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Introduction

Program

Speakers

Breakout Sessions

Dissemination of
Recommendations

Hotel Information

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Getting There

William D. Phillips, Keynote Speaker
James S. Trefil, Featured Speaker
Felice Frankel, Banquet Speaker
Panel of Industrial Physicists
Panel of Retired Physicists

William D. Phillips, Keynote Speaker
William Phillips, the keynote speaker for the Sigma Pi Sigma 2000 Congress, shares the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji for their work on atom cooling and trapping.[1]

Phillips was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA, received his BS from Juniata College, and received his PhD from MIT in 1976. Following a postdoc there, he joined the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He was inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma at Towson State University in 1983.

In the late 1970's several groups demonstrated that neutral atoms can be cooled to low temperatures with three orthogonal pairs of counter-propagating laser beams. The laser light is tuned to a frequency just below the transition energy between two atomic states, so that when the atom and photon approach one another, the Doppler shift raises the photon frequency to the value required for resonant absorption. The atom subsequently re-emits another photon, but in a random direction. The atom's recoil slows it down in comparison to its initial velocity.

The original laser cooling experiments could only cool atoms whose initial velocities lay within a tiny range of values. A refinement called "laser chirping" was introduced to cool more of the atoms in the velocity distribution. It begins by tuning the laser frequency well below the resonant frequency. Then the faster atoms see a larger Doppler shift in the incoming photons, and are the first to be cooled. Then the frequency is gradually increased, so that the laser cooling effect sweeps through the velocity distribution. In 1982, William Phillips, newly arrived at NBS/NIST bearing the vacuum chamber that he built for his MIT thesis, worked with his colleague Harold Metcalf of SUNY-Stony Brook on another approach. Instead of changing the laser frequency, Phillips and Metcalf changed the atom! When an atom is placed in a magnetic field, the atomic energy levels are shifted in the Zeeman effect. Phillips and Metcalf applied a magnetic field whose magnitude decreased along the beam line by just the amount needed so that the Zeeman effect compensated for the reduced Doppler shift as the atoms were slowed. By 1985, Phillips and his collaborators were able to stop all the atoms and keep them in a magnetic trap. The atoms with original velocities of 1000m/s were slowed to 0±10m/s.

Further developments by Phillips and many others resulted in the Magneto-Optic Trap, with which Phillips reported a temperature of about 40µK in 1988. Today, temperatures in the nano-Kelvin range have been achieved. Many promising applications await such cold atoms, including improved atomic clocks and atom interferometers. Laser cooling and trapping also made possible in 1995 the first observation of Bose-Einstein condensation of neutral atoms, which had been predicted by Albert Einstein fifty years earlier. To celebrate atom cooling and Dr. Phillips' participation in the Sigma Pi Sigma 2000 Congress, the Bose-Einstein condensation calculation is worked out on page 11.

Sigma Pi Sigma is honored to have Dr. Phillips as our convention's keynote speaker. He will speak on the evening of Friday, September 15, 2000.

[1] Barbara Goss Levi, "Work on Atom Trapping and Cooling Gets a Warm Reception in Stockholm," Physics Today, December 1997, pp. 17-19.

For more information on William D. Phillips, click the link below. http://www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/physics/1997c.html

James S. Trefil, Featured Speaker
Physicist and author James S. Trefil is known for his writing and his interest in teaching science to nonscientists. He is a Fellow of the APS and a former Guggenheim Fellow. His numerous books and articles include works written for general audiences. In1988 he co-authored The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy and in 1992 published The Facts of Life (Harold Morowitz, co-author). Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy, was co-authored with Robert Hazen in 1991, and in 1995 they published The Sciences: An Integrated Approach. Dr. Trefil's A Scientist in the City appeared in 1994. Are We Unique: A Scientist Explores the Complexity of the Human Brain appeared in 1997. The National Geographic Society published his book Other Worlds: The Solar System and Beyond in 1999. He is a regular contributor to Smithsonian Magazine and was previously University Professor and Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia. In 2000 American Institute of Physics chose him to receive the Andrew W. Gemant Award, presented for outstanding and sustained contributions.

For more information on James S. Trefil, click the link below. http://www.kalmbach.com/astro/Staff/advisory/trefil.html

Felice Frankel, Banquet Speaker
Science photographer Felice Frankel is Artist in Residence in Science and Technology at the Edgerton Center and Research Scientist in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. She is coauthor of On the Surface of Things (Chronicle Books, 1997) with George M. Whitesides, Harvard University, Department of Chemistry. Her photographs, taken in collaboration with researchers, have appeared on the covers and inside pages of Physics Today, Nature, Science, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Langmuir, Cellular Biology and a number of MIT publications including those from the Center for Material Science and Engineering, School of Science and the Department of Chemical Engineering.

She is presently working on a National Science Foundation Project: "Envisioning Science and Engineering." The effort will incorporate a visual vocabulary of science into curricula and develop a guidebook for students and researchers. Frankel has discussed her philosophy in an article in Science Magazine: "Envisioning Science, A Personal Perspective", June 12, 1998.

Her exhibition On the Surface of Things, Images of the Extraordinary in Science is presently traveling the country. Another exhibition, Envisioning Physics, was commissioned by the American Physics Society to celebrate its 100th anniverary in Atlanta, GA, March 1999.

Frankel has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation. In 1991 she was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.

She and colleagues are organizing a major conference at MIT in June 2001, part of "Image and Meaning, Communicating Science and Technology"—an initiative to promote new collaborations among scientists, image experts, and science writers. The conference will gather together researchers in all disciplines, journal editors and art directors, science and biomedical imagers, photographers, illustrators, animators, modelers, writers, museum exhibitors and TV and film producers.

Sigma Pi Sigma is honored to have Ms. Frankel as our convention's banquet speaker. She will speak on the evening of Saturday, September 16, 2000.

Visit Felice Frankel's home page at: http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/felice/felice.html

Panel of Industrial Physicists

The industrial physics panelists have physics backgrounds, and are or have been employed in diverse professions, including those from industry, business, the humanities, and physics.

These Sigma Pi Sigma members will offer statements describing their bachground in physics, his/her career trajectory, and how physics contributed to it, emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of the physics major as a prerequisite to their career.

Total Session time, including a brief introduction, presentations, summing up and a short Q&A period: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Discussants:

Stephen Cobb
Steven E. Morin
John Sunderland
Amanda McDonald

Dr. Stephen Cobb
Stephen Cobb received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering Physics from Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky. After three years as an engineer in the flight laboratory development division of McDonnell Douglas Corp., St. Louis, Missouri, he began graduate study, earning his Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined the faculty of Murray State University in 1988, and now serves as professor and chairman of the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics. Dr. Cobb's research interests are in atomic spectroscopy, laser physics, and optics. He holds five patents for novel visible chemical laser systems. In 1995, he was named a Fulbright scholar to Russia, lecturing on laser physics at Moscow State Pedagogical University. He presently serves as Zone 8 councilor for the Society of Physics Students.

Dr. Steven E. Morin
Steve Morin received the Bachelors of Science (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Honors in Physics) from the University of Connecticut in 1987. He received the Masters of Science (1989) and Doctorate of Philosophy (1994) from the University of Oregon. His PhD. thesis was on experimental cavity quantum electrodynamics with an emphasis on enhanced atom-cavity mode coupling through optical engineering of cavity boundaries. Current he is employed by Omega Optical in Brattleboro Vermont as Director of Research, Development and Engineering. Along with leading the technical staff at Omega Steve has made significant contributions in the area of operations and finance. Steve continues to publish technical papers on advanced thin film deposition technologies.

Dr. John Sunderland
Dr. Sunderland graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts with a Bachelors of Arts degree in 1981. After teaching high school physics at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut for three years, he began his graduate education in Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received his Masters Degree in Medical Physics in 1986 and his Ph.D. specializing in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in 1990. For the next five years Dr. Sunderland was a member of the faculty at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska where he was Technical Director of the Center for Metabolic Imaging. He had teaching and research responsibilities in both the Departments of Radiology and Physics in addition to his work in PET. In 1995 Dr. Sunderland joined the nascent Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Center at the Biomedical Research Foundation in Shreveport, Louisiana where he is the Technical Director and Administrator for the Center. He also performs health physics and radiation safety direction for the Foundation while assisting Louisiana State University Medical School faculty with PET related research. He also keeps his hand in teaching at Louisiana State University, while working with undergraduate and graduate students from Louisiana Tech University, Centenary College, and Northwestern Louisiana State University. Dr. Sunderland*s research interests include image processing, cyclotron targetry, physiologic modeling with Positron Emission Tomography, and detector development for medical imaging applications. Dr. Sunderland expects to receive his MBA from Centenary College later this year.

Amanda Joy McDonald
Joy McDonald is the group pricing actuary for the Association/Worksite Division of American Fidelity Assurance Company. She has 11 years of experience in pricing group insurance products, including long term and short term disability insurance, medical insurance, group life insurance, and accident only policies. Joy is an associate of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She holds a Bachelors degree in Physics from Southern Nazarene University.

Panel of Retired Physicists

Opportunities for Physics Graduates in the Outside World: Perspectives from a Half-Century of Experience

Sponsored by the APS Mid-Atlantic Senior Physicists Group (MASPG).

Abstract:
There are many retired or partially retired physicists who have spent years in industry or Government facilities leading productive lives, using the skills and knowledge gained in their undergraduate and graduate physics courses. Because these years have been enjoyable for the large majority there is the desire to pass along to emerging physicists some sense of the enjoyment and found opportunities outside the academic environment. In a panel session format, four retired or semi-retired physicists, one non-retired physicist and one non-physicist (but employer of physicists) will tell of their experiences in the context of opportunities found, the value of their physics education and ways in which undergraduate training might be improved.

Total session time, including a brief introduction, presentations, summing up and a short Q&A period: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Moderator: Mr. Warren W. Berning

Discussants:

Dr. Phillip W. Mange
Prof. Eugenie V Mielczarek
Dr. James H. Fahs
Mr. Charles I. Judkins
Dr. James F. Goff
Dr. John Roland Gonano

Mr. Warren Berning
A graduate of the University of Cincinnati and California Inst. of Technology, Mr. Berning served as a meteorologist in World War II. Following the war he was employed briefly in the aircraft industry before joining the U.S. Army Ballistics Research Laboratory as a physicist. After a career with the Dept. of Defense he spent more than 13 years as technical advisor to the Physical Science Laboratory, New Mexico State University. Mr. Berning's principal work was concerned with physical processes in the upper atmosphere, structure of the ionosphere and the effects of nuclear weapons. He worked extensively with scientists in industry and was an experimenter and program director in the International Geophysical Year (IGY), 1957-58.

Dr. Phillip Mange
A graduate of Kalamazoo College and Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Phillip Mange was concerned early with the properties of the earth's high atmosphere as it fringes into space, first as a graduate student, then in 1955-7 in Brussels while at the Secretariat for the International Geophysical Year (IGY). He served as US-IGY administrative program officer for ionosphere, aurora/airglow, and cosmic rays, 1957-9. He joined the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, D.C., in 1959 and became team leader to prepare and conduct far ultraviolet observations of the space environment from military ballistic platforms and satellites. He served a Associate Superintendent of NRL's Space Science Division, 1967-85, and as scientific consultant to NRL's Director of Research, 1985-93.

Prof. Eugenie Vorburger Mielczarek
Eugenie Vorburger Mielczarek is Professor of Physics at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. For the past twenty years , her experimental research has focused on iron in biological systems. She has been visiting scientist at the national Institutes of Health and Hebrew University of Jerusalem and chair of the American Institute of Physics' book publication committee. Her research has been funded by the Office of naval Research, the National Institutes of Health, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the National Science Foundation. Professor Mielczarek belongs to the East Coast Iron Club, a group of about forty scientists involved in studying iron in biological systems, and has served as advisor to National Public Radio. She is the primary editor of Key Papers in Biological Physics.

Dr. James H. Fahs
A graduate of Pomona College, Stevens Institute of Technology, and New York University, Dr. Fahs has spent his career in supporting work for various U.S Government agencies. He spent 11 years at Picatinny Arsenal on problems related to fuzing techniques. After completing his doctorate in research on positron annihilation, he joined the Center for Naval Analysis, in supporting various Navy operations. Subsequently, with the Mitre Corporation, he dealt primarily with Command, Control and Communications problems for the U.S. Navy. With Arion Systems, Inc, an oceanographic engineering firm, he worked on undersea systems and communications.

Mr. Charles I. Judkins
A graduate of Brown and Columbia Universities, Mr. Judkins was briefly employed at IBM before joining The Travelers Research Center (TRC) where he became the Director of Administration and Chief Financial Officer. There he became closely associated with Dr. Robert M White, President of TRC, who would later become first director of ESSA/NOAA and head of the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering. Mr. Judkins founded and served as President of GEOMET Technology, Inc., a scientific and technical services company performing on contracts the areas of Chemical and Biological Warfare Defense Systems, Indoor Air Quality Research, Meteorological Systems Analysis, Health Care Systems, etc. He served as Senior Vice President and CFO of Versar, Inc., an environmental and technical services company and is presently President and CEO of Sarnia Corporation, a commercial Real Estate company.

Dr. James F. Goff
A graduate of MIT and Purdue University, Dr. Goff spent his career in research and management, primarily in Materials Sciences, at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory/Naval Surface Warfare Center. His research was concerned with transport properties of semiconductors, metals, and alloys at low and high temperatures. This research led to work on thermoelectric materials and in turn to predicting the efficiency of thermoelectric materials in support of the Navy thermoelectric battery program, and led to the establishment of an in-house research program for thermoelectric materials development. Dr. Goff organized a laboratory for nondestructive evaluation of materials and served as the Dept. of Defense U.S. coordinator for an international committee concerned with nondestructive testing. He set up a laboratory investigating biotechnology and organized a cooperative program for studying biological corrosion.

Dr. John Roland Gonano
A graduate of West Virginia and Duke Universities, Dr. Gonano held a post doc position at the University of Florida. After a brief time at the Bureau Of Standards (now NIST) he became a civilian employee of the US Army where he performed and managed research on a wide range of problems until retirement in 1995. At Fort Belvior,Virginia, he conceived, developed and tested a system using nuclear magnetic resonance to detect explosives in airline luggage, and studied the performance of several techniques to detect land mines. As an executive at The Army Materiel Command and at The Army Research Lab (both near Washington), he oversaw technology-base programs totaling several hundred million dollars per year at several major Army labs. Finally, as Army Technology Transfer Program Manager, he promoted cooperative programs between Army labs and industry.