Last semester, the Physics and Astronomy Department welcomed a new postdoc, Dr. Mark Giovinazzi. In this article, we explore Mark’s research expertise on low-mass stars and exoplanets and learn more about his personal life at Amherst! His journey involves diverse research experiences and the continuous mission to elevate underrepresented students in the field. …
By Fernanda On January 19, twelve Amherst College students (including myself!) hopped in a car to Boston for the American Physical Society Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (APS CUWiP). CUWiPs are three-day regional conferences for undergraduate physics majors who identify as women or a gender minority, with the goal of helping them continue in physics…
Cover image courtesy of ESA: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2007/07/The_Bullet_Cluster2 Article by Olivia Fann and Fernanda On October 17, 2023, the bottom floor of the Science Center was filled with professors and students enjoying refreshments and conversation. It was time for the weekly Physics Colloquium, a public talk given by a visiting scholar on a topic relevant to their…
By Ryogo Katahira On October 6, a man in his thirties wearing a hoodie and jeans entered a mechanics course classroom in the Science Center. He glanced at the blackboard with its simple energy diagrams while students and professors filed in. His demeanor was entirely casual, but he was the subject of the highly anticipated…
Article by Amy Zheng Juan C. Vasquez Carmona is a visiting assistant professor of physics. He is the current Chair of the New England section of the American Physical Society and a full-time member of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. This academic year is his first time instructing physics at Amherst College. This…
Hi there! My name is Alison Weiss, and I am a rising senior at Amherst. This summer, I am working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland. As a physics and computer science double major, it is exciting to be spending the summer at the place where both the Higgs boson…
On March 29, Presidential Scholar Chanda Prescod-Weinstein gave a talk in the Science Center called “Cosmic Probes of the Dark Sector.” Prescod-Weinstein is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Core Faculty Member in Women’s Studies at the University of New Hampshire. She began her talk by telling the audience that “there are no stupid questions,…
As one of the postdocs who mentored the LIGO SURF program put it, there are five goals to an REU, which are, in order of importance: Safety and health Have fun I learn something My mentors learn something The project A major aim of a summer research internship is to learn what it means to…
Still image from a numerical simulation of a black hole / neutron star merger. Image credit: S.V.Chaurasia (Stockholm University), T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), N. Fischer, S. Ossokine, H. Pfeiffer (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), ,https://www.ligo.org/detections/NSBH2020/files/BHNS_GW200115.png. Scientists have long predicted that neutron stars and black holes could orbit…
Hi, everyone! I’m Cailin Plunkett, a rising junior majoring in physics and mathematics. This summer, I’m researching gravitational waves through the Caltech LIGO SURF program. Electromagnetic (EM) radiation—like infrared, visible light, UV, etc—is the type of data we are used to receiving from space. The first telescopes looked at stars and planets in the visible…