The departmental Christmas lunch was held on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015.

A big thank you goes out to the staff members who made the event another success.

[Flickr images]

The Faculty of Science held its annual Faculty and Staff Recognition Lunch on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015.

Administrative Officer Joanne Gribbon was officially welcomed into the Faculty.  In addition, there was a fun award handed out to Keri Knox in recognition of her efforts on behalf of the Faculty and the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

[Flickr images]

The Angel tree campaign of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, has had overwhelming support in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.  Numerous gifts are now arranged under the tree, waiting to be distributed to needy children.

Thanks to everyone for their generous donations, and to Joanne, Jodi, Brian, and Keri for organizing.

According to Wikipedia, Eluta is a Toronto based Canadian job search engine owned by Mediacorp Canada Inc., a company that specializes in employment based publications.

One of Eluta’s projects is a list called  Canada’s Top 100 Employers.

Western University has made the list for 2016.

On the cover of the Western winner’s page we find Jack Hendricks at the Tandetron lab of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Don’t miss out on this one of a kind astronomy workshop in star formation.  The venue is close to the magnificent Taj Mahal.

Don’t forget the dates:  15-19 February 2016

Western  students may be eligible for an International Travel Award.

Visit www.astronomyattaj2016.com to register now.

Adam Farag was used to looking up, way up. He did so as an atmospheric physics graduate student at Western.

Now as a medical imaging scientist at the Robarts Research Institute at Western University,  Adam is co-founder, along with other Robarts scientists, of Ceresensa Inc., which has developed a novel piece of brain imaging equipment.

As fellow founder Dr. Jean Theberge describes in a London Free Press article, “The main idea is that it allows both to happen at the same time, and to have research-grade MRI images while getting the PET scan as well.”

In the near future, similar systems will be developed for prostate and breast scans.

[see London Free Press article and video]

Atmospheric physicist Bob Sica is a co-investigator and mentor at the Ridge Lab of the  Polar Environment Research Facility (PEARL) near Eureka on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s high arctic.

The cover of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Survey (CMOS) Bulletin for December 2015 features the deep blue light of the DIAL laser as it shines out of the facility into the frigid arctic night.

Bob’s graduate student Ghazal Farhani will be using the DIAL laser for her upcoming research project.

Emily McCullough successfully defended her PhD thesis on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015.  In the photo above, Emily (at left) is shown with her thesis supervisor Dr. Robert Sica (at right).

Prior to the defense, Emily gave a public talk titled, “A new technique for interpreting polarization measurements using the CRL atmospheric lidar in the Canadian High Arctic.”

[more images on Flickr]

The office Christmas tree has a slightly new look this year.

That’s because the tree is now also an ‘Angel’ tree.

On it you will find ornaments on which are written the name and age of a boy or girl.

As Administrative Officer Joanne Gribbon describes the process,  “If you take an ornament, you are asked to buy a gift for that child, and return it unwrapped by Friday December 11^th.”

Let’s bring happiness to some needy children this Christmas.

Alex Kopacz and Justin Kripps finished in 6th place at the first world cup 2 man bobsleigh race of the year which was held in Altenberg, Germany on November 28, 2015.

Alex graduated from the collaborative program in physics and engineering at Western.