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To qualify for an honors degree, students must maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.3 (both overall and in physics and astronomy), take two advanced physics or astronomy courses beyond those required, take at least two units of Phyx or Astr 398 (Honors Research) and write a senior thesis. The students who completed honors degrees in 2005 were:
Laura Blecha, whose senior thesis (pdf) contains an intriguing explanation for some unusual, ultra-luminous X-ray sources that have been found by the Chandra space telescope. Laura investigated the probability that a solitary intermediate-mass black hole could capture a passing normal star with an orbital separation such that gas could pull away from the normal star and spiral into the black hole (thus producing X-rays). Laura is the recipient of a Gates-Cambridge Fellowship, and will spend the 2005-06 academic year studying at Cambridge University. After that she will continue her graduate studies at Caltech. Mia Ihm, who studied how gravitational-wave radiation affects the orbital eccentricities of tightly bound double neutron stars. Mia has already co-authored three professional publications on this subject (Paper I, Paper II, Paper III) in addition to making it the topic of her senior thesis (pdf). Mia has been awarded a three-year Fellowship by the National Science Foundation, and will continue her graduate studies at U.C. Berkeley. Verene Lystad, who wrote her senior thesis (pdf) on the formation and evolution of planetary systems around other stars, a subject of considerable interest now that over 100 extrasolar planets have been detected. She studied the long-term stability of planetary systems which contain several very massive planets, and how unstable systems can move towards stability. Her thesis was honored as the Best Senior Thesis of 2005. Important concepts from her research were included in an article in the prestigous journal Nature. Christopher Morse, whose senior thesis (pdf) looked at the details of the Interstellar Medium (ISM). The ISM is the very thin gas that occupies the space between stars. Using the facilities at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, Chris took detailed data on the absorbtion of starlight passing through the ISM to study how its temperature and pressure vary over "small" length scales. (In astronomer units, "small" means about a hundred million miles.) Chris found that there is less structure in the ISM than commonly thought: previously reported structure may be only "bubbles" left over from ancient supernovas. Chris has now joined Math For America, an nonprofit program operated in conjunction with Columbia University, whose aim is to place mathematically-talented teachers into New York City public schools. Ryan O'Leary, whose senior thesis (pdf) was motivated by growing observational evidence that central black holes with masses up to thousands of solar masses may exist in various clusters of stars. For years theorists have speculated about the processes that might form these extreme objects; however, there have been very few detailed calculations with testable predictions. Ryan has done one of the first detailed studies of a promising path: successive mergers of smaller, stellar-mass black holes driven by collisions and gravitational radiation. He has already given a talk at a major scientific meeting about his research (2004 Midwest Relativity Meeting) and has a paper in preparation for the Astrophysical Journal. He will be continuing his graduate studies at Harvard, where he has been awarded a six-year Fellowship. Blecha and Ihm conducted their research under the direction of Professor Vicky Kalogera; Lystad and O'Leary conducted their research under the direction of Professor Fred Rasio. Morse conducted his research under the direction of David Meyer. |
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Student: Janet Colucci Thesis: Measurements of the Submillimeter-Wave Atmospheric Transmission at the South Pole Download: Colucci Thesis (PDF file, 1948 KB) Advisor: Professor Giles Novak Notes: Janet is pursuing a PhD in astronomy at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor | |
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Student: John (Jack) Hewitt Thesis: Observations of Hydroxyl(OH) Absorption and Maser Emission Towards the Supernova Remnant IC 443 Download: Hewitt Thesis (Postscript file, 1424 KB) Download Conference Posters: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 (about 360 KB each) Advisor: Professor Farhad Yusef-Zadeh Notes: This work was selected as the Best Senior Thesis of 2004. John is pursuing a PhD in astrophysics at Northwestern. | |
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Student: Mengkai Shieh Thesis: Precise Measurement of the K+ —> p 0 m + n m Branching Ratio Download: Shieh Thesis (PDF file, 279 KB) Advisor: Professor Mayda Velasco Notes: Mengkai is attending medical school at Stanford. | |
Thesis: A New Calorimeter Design Utilizing Glass Beads Advisor: Professor Michael Schmitt Student: Michelle Reschke Thesis: Implementation of a Modern Data Acquisition System in an Undergraduate Laboratory Advisor: Professor Heidi Schellman Notes: Michelle is pursuing a Master's degree in Education at National Louis University. Student: Matthew Turk Thesis: A Search for Small-Scale Structure in the Interstellar H2 Gas Toward the HD206267 Multiple Star System Advisor: Professor David Meyer Notes: Matt is pursuing a PhD in astrophysics at Stanford.  Student: Kenneth Yu Thesis: Dynamical Instabilities in Extrasolar Planetary Systems Advisor: Professor Frederic Rasio Notes: This work was selected as the Best Senior Thesis of 2003. Kenneth has entered the Caltech/USC Joint MD/PhD Program in Biophysics and Medicine. | |||
