Bio

I am a first year graduate student at Stony Brook University. I graduated high school from the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science in Mobile, AL in 2001, and obtained a BS in Physics with a minor in Mathematics from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, GA, graduating cum laude in 2005. My academic interests are varied: In the summer of 2004 I completed a Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) sponsored by the US DoE at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, CA, helping with analysis of data from the BABAR project. My next project for Optics Rotation will be helping Dominik Schneble to build a magnetic trap for Bose-Einstein condensates, to be used for studies in atom optics.

This was my first experience working in a university research lab. Working closely on this six week project with Marty Cohen, Andy Vernaleken, and John Noé, and participating in the weekly Metcalf group meetings helped me understand the true nature of experimental inquiry. I feel lucky to have had a partner and mentors always close at hand; there was almost always someone to answer any question I had, and lend their experience to any problem solving. We reproduced results from a paper less than a year old, and as a result Marty suggested a new method for determining the speed of ultrasound waves in the crystal of an acousto-optic modulator. This may lead to a paper published soon.

I hope to continue my studies in experimental optics by continuing Optics Rotation courses at Stony Brook. My non-academic interests include playing with my dog Soren and watching movies.

 

Rebekah Schiller
September 2005

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