Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Fall 2022 Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 67, Number 17
Thursday–Sunday, October 27–30, 2022; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA; New Orleans, Louisiana
Session GM: Mini-symposium: Inspiring the Next Generation Through Nuclear Research III |
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Chair: Lauren McIntosh, Texas A&M University Room: Hyatt Regency Hotel Imperial 9 |
Friday, October 28, 2022 2:00PM - 2:36PM |
GM.00001: Beyond the Numbers: A Nuanced understanding of UREM Undergraduate Students' needs to move through the Nuclear Physics pipeline Invited Speaker: Dionne P Stephens A qualitative evaluation of the Nuclear Physics Mentoring Program for Underrepresented Racial/ Ethnic Minority (UREM) at the largest Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the United States provided unique insights into undergraduate students' needs. Primary factors motivating students' decision to apply to the program included an opportunity for mentored research, specific focus on UREM students, encouragement from a faculty member, and inclusion of international students. The structure of the program was viewed as important, as administrative challenges that slowed progress to implementing the program were cited as initially decreasing their commitment to participating. However, the year-long experience allowed time for administrative change and provided an opportunity for students to work closely with faculty, which ensured both an opportunity to gain comprehensive experience and develop a strong support network. While the opportunity to receive a salary was appreciated, the funding to attend conferences, visit a national laboratory, and have guest speakers meet with them as a small group was perceived as invaluable. Finally, participants are aware of the lack of representation in the field with in the United States; providing opportunities for students like themselves emerged as important long term goal. Taken together, participants' desire to attend graduate school and pursue a degree in the field was solidified by participating in the program. |
Friday, October 28, 2022 2:36PM - 2:48PM |
GM.00002: The GREAT-NS Traineeship Program at Berkeley Lab Jacklyn M Gates In the spring of 2022, Berkeley Lab, in collaboration with San José State University, the University of California, Riverside and the University of California, Merced launched a new undergraduate training program for students from Minority Serving Institutions. The goal of this program is to create interest in nuclear science research in these students, such that they may want to pursue careers in the field. In the first year of the underGraduate Research Educational Academic Traineeships in Nuclear Science, or GREAT-NS, program we accepted ten students from six different universities. Each student is working with a mentor and their group on a unique research project. Together with the Berkeley Lab Workforce Development and Education office, we organized an Introductory Nuclear Physics lecture series, a seminar series exposing trainees to different research projects that fall under nuclear science, a journal club, scientific and career advancement opportunities. Here we will present an overview of our GREAT-NS program and discuss the future of GREAT-NS at Berkeley Lab. |
Friday, October 28, 2022 2:48PM - 3:00PM |
GM.00003: DOE/ACS Nuclear Chemistry Summer School – Broadening Access to Nuclear Science for the Past 38 Years Nicholas Esker, Trish Baisden, Henry Bechtel, Jeff Bryan, Cathy Cutler, Melissa Deri, Melody Esfandiari, Lynn C Francesconi, Victor Maraschin, Vanessa Sanders, Annalise Van Wyngarden The Nuclear Chemistry Summer School (NCSS) is an intensive, six-week program designed to introduce advanced undergraduate students to the fundamentals of nuclear and radiochemistry through in-class lectures and hands-on laboratory experience. The program, funded by the US DOE since 1984, has been an important component in broadening access to nuclear science for students across the United States. To date, 862 students have successfully completed the summer school with many continuing on in nuclear science and pursuing graduate degrees. The program is currently hosted at Brookhaven National Laboratory (the East Coast site) and San José State University (the West Coast site), each of which accommodates 12 students per year. The NCSS consists of an undergraduate course with lectures on nuclear & radiochemistry, nuclear medicine, nuclear forensics, and related fields; laboratory experiments designed to introduce students to state-of-the-art instrumentation and techniques used in basic and applied nuclear science; a wide-ranging guest lecture series; and field trips to local nuclear science research institutions such as universities, medical facilities, and national laboratories. During the summers of 2020 and 2021, the NCSS programs at BNL and SJSU were combined and conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the NCSS returns to in-person instruction in 2022 at both sites, the program is working to incorporate lessons learned from the previous two years of remote learning. This talk will focus on efforts to continually improve the NCSS, the consequences of the two years of remote instruction, and how important this program is to inspiring the next generation of nuclear scientists. |
Friday, October 28, 2022 3:00PM - 3:12PM |
GM.00004: Large Collaborative Nuclear Physics at a Small College Nathan C Grau "Big physics," like experimental high energy nuclear physics, needs hundreds of scientistis and engineers collaborating over many years to design, build, take and analyze data, and publish results. This time scale does not obviously lend itself well to an undergraduate summer research project or a one-year senior thesis project. Still, small private college students can be inspired by the work they do in nuclear physics within these large collaborations. For over ten years I have had students participating in nuclear physics research at RHIC, for the PHENIX and sPHENIX experiments and in preparation for the EIC. Students are able to work on software and hardware projects. This work has inspired them to change majors and vocations. While very few of my students have continued to graduate work in nuclear physics, they have gained valuable transferable skills and are using them in various fields. In this contribution, I will outline the strategies I have used and outcomes I have had when involving undergraduates at a small private college in nuclear physics research. |
Friday, October 28, 2022 3:12PM - 3:24PM |
GM.00005: Visualizing MoNA/LISA data to aid in event classification Clifton D Kpadehyea, Jaylen I Rasberry, Thomas Redpath Neutron-unbound systems are a special type of exotic nucleus that immediately decays by emitting one or more neutrons. Studying these systems can provide insights important to understanding nucleon-nucleon interactions inside the atomic nucleus. The Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) Collaboration uses the invariant mass spectroscopy technique to study these nuclei. Decays involving more than one neutron are challenging to analyze because care must be taken to identify events in which all emitted neutrons are detected. A current effort within the Collaboration is underway to explore new computational tools and techniques to address these challenges. The Blender application has been leveraged to render animations of recorded data with the goal of developing a labeled event library for use in training machine learning algorithms to classify neutron hit patterns measured with the MoNA/LISA neutron detector array. Updates to the Blender workflow and example animations will be presented. |
Friday, October 28, 2022 3:24PM - 3:36PM |
GM.00006: Engaging Students in Physics with Art Yannick Gueye, Agnes Mocsy Physics Inspiring the Next Generation (PING) is a program centered around encouraging middle school, high school, and undergraduate students to go into Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. PING provides a two week engaging experience with physics and physicists. Lectures and traditional academic work can be tiring and draining, and in addition to those we propose incorporating activities that are visually pleasing and engaging, which will boost morale. We will incorporate art into PING for its inspirational potential to bring students towards physics. Physics and art are thought of as two worlds that have nothing to do with each other, however that is far from the truth. Developing ways of learning physics concepts through various mediums in a fun and engaging way, we will be able to bring more students into the sciences. Through the power of art, students will access and retain intricate physics concepts while having a great time. |
Friday, October 28, 2022 3:36PM - 3:48PM |
GM.00007: The 2022 Physicists Inspiring the Next Generation: Exploring the Nuclear Matter Paul L Gueye, Thomas J Baumann, Yannick Gueye, Joshua S Marshall, Dominic I Davis, Eric Pierce, Jayla Edwards, Donovan L Flagg, Casey Hulbert, Tieler Graham, Astro Bren, Rocio Di Maria, Trysten Harris, Drake Hollins, Jacob Ryabinky, Kevin Brooks-II, Bradley Thomas, Skyler Hamlin, Guhyun Jeong, Addison Hannah, Thomas Hays, Philip Carrington, Bryan Robles, Han Truong, Brenden Lamp, Nolan Tusing The “Physicists Inspiring the Next Generation (PING): Exploring the Nuclear Matter” is held annually at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams of Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. It includes a two-week summer program and year-round research opportunity for high school and middle school students, as well as a year-round research component for undergraduate students on basic and applied nuclear physics topics. Eighteen pre-college participants worked with six undergraduate students in PING 2022 to assemble and perform experiments using the Rutherford scattering experiment kit from Leybold. They compared their data to Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, the students tested the performances of 25 cm long scintillators with cross sectional areas of 2.5x2.5 cm2 and 5x5 cm2 as part of a R&D effort for a next generation neutron detector by the MoNA Collaboration. The pre-college participants represented schools from California, Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Virginia, and New Jersey. The middle and high school students will present results from their research and discuss their experiences in the program. |
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