Aine Connolly ’17
URSI 2014 Participant. Aine performed ultrafast optical measurements of surface acoustic waves on TiN nanostructures. She presented her work at the 2015 APS Meeting in San Antonio, TX, was co-author of a 2015 article in Journal of Applied Physics, has performed research at Argonne and Sandia National Labs, and is currently a rising senior physics major at Vassar.
Mohammed Abdelaziz ’16, Sushant Mahat ’16, Molly James ’17
URSI 2015 Participants-Pictured with Brian Daly. Mohammed performed computational modeling of thermal transport in thin films, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Physics at New York University. Sushant performed several years of research in the lab. He presented his work at the 2015 APS Meeting in San Antonio, TX, was co-author of a 2015 article in Journal of Applied Physics, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Materials Science at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Molly is a rising senior who has also done research in Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Matteo Bjornsson ’15
Second from the right, picture at The Alamo. URSI 2013 Participant. Matteo performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of surface acoustic waves on TiN nanostructures. He presented his work at the 2015 APS Meeting in San Antonio, TX, and was co-author of a 2015 article in Journal of Applied Physics.
Steffi Muhanji ’15
On right in picture. URSI 2013 Participant. Steffi revised the data acquisition software for the ultrafast optical experiment. She is presently pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in Energy Systems at Dartmouth College.
Joseph Andrade ’14 ; Karl Spuhler ’14 ; Bryan Rachmilowitz ’14
URSI 2011 Participants. Performed ultrafast optical measurements of thin films. Joe presented his work at the April MRS Meeting in 2013 in San Francisco, CA, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Physics at SUNY Stony Brook. Karl is currently pursuing a PhD in Medical Physics at SUNY Stony Brook . Bryan presented his work at the April MRS Meeting in 2013 in San Francisco, CA and was co-author of a 2015 article in Journal of Applied Physics. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Physics at Boston College
Nishan Subedi ’12
URSI Participant: 2010. Upgraded data fitting algorithms for Time-Domain Thermoreflectance Measurements using MATLAB. Nishan is currently a Software Engineer at Etsy in Brooklyn, NY.
URSI Participant: 2009, 2010. Upgraded a new vacuum system that contains a magnetron sputter coater. Grew nanometer sized aluminum films on various substrates and characterized their properties using the ultrafast laser system. Measured thermal conductivity and sound velocity of a-SiC:H and a-SiN films. Lauren is co-author of “Thermal conductivity and sound velocity measurements of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited a-SiC:H thin films” Thin Solid Films (2011), doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2011.05.014. She presented her work at the 2011 APS March Meeting in Dallas. She is currently an Associate Software Engineer at Under Armour in Baltimore, MD.
Donald Hondongwa ’11
URSI participant: 2008, 2009, 2010. Performed ultrafast optical pump probe measurements, improved optical setup, and improved data acquisition software using LabView. Measured thermal conductivity and sound velocity of CNx and a-SiC:H films. Measured ultrasonic attenuation in a-Si:H and nc-Si:H films. Donald is co-author of two peer reviewed articles: “Ultrasonic Attenuation in Amorphous Silicon at 50 and 100 GHz,” published in Physical Review B 83, 121303R (2011), and “Thermal conductivity and sound velocity measurements of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited a-SiC:H thin films” Thin Solid Films (2011), doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2011.05.014. Donald presented his work at the APS March Meeting in Portland in 2010 and in Dallas in 2011. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Dartmouth College.
Mark Durniak ’11
URSI participant in the summer of 2008. Constructed ellipsometry and prism coupling experiments for thin film characterization. Conducted extensive data analysis programs using Mathematica. Winner of a 2010 Goldwater Fellowship. Mark went on to obtain a PhD in Materials Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Yanjun Lin ’10
URSI participant in the summer of 2009. Performed finite element solutions of nanoscale heat transport using COMSOL Multiphysics software. Integrated extensive Mathematica and Matlab components into the computational research. Yanjun went on to obtain a PhD in economics from Oxford University.
Sarah Palaich ’09
URSI Participant in the summers of 2007 and 2008. Performed finite-element simulations of thermal transport in nanostructures. She presented her work at the 2008 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Yale University and at the 4th Annual COMSOL conference in Boston, MA in 2008. Performed ultrafast optical pump-probe measurements on hydrogenated amorphous carbon films (a-C:H). Co-authored “Optical pump-probe measurements of sound velocity and thermal conductivity of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films” published in Journal of Applied Physics 104, 033508 (2008). Sarah is currently pursuing a PhD in Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA.
Jake Arlein ’09
URSI Participant in summer of 2007. Performed ultrafast optical pump probe measurements on hydrogenated amorphous carbon films (a-C:H) and improved data acquisition software using LabView. Co-authored “Optical pump-probe measurements of sound velocity and thermal conductivity of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films” published in Journal of Applied Physics 104, 033508 (2008). Jake is now a Partner at Environmental Business Solutions in San Francisco.
Matt Rosenfeld ’07
URSI Participant in the summer of 2006. Assisted in the construction of an ultrafast optical pump-probe experiment. Wrote data acquisition software using LabView. Matt received the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering: Energy from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently CEO of Third Power, an energy storage startup company.
