Part of our contingent of summer research students for 2016.

[Flickr images]

56 high school students from the SHAD program for gifted students are spending one month based on the Western University campus.

Their agenda has a fascinating twist in that the students are not told of their daily schedule until the morning of each day.

On July 15th the group visited the Hume Cronyn Memorial Observatory in the daytime and in the evening.

In the afternoon the students toured the observatory in small groups. In the lecture room, observatory Director Jan Cami spoke to each group about astronomical research that is being undertaken at Western.

Upstairs on the observing deck, RASC volunteers Everett Clark, Paul Kerans, and Bob Duff helped the students view the Sun through the Coronado H-Alpha 90mm solar telescope and through eclipse glasses. The Sun was visible at times through clouds and an occasional bit of drizzle. On the dome floor, Earth Sciences Professor Phil McCausland brought some of Western’s meteorite collection to show the students.  Inside, on the dome floor, the volunteers had on display three smaller telescopes on display, including the 20.5cm Schmidt-Cassegrain, the 20cm Dobsonian, and Paul’s 23.5cm Schmidt-Cassegrain.

In the basement, undergraduate volunteer Nathalie Thibert gave a demonstration of four spectroscopic discharge lamps. In addition, undergraduate volunteer Will Hyland gave a demonstration of  astronomers hunt for extra-solar planets that transit their parent stars.

By the time of the evening visit, skies had cleared considerably and everyone was excited to do some star gazing.

Observatory Director Jan Cami spoke to the group about the observatory’s history, including the Perkin-Elmer 25.4cm refracting telescope and its sister scope, the Schmidt camera. As skies darkened, Prof. Cami pointed the 25.4cm refractor at the planet Jupiter.

Out on the observing deck, Paul Kerans had his 23.5cm Schmidt-Cassegrain scope set up, and Will Hyland managed the 20.5cm Schmidt-Cassegrain. They pointed their scopes to the waxing gibbous moon, double star Alberio, as well as Mars and Saturn. Paul also observed galaxy M81.

[Flickr images]

A fun doubles table tennis tournament was organized by the graduate student council. The event took place on July 14th, 2016.

In the end, the finals matchup had the team of  Sayantan and Bushra versus Stan and Quanzhi Ye.  It was a close contest, with Sayantan and Bushra coming out on top.

Fun was had by all !

[more images on Flickr]

(photos and report  by Nirosh Getangama and Sayantan Auddy)

Quanzhi Ye successfully defended his PhD thesis on Thursday, July 28, 2016.

He gave a public talk titled “Aging comets and their meteor showers”.

Quanzhi’s PhD supervisor was Professor Peter Brown.

On Monday July 25, Sivayini Kandeepan successfully defended her MSc thesis.

She gave a public talk on the thesis topic, titled, “OMCVD gold nanoparticles covalently attached to polystyrene for biosensing application“.

Sivayini’s thesis supervisor was Professor Silvia Mittler.

PhD student Jaewoo‎ Park has won a Travel Grant to attend the 2016 Graphene Canada Conference, to be held October 18-20 in Montreal, QC. Jaewoo works under the supervision of Prof. Giovanni Fanchini. His presentation at Graphene Canada will be on metal-assisted, selective etching of  graphene and the formation of porous graphene based materials for water filtration and other applications.

Astronomer Jan Cami is the 2016 recipient of the Faculty of Science Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

The citation from Associate Dean Jeffrey Hutter reads in part, “The committee was impressed by your philosophy of not only enabling students to learn, but also teaching them to want to learn. As one student put it, “you are always challenging, and often inspirational”. Our external examiner noted the Cami “practices the philosophy he espouses”, and noted the “it was indeed heartening to see such devotion to good teaching”.

The award will be officially presented at the Faculty of Science Awards Recognition Luncheon in December.

Western astronomy graduate student Robin Arnason is on an international team that has discovered black holes that have very low feeding rates and low levels of X-ray emission.

[see details at Western Media Relations]

Professor Blaine Chronik is one of two Western scientists who were awarded new NSERC Industrial Researh Chairs.

According to Western Media Relations, “Chronik is working with Toronto-based Synaptive Medical to develop highly customized MRI systems that have been optimized for specific applications like stroke. Health-care providers currently use multi-use, full-body scanners to diagnose any number of ailments, but one of Chronik’s objectives as NSERC/Synaptive Medical Inc. Industrial Research Chair in Magnetic Resonance Systems Development is to become the first Canadian team able to design, prototype and produce custom MRI platforms.

Their efforts will create smaller, lighter, cheaper and easier-to-use MR systems that still produce high-performance results.

“These qualities are essential to bringing the benefits of MRI to health-care settings where the technology has been unavailable or underutilized,” Chronik says. “Our program aims to improve healthcare for Canadians by facilitating the development of safer, more advanced medical devices for use within safer, more advanced MRI systems.”

[Western Media Relations]

We welcome new Administrative Officer Emily Adams to the staff.

Emily worked previously at Canada Tubeform for 4 years as the Office Manager, and prior to that she was with BTC Logistics/Fraser Direct for 13 years as the Operations Manager.

Her favourite colour is anything in metallic.

Emily and family enjoy caring for and training their horse Chiquita.