5/3/2013 Siv Schwink
Recent Physics Illinois graduate Stephanie Brandt (BS 2012) and graduate student Courtney Byard were each selected for a three-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Written by Siv Schwink
Recent Physics Illinois graduate Stephanie Brandt (BS 2012) and graduate student Courtney Byard were each selected for a three-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Courtney Byard
Byard is working in Professor Paul Kwiat’s research group to improve the precision of weak-value measurements.
“Courtney Byard is bright young physicist, working to extend previous quantum-enhanced measurement schemes to achieve an unprecedented improvement in measurement sensitivity,” commented Kwiat. “At the moment her system rivals the best in the world—she can detect the tilt angle of a beam of light to the level of a hair's width on the other side of the country! And there's still another potential factor of 10–20 to be gained. If the techniques can be generalized to other types of measurements, which we believe they can, then this may have benefit in a wide class of applications.”
“Receiving the NSF fellowship will allow me to be fully involved in my research while having the chance to reach out to non-scientists without having to worry about funding,” she said.
“I'm excited to be able to work on my PhD here at Illinois,” added Byard. “The mix of excellent science and warm community that I've found here makes it the perfect place to think, work, and live. And I'm grateful to all the teachers I've had the opportunity to work with who've helped me reach my goals.”
Stephanie Brandt
Brandt will begin graduate studies in particle physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge starting in the fall. Ultimately, she plans to pursue a career in physics at a university or national laboratory.
Brandt said she values the skills she learned through her research experiences at Illinois.
“Working in a lab group provides a different learning experience than regular schoolwork, where somebody has already figured out the answer and is giving it to you. I picked up some valuable computing skills through my lab work. I also really liked how the senior thesis class works here. In addition to research, you write about and present your work—these are important capabilities to have going forward.”
Brandt worked in physicist Kevin Pitts’s research group during her undergraduate tenure, starting her freshman year. Her work involved searching for a currently unobserved decay mode of the heaviest meson, the BC particle.
“Stephanie spent much of her time analyzing data from the CDF experiment at Fermilab,” commented Pitts. “She performed a search for a very unique signature of an extremely rare configuration of quarks. Although we didn’t see a signal, the tools Stephanie developed are continuing to aid in our research.”
Brandt has made arrangements to work at MIT with active members of the CMS experiment on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. And she is looking forward to her first experience living outside Central Illinois.
“Stephanie is great to work with and has been an important member of our team,” added Pitts. “She will do extremely well in graduate school at MIT, and I am quite sure that we’ll be hearing more from Stephanie in the future.”
For several years, Brandt was also a regular Physics Van performer, travelling to elementary schools and special events to introduce children to the study of physics through exciting, visually compelling demonstrations.
Brandt said it is an honor to be selected for the NSF fellowship and she plans to take full advantage of the additional freedom the funding will allow her to continue her educational outreach efforts while a graduate student.
Other Physics Illinois recipients
Three Physics Illinois alumni who are now pursuing graduate studies at other institutions also received NSF fellowships: Callie Demay (BS LAS Physics, 2009) studies mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder; Nikhita Mansukhani, (BS LAS Physics, 2011) is a graduate student at Northwestern University in the Materials Research – Biomaterials program; Vernie Redmon (BS LAS Physics, 2011) is studying condensed matter physics at Stanford University.
Three from Physics Illinois received honorable mentions: Alumnus Matthew Feickert (BS Engineering Physics, 2012) is a graduate student at the University of Virginia; Kevin Sebesta will graduate this month in Engineering Physics with plans to continue his physics studies in the doctoral program at the University of Minnesota, specializing in astrophysics; John Henry Hinnefeld is a graduate student working in condensed matter physics as part of Professor Nadya Mason's group.
The National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The NSF welcomes applications from all qualified students and strongly encourages under-represented populations, including women, under-represented racial and ethnic minorities, and persons with disabilities, to apply for this fellowship.