Faculty Updates-2024
This will be my eighth and final year serving as Chair. My goal is to make it the best year yet. Last year was great as we recruited two new amazing faculty members, Emilie Huffman and Alejandro Cardenas-Avendano. We are conducting another search this year so hopefully will do as well.
A lot is happening in the lab as usual. Laxman Poudel finished his PhD and is now doing a postdoc at UAB with Rakesh Patel. Stephen Baker has been doing a great job as a research professor in the lab and Thilini passed her prelim exams so has been in the lab a lot more. We are currently trying to hire a new research technician and recruit more graduate students. We published our paper in Nature Chemical Biology on what I hope will be a new nitric oxide (NO) signaling agent active in normal physiology and effective in treatment of cardiovascular disease. As I write this, we are at the NO Society meeting in Stockholm.
The family is well. Shai is now a 3rd year student at UC Santa Cruz (Go Banana Slugs), my middle son is a 4th year at Reed College, and my oldest is trying to put his computer science degree to work. Lisa is still working as a pathologist, trying not to work too hard. Please reach out and let us know how you are doing.
This is my second and final year of phased retirement. I will officially retire after about 35 years at Wake Forest on June 30 of next year. However, I plan to continue to do research and will be a research professor for at least the following three years. During the past year, I continued work with my research students and published a paper related to the effects of quantum fields on models in which the early universe initially contracts to a minimum size and then begins to expand. This was with graduate student Leda Gao who was first author and former undergraduate and graduate student Robert Link. Last year my research group consisted of WFU undergraduates Catherine (Shuyu) Chen, Emily Foley, and Amanda Peake along with two graduate students, Shohreh Gholizadeh Siahmazgi and Ian Newsome. Shohreh finished her Ph. D. last summer and is now working as a teaching postdoc in the Mathematics Department at WFU. Emily graduated last spring and is currently a graduate student in applied mathematics at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
The research of Natalie Holzwarth continues to focus on first principles computer modeling of materials, especially those with ionic conductivity, and on further development of atomic datasets used by several electronic structure codes. The work is still funded by a small NSF grant and a few papers with students and collaborators have been published. Graduate student D. Cory Lynch is making good progress toward completing his Ph. D. degree.
Personally, 2024 has been tough with the passing of George Holzwarth on March 13, 2024. George remained intellectually active and inspirationally thoughtful throughout his life. The intimate demonstration of the relative shortness of lifetime opportunities has perhaps been energizing in some ways to Natalie and to other members of the family. Natalie has officially contracted to retire from Wake Forest University on June 30, 2025, but hopes to continue many projects as a retired research professor. In fact, computer modeling of interesting and technologically useful materials remains an important scientific endeavor. Advancement in this field can best be done by integrating the old established techniques with the many new innovations developed in the recent literature. This seems like a very inviting challenge.
With the help of alumni Andrew Barelli and Ryan Melvin, Jed Macosko taught a new course helping STEM students leverage their skills for financial jobs. The course was open only to sophomores, but this spring it will be offered to first-year students. Jed misses his close collaborator, George Holzwarth, whose passing was a blow to the dynamic (in both senses) cellular transport research that has been unfolding for over 20 years in Olin Hall. Some of this research will continue with a new crop of undergraduates this spring, but George’s presence will be sorely missed.
Rick Matthews Since retiring in 2020, I have enjoyed spending more time with grandchildren and more time traveling. The highlights of this year’s travels were two “sky” events. Carolyn and I went to Paris, TX in April to observe the total eclipse. The weather reports were not promising, and indeed we had complete cloud cover until only 20 minutes prior to totality. But then the skies cleared completely, and we had a terrific view of totality. Several solar prominences were visible to the naked eye, one extremely bright red.
We were surprised by another opportunity on May 11. My mother passed away in January, and Carolyn and I were at her home in southern North Carolina organizing things. I got a text from my brother that a rare aurora was happening. We jumped in our car, drove out into the country, and witnessed a beautiful display covering the entire sky.
I love keeping up with the exciting things happening in the department. I will again be on the quad with the department for homecoming. Hope to see you there!
William “Bill” Kerr I retired in 2008 but have been a research professor since then. That position has kept me connected to physics and produced a few research items. My wife and I also travelled quite a bit in the initial decade or so of retirement. Recently I’ve had to become a caregiver for my wife, since her health is declining. I still read about topological properties of Bloch electrons, but it is hard to keep up.