From the 2015 Physics Alumni Newsletter
For me, the academic year ending in July 2015 was busy on several fronts. I served on the committee that selected Wake Forest College’s new Dean – Prof. Michelle Gillespie of the History Department. A lot of effort went into planning for potential new programs in a building undergoing renovation in the city’s Innovation Quarter, located just west of highway 52 in downtown Winston-Salem. In research, we had Xinyi Guo earn her PhD in May, and she has continued into a Master’s Program for Business, and she would like to work in the Health Care sector. A new student Hyunsu Lee joined our group and he has begun recently to take data on a new Atomic Force Microscope that was installed during the year at Biotech Place in downtown Winston-Salem. Several students, including Xinyi Guo and Jiajie Xiao, gave presentations at international conferences in Biophysics. Several undergraduates continued research with the group – Daniel Nelli, Mizuki Saito, and River Wu. In addition, we had several new undergraduate students join the research group, namely Josiah Low and Tracey Pu.
This year we are taking a slightly different format for the Alumni Newsletter: we are having the abbreviated section above which describes department changes and successes, and we are adding a section where some of our faculty members briefly describe, as I have just done, highlights of the past year about themselves, either professionally or personally or both. The new section will be presented in alphabetical order.
I want to give special thanks to all of you who designated the Physics Endowment Fund as part of your alumni giving. The Physics Endowment Fund is used in a variety of ways. It helps to send students doing research to national and international conferences; it is used to supports the annual faculty and student awards; it allows us to provide lunches at the career advising events for our undergraduate and graduate students; and it is used to support the students who are members of our local chapter of the Society of Physics Students in their activities and events throughout the academic year. The Physics Endowment Fund this past year also partially supported the expensive trip that graduating senior Abdul Obaid had to take to England to be interviewed as a finalist for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. The members of the Physics Department and the university community greatly appreciate the support of our alumni.
Please come and join the fun if you can. We are looking forward to seeing you. If you can’t make it to Homecoming, please drop me a note or give me a call and tell me what you’re up to. If this letter was forwarded to you, please let us know your current address.
Go Deacs!
Keith Bonin
Professor of Physics & Chair