Research at Jefferson Labs takes student to national physics conference

Tell me about your research.

My research is driven by one of the major issues in contemporary physics. There is not a clear understanding of the boundary between viewing a nucleus as a proton and neutron and viewing it as the smaller quark and gluon interactions. I hope my research can establish a baseline at which the “hadronic model” (the proton and neutron description of the nucleus) fails so that physicists know when to start incorporating quark effects into their calculations.

I’ve been researching with Dr. Jerry Gilfoyle since the second semester of my freshman year. We conduct our experiments using the particle accelerator at Jefferson Labs (JLab) in Newport News and use a variety of analysis techniques. JLab is the nation's newest national laboratory and it’s devoted to unraveling the structure of matter based on the fundamental particles of nature—quarks and gluons.

What’s it like being a part of research at Jefferson Labs?

I’ve toured JLab and been there twice on shift. There are always at least two people on site monitoring an experimental run and it was my job to help out and assist these people any way I could. I mostly brought them coffee (I was on the owl shift both times, which runs from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.), but I also was able to learn a lot about data acquisition, analysis and the safety monitoring systems that they use.

I also went to a users meeting where I talked to other researchers working at the lab and learned about recent advancements in the field. Most notably, we had an expert on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which just opened in Switzerland and France, come talk to us about the physics program there.

And you recently attended a conference?

Yes, the American Physical Society, Division of Nuclear Physics Conference in Oakland, California. I presented a poster featuring my research on the hadronic model. The poster was from work that I did both at Richmnd and at JLab over the course of last year and this past summer.  I received a full scholarship to attend the conference from the CEU (Conference Experience for Undergraduates), which is based out of Westmont University. It was interesting to learn about the large variety of research going on in physics, and it was fun to answer questions from other physicists from around the world. 

What do you enjoy about being a physics major at Richmond?

I really enjoy hanging around the physics department because there is always something interesting to get into, whether it’s liquid nitrogen ice cream, guest lectures or playing student vs. faculty laser tag. The faculty are laid back and very interested in introducing students to the interesting points of physics. For instance, I can recall many impromptu discussions with Dr. Bunn and Dr. Gilfoyle about the LHC in Switzerland.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Don't laugh, but when I was little I was torn between becoming a pirate and a garbage man.  To me piracy held financial promise and I would be able to dress like Captain Hook whenever I wanted, not a small motivator to a 5-year-old me.  As for the garbage man, I think I was most interested in his truck, and was under the unfortunate misunderstanding that he only worked one day a week (my perspective was a little limited at the time).

What does the future hold for you now?

Now, I think my perspective on the world has matured a little.  Although still uncertain, I think that I would like to become an industrial engineer. Richmond's physics program has a high success rate for placing students into competitive physics and engineering programs. The field of industrial engineering includes many of the aspects I enjoy most about physics, like the need to attack problems from creative angles.

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