Student Work
Asher Tubman arrived at the UO with a background in liberal arts, but a strong interest in science. “I guess I’ve always just been curious about figuring out how things work,” he says. Tubman is now working as a research associate with Professor David Strom on the ILC project, more specifically on the design for a particle detector.
Elliott Hinds was a sophomore chemistry major when he decided to double his degrees by joining the physics department. “I wanted to know how everything works down to the molecule,” he says of his chemistry studies, “but when you get down to it, you go into physics.” On the first day of his Honors physics class, Associate Professor Heiner Linke grabbed Hinds’ attention by shooting a rocket across the room. “He’s a really inspirational teacher who really loves physics, and that comes through in his teaching,” Hinds says. Hinds recently added math to his list of majors, but isn’t sure what he’ll do after graduation. “I feel I definitely have a lot of doors open,” he says.
Jeanine Amacher came to the UO for a background to study medicine. However, after taking some pre-med classes, “I realized it’s not for me,” she says. “I’m more into science.” She dove right into biophysics, starting research the summer after her freshman year through the REU program with Professor Emeritus George Rayfield. Amacher says she’s lucky because in Rayfield’s lab, “It’s just the two of us working with bacteriorhodopsin, a protein that converts light energy into chemical energy.”
Selected Faculty Work
Professor James Brau is the director of the Center for High Energy Physics at the UO and is a member of the Global Design Effort for the ILC. Brau led a team that designed a soda can-sized instrument sensitive enough to detect subatomic particles that are visible for less than a millionth of a millionth of a second. He was also recently appointed to the U.S. government’s High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, which advises the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
Associate Professor Heiner Linke uses experimental and numerical methods to study transport phenomena far from thermal equilibrium. Linke’s research gained national attention when he showed how water will climb superheated stairs due to “ratchet phenomena.” The discovery may lead to revolutionary cooling systems for computers.
Professor David Strom is an experimental particle physicist whose research interests include z-pair production in electron-positron collisions, precision electroweak measurements, and the detection of gravity waves associated with gamma ray bursts.
Assistant Professor Miriam Deutsch specializes in the synthesis and characterization of photonic crystals (PCs), optical properties of PCs and nano-patterned metals, PC-based devices, and noise and quantum correlations in optical systems.
Career Prospects
Physics is a discipline that emphasizes problem solving, a skill that can be applied to myriad fields. You might choose to continue research and study physics through a master’s or doctoral program, you can do cutting-edge research in computer science and electronics, or you can pass on your knowledge to students by becoming a teacher.
With a background in physics, you can also pursue careers in finance, business administration, or patent law, just to name a few. A physics background is also great preparation for careers in astronomy and space technology. In physics, the universe is your laboratory.