Group members

Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

(Samuel Beckett)

Physics Senior Thesis: A Guide for Seniors

2024/2025
  • Senior Independent Study
    • Nina Hanus: Effects of Laminar Flow on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction
    • Eric Johnson: Development of 3D Biometric Gel Dosimetry
    • Tali Lansing: A Quantitative Analysis of Motion Management Techniques for lung Radiation Therapy
    • Gus Thomas: Accelerating the Cosipy Library for Astrophysical Imaging
  • Research Assistants
    • Yeongyu (Henry) Lee (fall): Image Acquisition software
    • Caitlin O’Neil: Black Hole Event Horizon with a Light Sensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky System
    • Yuhe Ren: LaTeX support (fall), Image Acquisition software (spring)
    • Joe Russo: Spiral waves on hemispheres
    • Tim Book (spring): Physics Department Experiment Development
    • Nathan Ware (spring): Physics Department history project
2023/2024
  • 2024 Summer Research
    • Al Cawley: LaTeX support for Teaching
    • Walker Wood: Translating primary documents from Russian into English
  • Senior Independent Study
    • Aidan Mason: Fabricating a Flow Chemistry System to Investigate Reaction-Diffusion Waves in Advected Belousov-Zhabotinsky Systems
  • Research Assistants 
    • Tali Lansing: Black Hole Event Horizon with a Light Sensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky System
    • Gus Thomas: Python programming for RD waves
2022/2023
  • NSF-REU 2023 Summer Research (link)
    • Aidan Mason: Effects of Laminar Flow on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction
    • Veran Stanek : Modeling a Black Hole Event Horizon with a Light Sensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky System
    • Isaac Steinmeyer: Translating primary documents from Russian into English
    • Gus Thomas :One-Dimensional Belousov-Zhabotinsky Chemical Wave System as an Electron Drift Analog
  • Senior Independent Study
    • Daniel Cohen-Cobos : Simulating Reaction-Diffusion Waves to Model Gravitational Lensing (Masters in Physics at California State University, Long Beach)
    • Michael Scarberry : Belousov–Zhabotinsky Reaction and its Metal Complex Catalysts (PhD in chemistry at George Washington University in D.C.)

  • Research Assistants 
    • Iyanu Akinyemi (spring): Building a Trevelyan Rocker
    • Alex Berggren (spring): LaTeX support for Teaching
    • Morgan Hunter (fall): German language support for the BZ-history project
    • Natalie Miller (spring): Transcribing an interview with Richard Noyes (1999, audio tape)
    • Vincent Mueller (spring): German language support for the BZ-history project
    • Gus Thomas: Electron Drift Velocity project
2021/2022
  • NSF-REU 2022 Summer Research (link)
    • Kiyomi Sanders: Table-top Analogues Using Chemical Waves: Gravitational Lensing Effect
    • Mahala Wanner: Table-top Analogues Using Chemical Waves: Electron Drift Velocity
  • Senior Independent Study
  • Research Assistants 
    • Iyanu Akinyemi (spring): Building a Trevelyan Rocker
    • Aeralyn Flynn (spring): History of the Department of Physics
    • Morgan Hunter (spring): German language support for the BZ-history project
    • Ryan Gretlein (spring): Creating a repository of BZ visuals
    • Daniel Cohen-Cobos: Simulating a chemical diffusion diode for reaction-diffusion waves
2020/2021
2019/2020
  • Senior Independent Study
    • Margaret McGuire : What a Mouthful! Geographic Tongue as a Reaction Diffusion System
      (Pre-dental math major, officially advised by Drew Pasteur). See her 2020 Virtual Senior Research Symposium contribution. (Dental school at UNC Chapel Hill)
  • Research Assistants 
    • Abigail Ambrose: Creating a fire clock
    • Tanaka Chingonzo: The ‘History of the BZ-reaction’ website
    • Daniel Halbing: German support for the BZ-history project
2018/2019
  • NSF-REU 2019 Summer Research (link)
    • Samuel Cavender (Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA): Belousov-Zhabotinsky Waves as an Analogue for a Black Hole Event Horizon
    • Chase Fuller: 3D Graphics, Parallel Processing, and Heterogeneous Media in the Photosensitive Tyson-Fife Model
    • Margaret McGuire: Reaction-Diffusion Models of 2D surfaces embedded in 3D Space and a Model of Geographic Tongue
    • Fish Yu: Reaction-diusion wavefronts interacting with obstacles
  • Senior Independent Study
  • Research Assistants
    • Abigail Ambrose (fall): Matchstick fire fronts on a slope
    • Tanaka Chingonzo: The ‘History of the BZ-reaction’ website
    • Matthew Lowe (spring): Digitizing and organizing student research presentations 
    • Lubov Sidorova: Russian support for the BZ-history project
 2017/2018
  • NSF-REU 2018 Summer Research (link)
    • Josh Ballard-Myer (Georgia Coll. & SU, Milledgeville, GA): One-dimensional reaction-diffusion-advection system
    • Daniel Blaikie: Excitation waves in planar, inhomogeneously illuminated systems
    • Tanaka Chingonzo: Populating the zoomable timeline on the ‘History of the BZ-reaction’ website
    • Rebecca Glaser (SUNY Geneseo, NY): Excitation waves propagating in a narrow channel around obstacles
2016/2017
  • NSF-REU 2017 Summer Research (link)
    • Abigail Ambrose: Propagating fire fronts
    • Chase Fuller: One-dimensional reaction-diffusion-advection system
    • Wan Hang (Vincent) Hui: Speed of BZ waves around obstacles
    • Mirkamil Mijit: Zoomable timeline of the history of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction
  • Research Assistants
    • Abigail Ambrose: One-dimensional fire fronts
    • Jacob Denbeaux: Modern physics lab student scheduling program
    • Mirkamil Mijit: Zoomable timeline of the history of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction
2015/2016
  • NSF-REU 2016 Summer Research (link)
    • Alex Gould: BZ-Reaction-Diffusion Waves: a computational and theoretical analysis
    • Jersson Pachar (Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH): Effects of Advection on Reaction-Diffusion Waves