SWURL'ers serious about space research

Michael Watke, Steven Smith, Ali Knaak

PC students Ali Knaak, Steven Smith, and Michael Watke have been awarded grants to attend the American Geophysical Union conference in Savannah, Georgia. The three will be the only undergraduate students attending the conference, one in which professional scientists present research.

Knaak, Smith, and Watke are all members of the physics department’s new SWURL program, a Space Weather Undergraduate Research Laboratory.

Dr. James Wanliss, physics professor and director of the SWURL program, will also attend the conference and present research.

"It is a little unusual for undergraduates to receive this, since this is a serious international conference," Wanliss said. "It is a great opportunity for our students."

An opportunity that all the students appreciate.

"My central motivation in working in SWURL is the unique opportunity to engage in pure research, something most undergraduates never have the chance to pursue," Smith, a mathematics major, said. "The prospect of eventually contributing something to science is what makes me spend my free time reading and learning about new things."

Knaak, a physics and mathematics double major, is also looking forward to engaging in pure scientific research.

"I am excited about attending the conference to see what today's up-and-coming sciences are doing," she said. "The conference's theme is universal heliophysical processes, which is all the physics that goes along with the earth, sun, and solar system."

According to Watke, attending the conference is one of the first of many accomplishments for the new research laboratory.

"The SWURL is a very recent development in the Physics Department," he said, "and I think that once the SWURL group is able to begin doing 'cutting edge' space physics research, it will be an even more amazing opportunity for PC students than it already is."

"Attending the AGU conference will afford Ali, Michael, and I an opportunity to learn from the world's top scientists," Smith added. "We will be able to discuss and ask questions about cutting edge research, as well as establish valuable contacts for when we apply to summer research programs and graduate schools."

According to the PC SWURL blog, space weather is "the popular name for energy-releasing phenomena in the magnetosphere, associated with space storms and substorms. These are hurricanes in space that cause problems for satellite and ground-based technologies, and in extreme cases also astronauts."

Further, PC SWURL conducts "a variety of research in space physics including space plasma physics, magnetospheric physics, ionospheric physics, atmospheric physics, and heliospheric studies."

 

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posted by Stacy Dyer '96