SPE History: A Glance Back Through the Years (1993-2022)

(All speakers are physics professors, unless otherwise noted.)

1993–1994 Director: David Hertzog

• Looking into the Brain with a Laser
  Enrico Gratton
• Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow
  Paul Goldbart
• What is Everything Made of?
  Gordon Baym (member of the National Academy of Sciences, NAS)
• The Particle Zoo and Who's Behind the Bars
  Tony Liss
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Physics to Medicine
  Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine 2003) Chemistry, Center for Advanced Study

1994–1995 Director: David Hertzog

• What is Everything Made of?
  Gordon Baym (NAS)

• Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow
  Paul Goldbart
• Superfluid Superstars: An Inside View of a Pulsar
  David Pines (NAS)
• No Escape from Black Holes
  Ed Seidel, NCSA, Physics and Astronomy
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Physics to Medicine
  Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine 2003) Chemistry, Center for Advanced Study
• What is Mass?
  Scott Willenbrock
• The Collision of Quantum Mechanics with Supercomputers
  Philip Phillips

1995–1996 Director: Paul Goldbart

• Watching the Social Activities of Atoms
  Murray Gibson
• Chaos: the Science of Non-Elephants
  David Campbell
• No Escape from Black Holes
  Ed Seidel, NCSA, Physics and Astronomy
• Cosmic Collisions: Comet Shoemaker-Levy's Impact on Jupiter
  Margaret Meixner, Astronomy
• Never Be Lost Again
  Jeremiah Sullivan
• Active Mountain Building and Earthquakes
  Wang-Ping Chen, Geology
• Severe and Unusual Weather: the Roles of Science and Technology
  John Walsh, Atmospheric Sciences

1996–1997 Director: Paul Goldbart

• The Birth, Life and Death of Stars
  James Kaler, Astronomy
• Surfing Waves in the Microcosmos: Using Light Waves to View the Body
  Eric Wiener
• So You Thought Computers Could Do Anything? Some Probably Unsolvable and Infeasible Computational Problems
  Michael Loui, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• The Strange Fate of Cats (and Other Things) According to Quantum Mechanics
  Anthony Leggett (Nobel Laureate in Physics 2003; NAS; Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; Fellow of the Royal Society)
• Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes
  Frederick Lamb
• When Ash Meets Cowhide: The Physics of Baseball
  Alan Nathan
• My Time is NOT Your Time: Einstein's Relativity in Theory and Practice
  Gary Gladding
• Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, and Other Ways to Really See Atoms
  Munir Nayfeh

Fall 1997 Director: Scott Willenbrock

• Black Holes: A Video Voyage Through Einstein's Spacetime
  Stuart Shapiro
• Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow
  Paul Goldbart
• Using Chaos to Mix Fluids Well
  Hassan Aref, Physics, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
• The Physical and Chemical Effects of Ultrasound
  Kenneth Suslick, Chemistry
• Radio Observations of Large Interstellar Molecules of Possible Biological Interest
  Lewis Snyder, Astronomy
• The Physics of Music
  David Hertzog
• The Particle Zoo and Who's Behind the Bars.
  Tony Liss

Fall 1998 Director: Scott Willenbrock

• Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes
  Frederick Lamb
• Baseball: It's Not Nuclear Physics (or is it?)
  Alan Nathan
• High Temperature Superconductors: From Broken Symmetries to Cell Phones
  Laura Greene
• What's a Physicist Doing Studying Biology?
  Paul Selvin
• How Do Airplanes Work? Taking the Fear out of Flying a Piper Archer II
  Deborah Errede
• Is Music Composition More Elusive for Computers?
  Douglas Hofstadter, Cognitive Science, Indiana University

Fall 1999 Directors: Mats Selen & Inga Karliner

• Finessing Photons: Interesting Ways in Which Light is Manipulated in Science and Nature
  Lance Cooper
• The Art and Science of Pin Hole Camera
  Peter R. McCullogh, Astronomy
• Computational Science: The Real World of Ideas
  Roscoe Giles, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Boston University
• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: An Ingenious Experiment With Surprising Results
  Charles Slichter (NAS)
• The World of Quantum Mechanics: How is it Different from Our Everyday World?
  Aida El-Khadra
• Atom Smashes: Particle Accelerators and Detectors
  Mats Selen

Fall 2000 Directors: Mats Selen & Kevin Pitts

• The Education of John Bardeen, Double Nobel Prize Physicist
  Lillian Hoddeson, Physics and History
• The Universe: From Big Bang Till Today
  Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy
• Biophysics, How Nerves Fire and Muscles Contract
  Paul Selvin
• Chaos: The Science of Non-Elephants
  David Campbell, was Physics Department Head; became Dean of Engineering, Boston University
• The Mystery of Mass
  Scott Willenbrock

Fall 2001 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Phonon Imaging: Seeing Sound in Solids
  James Wolfe
• Bose-Einstein Condensation: A Journey to the Coldest Places in the Universe
  Gordon Baym (NAS)
• Liquid Crystals: From the Laboratory to the Shopping Mall
  Paul Goldbart
• Peering inside the Proton
  Naomi Makins
• The Physics of Dance
  George Gollin
• Science: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  Jon Thaler

Fall 2002 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Something Quantum This Way Comes
  Paul Kwiat
• Physics in the Early Universe: Ingredients of the Primordial Soup
  Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy
• The Physics of Music
  Steven Errede
• A Trip Through the Light Fantastic: Tricks with Light in Science and Nature
  Lance Cooper
• All About Energy
  David Ruzic, Nuclear Engineering

Fall 2003 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Human Induced Climate Change: An Introduction and Overview
  Michael Schlesinger, Atmospheric Sciences
• Light From Black Holes
  Charles Gammie, Physics and Astronomy
• How We Use Light to Illuminate Biology
  Robert Clegg
• Complex Systems: Where Physics Meets Life
  Alfred Hubler
• It's So Weird, It's So Simple, and You'll Derive It for Yourself Entirely
  From Scratch, Right There In Your Seat: Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.
  George Gollin
• The Elusive Neutrino: Why Something That Does So Little Matters So Much.
  Mats Selen

Fall 2004 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Steaming Geysers and Puffing Volcanoes
  Susan Kieffer, Physics and Geology
• What is Absolute Zero? Ultra-cold Quantum Weirdness
  Brian DeMarco
• Could a Defense Against Intercontinental Missiles Work?
  History and Technology.
  Frederick Lamb
• From the Infinite to the Infinitely Small. Probing the Cosmos at an Accelerator
  Tony Liss
• Little Engine that Could: How Tiny Motor Proteins Move on a Molecular Highway
  Taekjip Ha
• The Crystals that Nature Cannot Make
  Jim Eckstein

Fall 2005 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Einstein's Miracle Year
  Paul Kwiat
• From Transistor to Light-Emitting Transistor
  Milton Feng, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Looking into Brain with Lasers
  Enrico Gratton
• The Latest from Broadway to Loomis: The First 10 Microseconds of the Universe
  Matthias Grosse-Perdekamp
• Quantum Mechanics: Stranger Than We Can Imagine
  Michael Weissman

Fall 2006 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Corked Bats and Rising Fastballs: Using Physics to Debunk Some Myths of Baseball
  Alan Nathan
• Why Can't Time Run Backwards
  Anthony Leggett (Nobel Laureate in Physics 2003; NAS;
  Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire)
  Fellow of the Royal Society)
• Physics of the Body
  Klaus Schulten
• Looking for 10^-16 m Objects with a 10 ^4m Microscope
  Tim Stelzer
• Phonon Imaging: Seeing Sound in Solids
  James Wolfe

Fall 2007 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• The Great Scientific Instruments: Why We Build Them
  David Hertzog
• The Liquid Crystalline State of Matter: From the Laboratory to the Shopping Mall
  Paul Goldbart
• Fire or Ice? The Fate of the Universe
  Jon Thaler
• Over the Moon with Carbon Nanotubes
  Nadya Mason
• Mysteries of the Cold Universe
  Smitha Vishveshwara

Fall 2008 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• How We Use Light to Illuminate Biology
  Bob Clegg
• The Pervasive Nature of Feedback in Natural and Engineered Systems
  Andrew Alleyne, Mechanical Science and Engineering
• Transforming Science Policy, and the Power Grid with High Temperature Superconductors
  Laura Greene
• The Physics of UFOs
  Kevin Pitts
• Law and Science
  Amy Gajda, Law School, Journalism
• Special lecture May 2009
  Angels & Demons: The Science Revealed
  Kevin Pitts and Mark Neubauer

Fall 2009 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Exotic Superconductors: New Mysteries, Exciting Applications
  Dale Van Harlingen
• Decision Making in Living Cells
  Ido Golding
• The Dark Side of the Universe
  Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy
• Understanding Complex Systems
  Alfred Hubler
• The Atom Chip
  Benjamin Lev
• From Blindness to Sight: The Physics of Vision Restoration
  Dr. Samir Sayegh, MD, PhD

Fall 2010 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Black Holes and Other Strange Objects in the Sky
  Charles Gammie, Physics and Astronomy
• Quarks and Cold Atoms: From the Hottest to the Coldest Places in the Universe
  Gordon Baym
• A Curvy, Stretchy Future for Electronics
  John Rogers, Materials Science & Engineering
• Physics of Genes and Why It Matters to You
  Aleksei Aksimentiev
• A Trip Through the Light Fantastic: Tricks with Light in Science and Nature
  Lance Cooper
• Unlocking the Dark Secrets of our Universe: How Studying the Smallest Things with the Biggest Science Project Ever Gets to the Heart of the Matter
  Tony Liss

Fall 2011 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars and Black Holes
  Frederick Lamb
• The Physics of Climate Change
  Scott Willenbrock
• The Mysterious Neutrino
  Jen-Chieh Peng
• Corked Bats, Humidors and Steroids: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball
  Alan Nathan
• Transforming Science, Policy and the Power Grid with High Temperature Superconductivity
  Laura Greene
• Inside Out: How Physics Has Revolutionized Medical Imaging
  P. Scott Carney, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fall 2012 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts

• The Quantum Information Revolution
  Paul Kwiat
• A Billionth of a Billionth of a Meter: Building a Microscope for the Observation of Quarks and Anti-Quarks Inside the Proton
  Matthias Grosse Perdekamp.
• How We Think and Move at the Smallest Scale
  Paul Selvin
• Extrasolar Planets
  Jon Thaler
• Our Weird Quantum World
  Michael Weissman
• Understanding the Energy Challenge: It Takes More Than Science
  Paul Debevec

Fall 2013 Directors: Liang Yang and Inga Karliner

• Nature's Biological Nanomachines
  Yann Chemla
• Creating Quantum Matter at the Coldest Temperatures in the Universe
  Brian Demarco
• Baby Stars: Take A Solar Mass of Gas and Dust and Just Add Gravity
  Leslie Looney
• The Ultimate MRI: Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy
  Raffi Budakian
• Why is There Mass?
  Tony M. Liss
• What Is Inside Jupiter and Saturn and How Do We Know?
  David M. Ceperley

Fall 2014 Directors: Liang Yang and Inga Karliner

• Decisions, Decisions: How Cells Sense Their Environment and Make Decisions to Adapt and Respond
  Thomas E. Kuhlman
• This Old Zero-Net-Energy House
  Scott S. Willenbrock
• Everyone Loves Science
  Mats A. Selen
• When Stars Attack! In Search of Killer Supernova Explosions
  Brian D. Fields
• Building Mountains: How Forces in the Earth Raise Rock Miles into the Sky
  Stephen Marshak
• Magnets and Big Machines: The Use of Neutrons to Explore Magnetism in New Materials
  Gregory MacDougal

Fall 2015 Directors: Peter Adshead and Inga Karliner

• The First Galaxies in the Universe and the ALMA Telescope
  Professor Joaquin Vieira
• Building Emergent Biological Machines
  Professor Rashid Bashir
• Hunting for the Elusive Neutrino
  Professor Liang Yang
• How Laws, Sausages, and Science are Made: an Inside View of How Science Really Works
  Professor Peter Abbamonte
• I'm Beginning to See the Light: Properties and Applications of our Friendly Photons
  Professor Paul G. Kwiat
• How to Train your Photon (20-min talk followed by lab tours)
  Professor Virginia Lorenz

Fall 2016 Directors: Peter Adshead and Inga Karliner

• Exoplanets
  Professor Jon Thaler
• Visualizing the Amazing Quantum World
  Professor Vidya Madhavan
• What can theoretical physics tell us about the evolution of early life?
  Professor Nigel Goldenfeld
• Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and LIGO
  Professor Edward Seidel
• The Hidden Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy
  Professor Jeffrey Filippini
• Visit to the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) where the Higgs Boson was Found
  Professor Verena Martinez Outshoorn

Fall 2017 Directors: Brian DeMarco and Liang Yang

• When Stars Attack! Radioactive evidence for a near-Earth supernova explosion
  Professor Brian Fields
• Visualization in Science, Technology and the Arts
  Professor Donna Cox
• Radiation, friend or foe?
  Professor Kevin Pitts
• Nuclear Proliferation: Can terrorists buy, steal or build a nuclear bomb?
  Professor Matthias Grosse Perdekamp
• How Small Can We Go? The physics behind nanoscale electronics
  Professor Nadya Mason
• Understanding Nature's Micro
  Professor Yann Chemla

Fall 2018 Directors: Brian DeMarco and Liang Yang

• A Look Inside the Hottest Matter in the Universe
  Professor Anne Sickles
• Sustainable Energy
  Professor Scott Willenbrock
• Inflation and the Hot Big Bang: The Quantum Origin of Structure in the Universe
  Professor Peter Adshead
• Towards a Quantum Internet
  Professor Virginia Lorenz
• Ubiquitous Crackling: from Nanocrystal, to Neurons, to Earthquakes, to Stars
  Professor Karin Dahmen
• Even Evolution Can't Have it All
  Professor Seppe Kuehn

Fall 2019 Director: Patrick Snyder