Physics students receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

One Physics graduate student and three undergraduates were notified on April 5 that they have been awarded graduate research fellowships by the National Science Foundation.

Carolyn Meldgin, a graduate student, and current undergraduates Joanna Bridge, Ian Chen, and Nicholas Langellier will receive the prestigious, three-year fellowships. Alumnus Jiongyi Tan, who received a bachelor’s degree in 2008, is also among this year’s fellows.

“We are extremely proud of these young researchers,” said Physics department head Dale J. Van Harlingen. “This national recognition of their solid achievements and enormous promise is very satisfying to all of us.”

Physics graduate student Carolyn Meldgin received an undergraduate degree in physics from Harvey Mudd College in 2007 and worked for two years at Pacific Gas and Electric before enrolling in graduate school in 2009. At Illinois, she is a member of Brian DeMarco’s research group, which uses ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice created by intersecting laser beams to simulate the behavior of strongly correlated materials. Meldgin is studying the disordered Bose–Hubbard model, used to describe many condensed matter systems, such as unconventional superconductors, solid ⁴He, and superfluids confined in granular substrates.

Joanna Bridge has done undergraduate research with Professor Leslie Looney in Astronomy, studying massive young stellar objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud using infrared spectra taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. She spent the summer of 2010 at Montana State University, developing an algorithm for tracking magnetic active regions in the solar photosphere. Bridge is planning to pursue a PhD in astrophysics.

Working with Professor Douglas Beck’s group at Illinois, Ian Chen studied the thermal conductivity of superfluid ⁴He in restricted geometries in the context of the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Experiment currently being planned for the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He plans to continue in experimental particle physics, studing fundamental symmetries using novel techniques. “Perhaps my greatest hope; however, is that the NSF fellowship will allow me the academic freedom to be able to continue to share my passion for science with others, as I began with the Physics Van at the University of Illinois,” said Chen.

Nick Langellier has worked with Professor Mats Selen’s research group since his sophomore year. His most recent project has involved testing software that will be used to identify supernovae in images taken by the Dark Energy Survey (DES). By writing code to simulate the placement and brightness of artificial supernovae in images, Langellier has tested the efficiency of the software that will identify actual supernova images in the DES. He plans to continue building instrumentation for astrophysics research in graduate school at Harvard University.

Alumnus Jiongyi Tan (BS, 2008), who taught science at a large public high school and a charter middle school in Oakland, California, for two years after graduating from Illinois, will enroll at Stanford University in the fall to study biophysics. He is currently working as a laboratory assistant in the Bustamante Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

The NSF Graduate Reseach Fellowhip Program, established in 1951, is the country’s oldest program to support young scientists seeking doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Fewer than 10 percent of the applicants, who must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, are selected to receive fellowships in the annual competition.

Since 1952, the program has produced more than 30 Nobel laureates and more than 440 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Past fellows include U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Google founder Sergey Brin, and Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt.