Previous Seminars

Fall Semester Seminars 2007/08

9/19: Faculty Show & Tell--My Favorite Physics Demo, Physics Faculty, St. Olaf College

9/26: Archaelology Geophysics--Exploring for Ancient Subsurface Structures Surrounding the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway (Part of the Statoil Summer Project 2007), Christin W. Strandli '09, Physics Student, St. Olaf College

10/10: Optical Micro- and Nano- systems at the University of Minnesota, Joseph Talghader, Dept of Electrical and Computer Engr, University of Minnesota

10/24: Space Weather - The Sun-Earth Connection, Ruth Skoug, Space Science and Applications Group. Los Alamos National Laboratory (Visit Sponsored by the Grace A Whittier Endowment)

10/31: No seminar

11/7: No seminar

11/14: Cosmology Today, Dr. Rellen Hardtke, U of WI--River Falls

11/21: Thanksgiving break

11/28: No seminar

12/5: Micro/Nano Friction at St. Olaf College: Recent results, Reaching out, Dr. Brian Borovsky, Physics Department, St. Olaf College

Spring Semester Seminars 2007

2/7: No Seminar

2/14: Big is Beautiful--How Heavy Quarks Help Us Understand the Subnuclear World, Todd Coleman, Lecturer, U of Wisconsin-River Falls

2/21: Geophysical Exploration and Climate Change Research in Antarctica (Initial results from the 2006-07 US-ITASE traverse) , Brian Welch, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at St. Olaf College

2/28: The Physics Major at St. Olaf: Students, come for an interactive hours looking back, looking ahead, and gathering input!, Brian Borovsky, Physics Department, St. Olaf College

3/7: Using Satellite Radars to Measure Motin and Change on the Earth's Large Ice Sheets, Laurence Gray, Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing

3/14: No Seminar

3/21: Frictional Properties of Molecularly-thin Organic Coatings: Discovering the Fundamental Mechanisms of Friction, Erin Flater, Physics Dept., Luther College (Sponsored by PEW)

3/28: Spring Break

4/4: Minnesota's Energy Needs, Expressed in Natural Units of Renewable Energy, Lou Schwartzkopf, Physics Department, Minnesota State U--Mankato

4/11: The St. Olaf Wind Turbine, Pete Malamen '71, Consulting Engineers Group, Farmington, MN

4/18: A Journey from Light Scattering to Biophysics, Paul Saulnier, Gustavus Adolphus College

4/25: Lattice-based Optical Atomic Clocks, Chad Hoyt, Bethel University

5/2: No Seminar--SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM on May 4

5/9: No Seminar--open for student presentations

Fall Semester Seminars 2006/2007

9/13: Tracks Across the Sky: Computational Astronomy 101, David Nitz, Professor of Physics at St. Olaf College

9/20: A Uniformitarian View of Catastrophic Events in West Antarctica, Christina Hulbe, Associate Professor of Geology at Portland State University

9/27: What's So Strange About Quantum Mechanics?, William Case, Professor of Physics at Grinnell College

10/4: CMR Materials: Nanoscale Inhomogeneity and Colossal Responses, Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Assistant Professor of Physics at Carleton College

10/11: Maintaining Diversity in an Artificially Propagated Population, Steve McKelvey, Associate Professor of Mathematics at St. Olaf College

10/25: Molecular Free Volume & Positron Annihilation Applications, Bret Mayo, Research Specialist at North Dakota State University

11/8: Quantum Entanglement of Atoms--Without Forces, Thad G. Walker, Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

11/15: Magnetism at the Nanoscale: A Voyeur's Tale, E. Dan Dahlberg, University of Minnesota

Spring Semester Seminars 2005/2006

2/8: Progress in the St. Olaf Positron Research Group or Ole the Positron, Jason Engbrecht, St. Olaf College

Two Seminars sponsored by The Pew Midstates Science & Mathematics Consortium:
2/16: Seeing the Light: Demonstrations for Optics and Light, Doug Arion, Carthage College
2/17: Life begins at 22: Preparing students for successful careers after college, Doug Arion, Carthage College (Hedberg Distinguished Prof. of Intrepreneurial Studies)

Joint Seminar with Biology, Chemistry and Physics:
2/22: Development and Application of a 3-D Perfusion Bioreactor Cell Culture System for Bone Tissue Engineering, Blaise Porter, Tissue Growth Technologies, Minnesota

3/1: A Gentle Introduction to Markov Chains, Random Walks, and Ising Model, Robert Dobrow, Carleton College

3/15: Geoarchaeology--An Interdisciplinary Approach to Solving Archaeological Problems, Robert Shuster, U of Nebraska-Omaha

3/22: Cancelled--March of the Pixels: A Satellite Tour of Antarctica, Ted Scambos, U of Colorado

4/5: Baseball Physics, Eli Rosenberg, Iowa State University

4/12: Glacier Sliding and Bed Erosion: Experiments beneath the Svartisen Ice Cap, Norway, Neal Iverson, Iowa State University

4/19: Celebrating Accomplishments of the Molecular Beam Spectroscopy Group at St. Olaf College; A Retrospective on Jim Cederberg's Career, Contributors include Dr. David Nitz and Brian Borovsky

4/26: The Acoustics of the French Horn, John Nichol '06, St. Olaf College

5/3: March of the Pixels: A Satellite Tour of Antarctica, Ted Scambos, U of Colorado

5/10: Imaging Dark Matter with Gravitational Lensing, Liliya Williams, U of Minnesota


Fall Semester Seminars 2005/2006

9/14: When anti-matter attacks. . ., Joan Marler, Lawrence University

9/22 (Thursday): Climate and Water at the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research Site, Antarctica, Andrew Fountain, Portland State University

9/28: No seminar

10/5: Fire & Ice--When volcanoes and ice mix, Brian Welch, Physics Department, St. Olaf College

10/12: Neutrinos: From Cosmic Rays and Accelerators to Old Iron Mines and the Fate of the Universe, Alec Habrig, U of MN-Duluth, Physics Department

10/19: No seminar

10/26: Studying Friction at the Atomic Scale, Brian Borovsky, Physics Department, St. Olaf College

11/2: Novel Semiconductor Materials--Challenges for Characterization and Modeling, P. Paul Ruden, University of Minesota

11/10 (Thursday): Astrophysics in the Laboratory, Michael Brown, Physics Department, Swarthmore College

11/30: Chaos, decoherence, and the difference between the quantum and the classical world, Arjendu Pattanayak, Physics Department, Carleton College

12/7: From St. Olaf Physics to Transportation Engineering, Paul Morris, Civil Engineering Grad School, University of Minnesota