertial confinement fusion during the summer months and the academic year. By working with their research sponsors, it has been possible to identify an impressive number of projects suitable for an institution such as Geneseo. These projects tend to be hands-on and require teamwork and innovation to be successful. They also take advantage of in-house capabilities such as the 2 MV tandem pelletron accelerator, a scanning electron microscope, a duoplasmatron ion deposition system and a 64 processor computing cluster. The end products of their efforts are utilized at the sponsoring facilities in support of nationally recognized programs. In this talk, I will discuss a number of these projects and point out what made them attractive and appropriate for an institution like Geneseo, the direct and indirect benefits of the research opportunities for the students and faculty, and how the national programs benefited from the cost-effective use of undergraduate research. In addition, I will discuss the importance of exposure for both students and faculty mentors to the larger scientific community through posters presentations at annual meetings such as the DPP and DNP. Finally, I will address the need for even greater research opportunities for undergraduate students in the future and the importance of establishing longer ``educational pipelines'' to satisfy the ever growing need for top-tier scientists and engineers in industry, academia and the national laboratories. [Preview Abstract] |
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