Elizabeth Silber (at right in photo), a fresh PhD degree in Meteor Physics under her belt, is presently working as a postdoctoral fellow with Gordon Osinski of Earth Sciences and The Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration at Western. Also shown in the photo are helpful staff members Brian Davis (far left), Clara Buma (2nd from left), and Loveleen Gill (2nd from right).

Elizabeth has for many years made an important part of her Christmas calendar the donation of goods to some of the local London shelters for the homeless, or those fleeing dangerous home situations.

This past year, Elizabeth discovered the Rotholme shelter for homeless families.  From what Elizabeth had experienced in the past, this shelter appeared in great need.  It was booked to capacity during this Christmas season, and they were short of clothing, food, and money for feeding the families.

Elizabeth got the ball rolling for a drive within the department of Physics and Astronomy, and it wasn’t many days before the main office was filling up with goods, including much appreciated cash donations.

Without the generous donations from all involved, and the volunteer efforts of staff, this initiative would not have been possible.

This current drive ended on Dec. 18, on which day Elizabeth and other volunteers took the Physics and Astronomy donations down to the shelter, where they were gladly received.

A new drive will begin in January 2015. Stay tuned for the announcement, and please think about giving.

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The newly renovated Physics and Astronomy building atrium was once again the magnificent venue for the 2014 departmental Christmas celebrations, and it was arranged to perfection by staff members Loveleen Gill, Clara Buma, Phin Perquin, and Brian Davis.

A large cheery group partook in the festivities, where food and bit of Christmas cheer were the first order of business.

The room was humming with activity just as Santa made his appearance, with sled parked in the loading dock.

With two, not very camoflauged photographers stocking his every move, just about everyone in the room had their photo taken with Mr. Claus.

Christmas is a time to reflect and to acknowledge the important people in our lives. The staff and students in Physics and Astronomy once again wanted to acknowledge the tireless work of the caretaking staff Emira, Mike, and Hugo. Everyone was thrilled to see Hugo, who has been on leave of absence because of his health.  Chair Shantanu Basu, along with Santa, presented Emira, Mike, and Hugo with tokens of appreciation.

Lucky draw prize winners were Jeff VanKerkhove, Peter Brown, Stan Metchev, and Shailesh Nene.

The winner of the famous Physics and Astronomy ‘door prize’ was none other than Loveleen Gill.

Attending the party was Konstantin Fedotov, presently living in Victoria, who had just successfully defended his PhD thesis.

Surprise visitors were former graduate students Allison Hill and Alex DeSouza, both of whom are currently at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands.

A big thank you goes out once again to our Santa, Michel Debruyne.

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The Faculty of Science recognition and awards lunch was held on Monday, December 15 at the Great Hall, Somerville House.

It was a busy year for Physics and Astronomy faculty and staff, as witnessed by the number of awards received.

Recognized for their achievements over the past year were:

Other awards announced were:

On Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014, Konstantin Fedotov (at right in photo) successfully defended his PhD thesis titled, “Star Clusters, Galaxies, and Galaxy Interactions”.

Show in photo are Konstantin and his supervisor Dr. Sarah Gallagher.

Ed Stokan, in photo, shown after giving his public PhD lecture. He successfully defends his PhD.

Ed’s supervisor is Margaret Campbell-Brown.

The title of Ed’s thesis is “Fragmentation and wake formation in faint meteors: implications for the structure and ablation of small meteoroids“

Western University’s Jan Cami was the discoverer of Buckyballs in space in 2010.

A group at Leiden Observatory has done laboratory experiments in which they have found a chemical pathway by which Buckyballs might be able to form in space.

http://phys.org/news/2014-12-molecular-striptease-buckyballs-space.html

A much too stressed faculty member pretending to broadcast his nightly ‘Interstellar Medium Rocks’ show, live from the penthouse suite of the Physics and Astronomy building.

On Monday, 08 Dec. 2014, the Physics and Astronomy staff, hosted by Chair Shantanu Basu, met at the Spencer Ivey Leadership Centre.

The day began with a team building exercise. The object of the exercise was to split into random teams and then compete against the other teams at a particular task, which this day would be sushi making. The chef at Spencer Ivey gave a demonstration of his sushi making skills,  making it seem deceptively simple, as everyone would find out.

The four teams had about an hour in order to prepare a sushi plate, complete with artistic garnishes. The head chef would then judge the work based on quality and artistic presentation.

The hour went by much too quickly. One finished sushi plate had a ‘rocket theme’, while another was ‘snowman in tropical paradise’, and a third being ‘East meets Wests’. The winners, Doug, Brian, and Brian (DB-squared), surprisingly had a theme of ‘no theme necessary – quality speaks for itself’. Their winning sushi plate was very impressive, with professional looking sushi, and CNC precision-like cut fruit and vegetable garnishes.

After all of the hard work, the group enjoyed a wonderful Christmas buffet lunch.

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Effective 1 July 2015, Prof. Giovanni Fanchini has been promoted to the position of Associate Professor with tenure.

In addition, this past week Giovanni has had two of his students, Reg Bauld, and Faranak Sharifi, successfully defend their PhD theses.

Faranak Sharifi (left) after her public PhD presentation on Thursday 4 Dec. , shown with supervisor Giovanni Fanchini.

Faranak successfully defended her thesis.