Alumni 1996 Newsletter
The 1995-96 year at Northwestern was memorable for many reasons, some of which you have read about in other alumni publications. I am not even going to mention the fact that we were Big Ten (really Big Eleven, but even NU athletes seem to have some persistent problems with math) football champs or that Princess Diana waved to me. I will tell you that NU also won the Big Ten (11) Water Polo championship. This is news because Todd Ogle, EC '95, was on the team. In ISP it was memorable for things you may not hear about elsewhere. First, ISP had the largest entering class ever, 43 students. The entering class in Fall 1996 will again be large, 40 students, although the number offered admission was reduced. A lot of credit for successful recruiting goes to Diane Kessler, our Program Assistant, and to student hosts. Second, last winter we received a major gift from an alumnus, Tim Krauskopf, EC81, which has allowed us to purchase new computers and some programming time to make the Suns more functional. This will allow us to make our classroom smarter and allow curricular innovation in the near future. Tim does not like us to make too big a fuss over this, but we really are extremely grateful. Third, as noted in a separate article, we have started two new traditions in the seminar program. Fourth, we recently came into the 90's with our own Web page, which you can find at www.isp.nwu.edu. This is mostly intended for prospective students at the moment, but those of you who haven't been here for a while may find it interesting, and it will grow. Fifth, it is premature to celebrate, but ISP will be a major focus of a University application to NSF for what is called a Recognition Award, a new program that recognizes programs that combine education and research, and which encourages further excellence.
It might seem, with all of the interesting things going on, that this is no time to change Directors, but there are good reasons why the Directorship rotates. I will be stepping down at the end of this calendar year, after three years and one quarter. We are doing the transition at that time so that the new Director and first-year students are not all novices simultaneously. I will stay on as one of the freshman advisers and an ISP Committee member. I have enjoyed ISP greatly, and would consider coming back in another 10 years if I were asked. The new director is David Buchholz from the Physics Department, who will probably take over with the same combination of trepidation and anticipation that I still remember.
Rob Linsenmeier
The 1996 Graduating Class
At the first commencement ceremony to be held outdoors in more than 40 years, Robert Redford received an honorary degree and gave the official commencement address. This doctorate was his first college degree, although he has taken considerable college credit. Redford was just slightly upstaged by Gary Barnett, campus hero and football coach, who gave his own inspirational talk. But the important thing about graduation is that ISP contributed 18 new alums to the University. Several are gong on to graduate school in the typical variety of programs. Julie Osladil began her physics graduate program at Ohio State literally a few days after graduation; Don Hagler will be going into neuroscience at UC San Diego; Tom Langdo, who is the first person in several years to complete the incredible feat of a Tech double major, will go to MIT in Materials Science; Joe McMahon will be in physics at the University of Maryland; Mrunil Champaneri will catch his breath after completing an ISP/math/physics triple major before he starts graduate school in physics at MIT; Dan Shulman is going to Loyola to study patent law. A large group will pursue medical careers despite every effort to make them basic researchers - Samir Mehta will go on full scholarship to Temple U, quadruple major (!) Samantha (Sam) Spencer to U of Michigan, Jon Yen to the University of Leeds in England, Kori Dini to the U of Illinois or possibly NU, Josh Amato to St. Louis University, and former Student Government President Nick Siebers to U of Wisconsin, probably, maybe after a year off. (When last seen he was a little vague.) To round out the picture, Dave Rader, Greg Sarjeant, Jarvis Smallfield and Jim Asta are all working in computer software or consulting positions and Shantelle Johnson has already passed some of the actuarial exams on her way to a career in that field. Aurelia Micko's plans were not finalized when we last spoke.
New Seminar Programs
ISP has sponsored monthly seminars for its students for many years (possibly forever), so that ISPs can find out about research opportunities. In addition to these seminars, the seminar program was expanded in two ways this year.
First, on Sunday of homecoming week two ISP alums, Tim Krauskopf and David Matheson, both EC 81, came and chatted about their experiences at Northwestern and their career paths after ISP. They stayed for lunch and more informal discussion at the center. Tim is the cofounder and now VP for Research and Development of Spyglass Systems, a developer of network software applications. David is with Strategic Decisions Group, and advises companies about how to invest in the scientific and technological areas. He has recently been transferred to London. Both have graduate degrees, Tim's an MS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, and David's a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford. It will probably not come as a surprise to you that they felt that their ISP degrees provided important foundations, even though they are now essentially both in business. One of the striking things that David told us is that he is the only person at his company who can read Scientific American cover to cover and understand it (most faculty can't do this), and he frequently finds himself teaching others some basic science so they can see the potential of discoveries in different areas. We are looking for alums to do the same sort of life-story presentation this year, ideally people who were in EC '86 or earlier. If you can come, please call or email us. We will give you a tour and lunch and not ask for any money.
Second, in the spring, the graduating students had a session for the other classes about graduate and professional schools, how they searched for them and how they found funding. A good time was had by all.
David Buchholz, New Director
David (Dave) Buchholz is a native of Claverack, NY, a very small town in the Hudson River Valley about 100 miles from New York City. He received his BS in physics from the University of Rochester in NY. He writes that his "initial major was to be either chemistry or physics but the amount of memorization required for chemistry was beyond my capability so I turned to physics." His PhD is from the University of Pennsylvania, 1972. "My thesis was on a rare decay mode of the K meson which is an unstable elementary particle. This experiment was done at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island." He then spent three years working for Caltech on experiments at Fermilab, which is the world's highest energy proton accelerator. "I worked on a series of neutrino experiments to try to better understand these very strange elementary particles. Although neutrinos are very abundant, they interact very weakly with other matter and so are very difficult to detect. I came to Northwestern in 1975 as an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and have been here since then. Since 1975 I have worked on high energy physics experiments at Fermilab, and CERN, which is in Geneva, Switzerland. The experiments have concentrated on understanding the basic structure of matter. Currently I am working on two experiments at Fermilab. One of these is called the D Zero experiment, which last year announced the discovery of the top quark. This quark had been anticipated by the "standard model" of particle physics as the last of the 6 quarks, but its discovery had to wait until Fermilab's accelerator could provide enough intensity and energy to produce this quark. The top quark is almost as heavy as a gold atom. The other current experiment involves studying neutrinos at Fermilab, which may lead you to wonder if we have learned anything since I started working with neutrinos in 1972. I would hasten to assure you that much has been learned but even so, much still remains to be understood. Their properties are important to understand questions of how the sun produces the energy we see on earth and how we can account for the "missing matter" in the big bang theory of the universe.
I have taught many different physics courses from introductory to advanced graduate courses. This fall I will be teaching Physics C59-1, which is an advanced laboratory course to introduce undergraduates to analog and digital electronics and microprocessors.
My wife Judy is a research technologist in the neurobiology and physiology department. We have two children, Scott, 24 and Christine, 21. Scott graduated from Northwestern in 1993 with degrees in computer science and applied math and is now working for a software company in Paris, France. Christine is completing her undergraduate studies at Wittenberg University in Ohio."
Honors
Tom Landgo (EC92) won an NSF Graduate Fellowship and Don Hagler (EC92) received an honorable mention in this competition. Jim Chisholm (EC94) was chosen as a recipient of a highly competitive Goldwater Scholarship, based on his credentials and promise in a scientific career. Mrunil Champaneri (EC93) not only graduated with three majors in three years, but also did it with one of the three highest GPAs in the math and science departments of CAS in his third year. For this he won a Marcy Prize from CAS. We think that Nick Siebers (EC93) missed a similar honor by the slimmest possible margin, and we hereby award him the ISP Director's Patontheback. Mike Mesleh (EC93), who is doing research in physical chemistry at Caltech this summer, won a Hurd Scholarship to support research in his senior year, and was chosen the Hypercube Scholar by the Chemistry Department. Several students have won fellowships for summer work: Quan (Donny) Hoang (EC93): Shemin Fellowship from the Biology Program; Lynne Woodroofe (EC94): NSF Undergraduate Research Award from Materials Science; Brian Patt (EC95) and James Wilson (EC96): NASA Summer Research Awards; Catherine Carrigan, Grace Choi, Melissa Hamilton, and Christopher Jung: Pew Fellowships; Kathleen Pierce, Catherine Airey, Melissa Pulfer and Briana Burton (all EC95): IBM Summer Fellowships from ISP. We apologize if we have missed a few.
News from Alumni
Julie Osladil (EC92) (jaos@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu) writes after her first few weeks of graduate work on a physics degree at Ohio State that: "the lab that I am in has a reputation for being one of the best labs here. It's large, well funded and well organized. The whole group studies polymers; my project has to do with using electronic polymers for corrosion prevention. It turns out that Prof. Epstein picked me for his group because of the chemistry experiences I had in ISP. So, I have to thank ISP for opening yet another door for me!" Julie and Jarvis Smallfield (EC90) were married this August. We wish them all the happiness in the world.
Adam Mokhtee (EC89) (usvcnqub@ibmmail.com), who eventually obtained degrees in Statistics and Political Science rather than ISP, writes that he has just completed an MS program in International Banking, Economics and Finance from the U of Liverpool/Liverpool John Moores University. He is currently working as a Corporate Operations Analyst for Household International in Prospect Heights, IL, and is President of the Chicago Chapter of the National Association of Asian American Professionals. In October he will be moving to Kansas.
Neil Kaneshiro (EC85) (nkk@u.washington.edu) writes "I recently completed my pediatric residency at the U of Washington and am now working out of the Emergency Room, ICU and various clinics around town. I also do air and ground medical transport. Finally, I am working as a medical consultant for the child abuse and neglect team on a part time basis. Doesn't leave time for anything else. When I started at NU we had recently broken 'the streak' - losing streak that is...My how things change. ISP has changed as well. We were housed in Dearborn Observatory, which was quaint but clearly inadequate. Your computer systems are a hundred generations ahead of what we had then. I congratulate all of you on your many successes noted in the newsletter."
Jim Pendleton (EC83) didn't have an email address at his new job when we heard from him last November, but said he would be trackable at http://www.rsinc.com/. He is in the "Professional Services" group of Research Systems, Inc., in Boulder, Colorado. "RSI produces the programming language IDL, which is put to good use by a wide spectrum of the sciences and industry. Premed ISPs may also run across RSI's Visible Human MR/CT scans on CD. IDL, which has been around since the mid 80's, is a direct competitor of Tim Krauskopf's slicer/dicer software in the area of data visualization and analysis." [We hope the market is big enough for both of you!]
Jeffrey Miner (EC82) (minerj@thalamus.wustl.edu) is in his fourth year as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is "making mouse models of human genetic kidney diseases by mutating specific proteins found in kidney basement membranes."
Elliott Lavy (EC79) (elavy@affinity.ccare.com) is a systems engineer (i.e. computer programmer) for Compucare, a provider of hospital information systems. Although the company is based in Virginia, the magic of computers allows him to work out of his home in Buffalo Grove IL, where he lives with his wife and two children.
A few briefer notes from others:
We heard from Jason Jarzembowski (EC90) (jajarzem@students.wisc.edu) that he is continuing his PhD program in molecular and cellular pathology at U Wisconsin - Madison . He expects the PhD to take about two more years, and is considering medical school after that. He is rooming with Kyle Altmann (EC90), who is working on his PhD in physics. Larry Taylor (EC77) (ltaylor@unt.hsc.edu) has taken a position as Manager of Administrative Systems and Programming at the U of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. Shannon Marion (EC84) (76643.2177@compuserve.com) is busy with his four children and as Area Director of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for the urban commuter schools in Chicago. He would love to hear from other EC84's. Ashvin Sangoram (EC89) is working on his MD/PhD at Northwestern. He has completed the first two years of medical school, and has started PhD work in the molecular neuroscience of circadian rhythms in the laboratory of Joe Takahashi on the Evanston Campus. Wayne Wheeler (EC80) (www@sloth.math.uga.edu) just finished four years in the Centre for Mathematics and its Applications at the Australian National University and has started an NSF funded postdoc in mathematics at the U of Georgia. Steve Townsend (EC85) has completed a PhD in Physics at Cornell.
We look forward to any news that you can provide. Please send it to us via email or snail mail.
Science News at NU
From the pages of the Observer and the Daily
Neuroscience Institute
The Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience (NUIN) has more than 100 faculty members on both campuses. It is directed by Prof. Enrico Mugnaini, who came to NU from the U of Connecticut as NUIN's first p, have been substantiated by human studies, and that there may be adverse effects of melatonin as well.
Prof. David Ferster is working on the processing of visual information. It has been known since the work of Hubel and Wiesel in the 1960s that neurons in visual cortex are very good at detecting lines and edges, and this apparently is a critical step in vision. Whether they do this through the pattern of neurons projecting to the cortex, or through processing within cortex was not clear. Ferster's group has recently done experiments on cats in which the cortical circuits are temporarily turned off by local cooling to 50 deg F, and the selectivity remains. This, along with other results, supports the idea that the pattern of inputs provides all the necessary information.
Astronomy in Antarctica
Professor Giles Novak and his group will be using cold in their research as well, but only because the high altitude, dry air and cold make the South Pole the best site on earth for infrared and submillimeter astronomy. Novak will be installing a device called the "Submillimeter Polarimeter" to look at magnetic fields, which along with gas and "dust" is located between stars. Novak indicates that "one of the interesting things that can happen is that all the material can pull itself together and form a star. Gravity pulls everything together under the right conditions. Scientists have found very massive objects in the very center of our galaxy, and we don't know what they are. One of the interesting questions is how did all this matter get to the center. Somehow it must be falling in. Magnetic fields are very hard to detect, but they are believed to be important in the infall process." Novak claims that the -55 degree summertime cold is not much of a problem: "There's no such thing as weather that's too cold. There's just clothing that's insufficiently warm."
Superfluids
Really cold temperatures, near absolute zero, are important to Profs. William Halperin's and James Sauls' research on liquid helium-3, which at that temperature flows essentially without resistance, similar to the way that cold allows superconductors to carry current with no resistance. Liquid helium-3 is studied by confining it in an aerogel, a light cobweb-like glass container that is more than 98% open. The glass acts like an impurity, which compromises the superfluidity somewhat. A new finding is that an applied magnetic field can reduce the superfluidity. This has no theoretical basis, as yet, but may be helpful in allowing control of superfluids for practical purposes.
Thanks
We wish to thank the following ISP Alumni who have contributed to ISP in the last year. These funds provide an important source for upgrading ISP computers and other facilities:
Joseph Hora (EC81), Philip Kaldon (EC76), Randal Hoke, EC76), Mark Pauli (EC88), David Darwin (EC79), Tim Krauskopf (EC81), Paul Seo (EC79), Sara Bretlinger-Walters (EC78).
Special thanks are also due to CAS Dean Lawrence Dumas and CAS Acting Dean Neena Schwartz, who have provided a special yearly discretionary fund to ISP in addition to our regular budget.
When the College of Arts and Sciences asks for your support this fall, please remember the needs and accomplishments of our faculty and students and designate your gift to ISP. Just write "Integrated Science Program" in the memo area on your check.
Area Code Brain Teaser from '95
Last year we were puzzled that the Chicago Tribune had reported that the number of telephone area codes was only supposed to be 640, rather than 1000, under the new plan in which all integers may be used in each digit of the area codes, and we posed this problem to ISP alums. The question contained an unintentional red herring, however, since we later discovered that the number is increasing by 640, to 784. Several alums were able to explain this: Elliott Lavy (EC79), Ken Jones (EC78), and Lawrence Taylor (EC77) even figured out the mistake in the question. Jeffrey Miner (EC82 ) and Neil Kaneshiro (EC85) gave a good try, but were hampered by our mistake. Elliott Lavy's answer was the most elegant and is reproduced here.
"The original 144 did not allow 0 or 1 as the first digit. That would leave 8*2*10=160 possibilities. However, numbers ending in '00' or '11' were excluded (for things like 911 and the 800 area codes). That reduces the total by 8*2=16 to 144. Allowing numbers 2-9 in the middle position actually ADDED 640 options. Zero and 1 are still not allowed in the first position, so there are 8 possibilities for the first position, 8 new possibilities for the second and 10 for the third (8*8*10=640)."
Any guesses about how long it will be before we see 4 digit area codes? At NU a long distance call using an access code already requires punching 21 buttons.
Two Astounding Theorems
These are from the collection of Prof. Z. Usiskin of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago, presented in talks to the Metropolitan Mathematics Club of Chicago. He did not prove them, but says "Mathematics is full of astounding theorems, which constitute an aspect of its glory."
1) An approximation good to greater than or equal to 42 billion decimal places:
2) If in an ellipse there is inscribed a chain of 10 contact circles, and rn is the radius of the nth circle, then r7(r1+r7) = r4(r4+r10).
3) Borwein, JM and Borwein, PB. (1992) Strange Series, High Precision Fraud, Am Math. Monthly, Aug-Sep, pp. 662ff.
4) Fukagawa, H and Pedoe, D. (1989) Japanese Temple Geometry Problems (San Gaku). Charles Babbage Res. Ctr., PO Box 272, St. Norbert Postal Station, Winnipeg, CAN, R3V 1L6, p. 151.
