2020-2021 LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Annual Awards

The LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Undergraduate and Graduate Faculty awards are nominated by students in the department. 2020-21 recipients:

  • Ivan Agullo  –  Graduate Student Faculty Award
  • Mette Gaarde  –  Undergraduate Student Faculty Award

Oleksandr Molchanov  –  2021 Keen-Morris award, presented to an outstanding graduating senior.

Emily Safron  –  Joseph Callaway Memorial Fellowship award for exemplary dedicated service to promote Saturday Science and Astronomy on Tap public outreach over the last 4 years in the department. 

Karli Hall  –  Ball Undergraduate Award for continuing excellence and outstanding class performance.

Jeanne Garriz  –  R. Greg Hussey Scholarship for showing exceptional promise both in the classroom and in research.

Tiger Athletic Foundation Scholarships are awarded to students who have shown academic excellence and dedication to physics. 2020-21 recipients

  • Raenessa Walker 
  • Garrett Hamilton

Anna and Willie Austin Scholarship is awarded to full time students and recognizes their academic and research success. 2020-21 recipients:

  • Lila Ton
  • Ashley Patron

Aidan Lambert  –  Barbara and Barry Coon Annual Physics and Astronomy Scholarship, awarded to support physics students.

Marz Newman  –  Frank Jr.  Phyllis Heroy Endowed Scholarship that recognizes an outstanding student pursuing an undergraduate degree in basic science and engineering.

Stephanie Armond  –  Lacombe Memorial Family Scholarship for outstanding students that are demographically underrepresented in the College of Science.

Byrd Ball Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award 2020-21 recipients:

  • Roy Pace  –  Roy is working with Associate Professor Hwang Lee and successfully presented as the first author at the 2021 APS March Meeting on “Verification of Diagnostic Circuits on IBM Quantum Circuits: Using Hybrid Machine Learning for Fault Classification."
  • Alexander Paul-Torres  –  Alexander is working with Associate Professor Martin Tzanov and has majorly contributed to the collaborative effort on the SuperFGD prototype design in neutrino physics.

Noel Dudeck –  Physics and Astronomy Undergraduate Research Award. Noel has conducted a substantial research with Assistant Professor Giulio Mariotti at Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences on Waves and Mixing in an Urban Subtropical Lake with Restoration Implications. In addition, he has made a key contribution to modeling nuclei, working with Assistant Professor Scott Marley and Assistant Professor Kristina Launey.

Roussel Family Graduate Student award in Communication that recognizes exemplary research coupled with the ability to succinctly present the research findings. 2020-21 recipients:

  • Karunya Shirali, for her sustained record of excellent poster and oral presentations, including public outreach, as well as a first-author paper in J. Phys: Condensed Matter, selected by the publisher as "Great new paper" in 2020. 
  • Grigor Sargsyan, for his astonishing record of 13 papers on his PhD research, 2 as the lead author, as well as 9 presentations, including an invited colloquium talk in Washington U. in St. Louis.

Chloe DiTusa  –  Department Service Award, for active volunteerism in the community including many LSU College of Science outreach events for K-12 STEM.

Gabriella Townsley  –  Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for service as a long-time peer Learning Assistant for the recitations associated with the PHYS 2110 engineering physics course.

Recognizing graduate students and their excellence in teaching assistance and grading, the Outstanding Physics and Astronomy Grader award for their outstanding work as a grader, handling large numbers of in-class quizzes efficiently and accurately and helping students find missing scores etc. 2020-21 recipients:

  • Aaron Trigg
  • Mojgan Dehghani

Arshag Dannageozian  –  Coates Research Scholar award, for his research in Modeling the environment noise on an NV center qubit using coherent population trapping, in the Quantum Physics Group.

Michelle Lis  –  Coates Travel Research Award. Michelle is currently in the final stages of completing her PhD in medical physics research. She has over 6 years of experience in radiation oncology therapies, building strategic partnerships with international, cross-functional teams, science outreach, scientific communication, didactic teaching and mentorship.

2020-21 recipients of the Coates Dissertation Awards:

  • Roshan Nepal advised by Professor Rongying Jin. Dissertation title: "Investigation of Complex Magnetic Phenomena in Spinel FeMn2O4, MnFe2O4, and NiFe2O4"
  • Eneet Kaur advised by Associate Professor Mark Wilde. Dissertation title: Limitations on Protecting Information Against Quantum Adversaries 
  • Phillip Wall Advised by Dr. Jonas Fontenot, Chief of Physics, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, Baton Rouge, LA, Wall conducted research resulting in his dissertation titled “Towards Optimizing Quality Assurance Outcomes of Knowledge-Based Radiation Therapy Treatment Plans Using Machine Learning.”

 

###

 

Mimi LaValle

LSU Physics & Astronomy

225-439-4633

mlavall@lsu.edu

 

 

LSU