Physics Alumni
From SPSwiki
2009 Graduates
Stephen Baccus
Stephen is pursuing a career with the navy's nuclear power program
Shawn Ballard
Shawn is attending graduate school in English at the University of Illinois.
Michael Buscher
Michael is attending graduate school in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois.
Shane Carey
Shane is attending graduate school in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at the University of Arkansas with a Noyce Scholarship.
August Clark
August is attending medical school at UAMS.
James Cope
James is working for General Dynamics.
Aaron French
Aaron was commissioned in the Air Force.
Jonathan Gardner
Jonathan is attending graduate school in physics at the University of California - Santa Barbara.
Michael Hinds
Michael is attending graduate school in computer science at the University of Arkansas with a DAF fellowship.
Brad Miller
Brad is working in Fayetteville at Learning Rx, a local learning technology firm.
Titus Morris
Titus is attending graduate school in physics at the University of Arkansas.
Sean Nichols
Sean is attending graduate school in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at the University of Arkansas with a Noyce Scholarship.
Jeff O'Connell
Jeff is attending graduate school in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at the University of Arkansas with a Noyce Scholarship.
Brandon Renuard
Brandon is attending graduate school in genetics at Baylor.
Amanda Schilling
Amanda is attending graduate school in physics as part of the SPAC program at the University of Arkansas.
Chris Sharp
Chris is attending graduate school in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at the University of Arkansas with a Noyce Scholarship.
Scott Steele
Scott is attending medical school at UAMS.
Ashley Stewart
Ashley is taking a year off to complete a paper on her honors research.
Josiah Walton
Josiah is attending graduate school in physics at the University of Illinois. Josiah won an NSF Graduate Fellowship.
Andrew Winstead
Andrew is attending graduate school in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at the University of Arkansas with a Noyce Scholarship.
2008 Graduates
Jarad Ostemeyer
Completed honors research with Dr. Gross. Graduate school nueroscience at the University of Chicago.
Alan Sluder
Graduate school in physics at the University of Texas, Austin. Alan wants to be a string theorist.
Nightvid Cole
Graduate school in physics at the University of Maryland. Nightvid passed two of the three parts of the qualifying exam upon entry.
Elaine Christman
Elaine is spending two years in Teach for America and is considering graduate school in physics or biology and medical school. Elaine was most recently famous as the "physical science teacher" in an alpaca llama themed car accident on I-540 link. Elaine is fine.
Tyler House
Graduate school in Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington. Because of the physics double degree, he was offered a position in nano-science.
Heath Himstead
Graduate school in Chemical Engineering at Colorado State University.
Robert Taylor
Robert is married to Ashley Kelly and is working locally at NN Labs, a chemistry lab, making nanomaterials NN Labs.
Mark Morley
Mark is teaching high school in Northwest Arkansas.
Luke Berreckman
Commissioned Air Force
Chris Cox
Commissioned Air Force
Jeremy Hutchenson
Commissioned Army
2007 Graduates
Jim Czlapinski
At present I work for Procter and Gamble as an IT Solutions Developer. I intend to combine my passion for programming with my love of Physics to leverage a career as a Game Designer for Microsoft or a Game Development studio. I can be reached at the following email address: mailto:jczlapinski@jvcfamily.com
Hannah DeBerg
Goldwater Fellow, NSF Fellow, and SPS secretary will attend graduate school at the University of Illinois in physics. Hannah is through her qualifying exams and is working on the LHC at CERN, exactly what she wanted to do.
Matt Reaves
Matt will attend graduate school at the University of Rochester in optics.
Adam Goldstein
Adam will attend graduate school in physics at the Univerity of Alabama - Huntsville
Drew Kincannon
Drew will work in industry as a Chemical Engineer at Albemarle in Baton Rouge, LA. [mailto:pettuskincannon@yahoo.com]
Jared Beck
Jared will join the graduate micro-electronics photonics program at the University of Arkansas.
Frank Scopa
Frank will work in research for the Air Force. Frank was commissioned a Space and Missle office and will spend the bulk of his career at NASA.
Tom Akin
Tom will go to graduate school in physics at the University of Oklahoma.
Matt Burch
Matt will go to graduate school in physics at the University of Oklahoma. Matt did not complete graduate school for personal reasons. We wish him well.
Ginny Cato(Fish)
Ginny is planning on a career in nursing although she has not ruled out medical school.
Jesse Buffington
Jesse is moving to Houston TX for a job with NASA's Johnson Space Center. His email address is [mailto:jabuffi@gmail.com]. I asked Jesse about a possible SPS trip next year and he wrote, "I love to give tours, usually go from the nuts and bolts on up- Start with the thermal vacuum chambers, go to the ISS airlock training chamber, then Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility (SVMF-where they have scale models of all the manned vehicles and station), end in Mission Control (go inside historic Apollo Control then see Shuttle and Station control rooms). Can also go to High Velocity Impact labs, Robonaut lab, lunar sample curation facility, Sonny Carter dive training facility, and most anywhere else that may evade my thoughts right now.
It's about a 9 hour drive if you push hard..."
Ashley Kelly
Ashley is pursuing a career as an analyst and can be reached at [mailto:adkelly312@yahoo.com]. She is current doing statistics for Walmart and loving it. Ashley married Robert Taylor.
Trevor McGarrah
Trevor completed the MAT program at the University of Arkansas to become a high school teacher. mailto:tdmcg82@yahoo.com He will be teaching at a charter school in Little Rock.
Nick Shapter
Nick will pursue alternate licensure to become a high school teacher.
Lucija Rakocevic
Lucija will attend graduate school at the University of Illinois in Mechanical Engineering. mailto:lucija081@gmail.com
Matt Sandlin
Darren Novotny
A returning student that completed his physics major while already owning his own engineering firm.
2006 Graduates
John Wong
Grad School for Physics at the University of Arkansas. Completed MA under Dr. John Stewart. Then did two months research in Dr. Jiali Li's lab doing mainly quality check and optimizations for the Matlab programs her research group is using.
Now working on my PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder and researching under Dr. David Noone, more detail coming soon.
Chris Wells
Grad School at Oklahoma state for math
Leslie Embry
Phoung Le
Is currently working for Tyson Corp.
Jaewoo Park
Stephen Morais
Jason Lee
Was pursuing a MS in microEP at the University of Arkansas. Sadly, Jason took his own life in August 2008. No explanation was given.
Justin Vines
Currently at Cornell.
[mailto:jev28@cornell.edu]
Grad school at Cornell is going very well. Here is a link to my homepage, there's not much there right now, because I can't decide what should be there, but anyway: [1].
Jay Lasey
Working in industry at Dassault Falcon Jet and getting married. [mailto:jlasey@gmail.com]
Bernadette Stewart
Bernadette completed a Master's degree in literature at NYU and is currently in the Peace Corp in Tanzania.
[mailto:bjs338@nyu.edu]
Jessica Clanton
Grad. School at the University of Arkansas. Graduated with MA. Teaching at Arkansas Tech, Mountain Home.
2005/2006 Graduates
Stan Kondov
Grad School for Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Stan has passed his qualifying exam.
Sloan Ahrens
Grad School for Physics at the University of Arkansas mailto:wahrens@uark.edu
Becca Claus
Industry 3M
Goldwater Award Winner
Forest Denger
Computer Tech at the University of Arkansas mailto:fdenger@uark.edu
Lynn Endicott and Haley Beverberg
Grad School for Physics at the University of Michigan. Lynn married Haley Beverburg and is through the qualifying exam at Michigan. mailto:lendico@umich.edu
Lynn writes: I've been occupied with trying to pack our vacuum chamber to send it off for repairs. (There is a leak we were unable to fix ourselves in a cryoshroud port, so it's off to California with the system.) Aside from fretting over the above problem with the MBE system, things are pretty good. We keep pretty busy, in general, and Haley and I are progressing towards candidacy: I've passed both of my qualifying exams (one classical and one modern). Haley passed both her music theory prelim and her music history prelim. (For some reason the music theorists have to take the musicologists' prelim, but the musicologists don't reciprocate by taking the theory exams!) We both plan on doing our prelim's (mine a presentation to a committee & Haley's a semester-long paper + maybe a presentation?) in the near future. I plan on really organizing my thoughts while the system is off for repairs, and I might even be able to fit it in before we leave for the holidays. I'm just taking one course in semiconductors this semester (and sitting in on another condensed matter course -- one I already took but from a different professor so much of the material is new/different perspective), and I haven't decided if I'll have any courses next term. When I'm not in class, I spend most of my time down in the lab running the MBE setup. When things are running properly, I make thin films (usually antimony telluride) which I then dope with transition metals. They discovered a while back in my advisor's (Dr. Ctirad Uher) lab that, when doped with certain transition metals, antimony telluride (and possibly other related V-VI semiconductors) can become ferromagnetic. The project I'm working on has to do with getting a better understanding of this phenomenon and possible extensions of the idea.
Mike Hotz
Grad School for Physics at Washington. Mike recently contributed a talk/poster at 2008 Annual Meeting of the Division of Nuclear Physics titled "Limits on thermally-distributed halo dark-matter axions from ADMX".
Tyson Lawrence
Grad School for Physics at the University of Arkansas
mailto:tlawren@uark.edu
Tyson will enter the MAT program at Arkansas to become
a high school teacher.
Patrick Marsh
Grad School for Meteorology at Oklahoma. Finished masters, now working on my PhD.
http://www.patricktmarsh.com
mailto:patricktmarsh@gmail.com
Ryan Marsh
Grad School for Economics at the University of Arkansas
mailto:rmarsh@uark.edu. Ryan will pursue a PhD in
economics at Northwestern after he completes a summer position
at Harvard.
Charlie Rea
MA in Physics here currently teaching in Fort Smith
mailto:jrea@fortsmithschools.org
Robert Shaw
Industry
John Vickers
Graduated Micro EP program with a Masters Degree. He
has an engineering job in Fayetteville.
mailto:jgvicke@uark.edu
Bryon Western
Grad School for Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas
mailto:bwester@uark.edu
2004/2005 Graduates
Ashley Altom
Ashley completed a masters degree in math and is now working at Acxiom. He enjoys the work and would like to see more physics majors working there. He can be reached at mailto:aaltom@acxiom.com
Anindita Basu
Grad School for Physics at the University of Pensilvania
mailto:abasu@sas.upenn.edu
David Cameron
MA at University of Arkansas. Attending medical school.
Ed Corcoran
Grad School for math at the University of Arkansas. Graduate school in mathematics education at Michigan State.
Josh Daily
Medical School at Little Rock
Bodenheimer winner
Allen Doyel
Grad School for engineering at the University of Arkansas
Jonathon Eads
Grad School for Math at the University of Arkansas
Anthony Francis
Grad School for Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas
Daniel Frost
Grad School for Physics at Kansas
Josh Hess
Grad School for Physics at the University of Arkansas. Graduated with MW. Teaching high school in Seattle.
Matt Allen Jones
Grad School for Physics at University of Arkansas MS completed went back for ME
mailto:maj13@uark.edu
Chris Lee
Graduate School for Economics at the University of Arkansas
Chris Mooney
Filling out time cards construction company
Alasen Parker
Industry
Phoukhong Sukthavy
MAT Teacher
James Roller
Law School at the University of Arkansas
mailto:jarolle@uark.edu
Neil Tracy
Medical School at Little Rock
mailto:stblues66@gmail.com
Derrick Tucker
Paul Wolf
Teaching High School at Haas Hall Academy
2003/2004 Graduates
Joe Benham
Industry
David Irby
Matt Aaron Jones
High School Teacher at Springdale
mailto:mjones@spdale.org
Mica Lunt
Grad School for Psycology
Harrison Reed
Medical School
Stephen Malloy
LeAnn Obenshain
High School Physics Teacher
Andrew Bratcher
Grad School Physics at the University of Arkansas. Graduated with MS. Currently working for Lockheed Martin's Optical Sensor division and living just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Paul Campbell
Paul is in graduate school studying operations management.
Benji Carlyle
Medical School at Little Rock
Dominic DiMaggio
Physics Instructor for navy
Matt Doyle
Grad School for Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon
Nick Farrer
Grad School at the University of Arkansas withdrew and is now undergrad in a different field
Heather (Griffin) Rowe
After a couple of years working, Heather has returned to the U of A for a math degree. mailto:hgriffi@uark.edu
Jon Hubbard
Medical School at Little Rock
Shareen Husain
Truman Finalist
Jon Kimes
Dental School
Daniel Marsh
Grad School for Philosophy at Vancouver
Jacob McElderry
Grad School for Physics at The University of Arkansas Completed
Completed Masters Going to play band in the Middle East.
Jennifer McGee
Grad School for Physics In Colorado
Michael Meyer
Grad School for Statistics at the University of Arkansas
Patrick Reynolds
Don Sunlin
Non-traditional student. Retired.
Justin Thompson
Greg White
Air Force officer
2001 Graduates
Amber N. Straughn
NASA Postdoctoral Fellow (NPP), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Here is a link to the Hubble Space Craft news release she sent with this message: Hey guys, check this out:
YAY!!! The WFC3 camera is the one I've worked on, and am on one of the 'Early Release Science' teams (which means i get to play with the data and see the pretty pictures before everyone else :)).
2000 Graduate
David New
David completed graduate school at MIT and is currently working in San Jose for Power Integration.
1990 Graduate
William Wright
Physics B.S.
1989 Graduates
Julia (Smith) Kennefick
Attended graduate school at Caltech. Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas/Fayetteville, in the Physics Department. She does observational astronomy.
Paul Glezen
Received Ph.D. from USC in Mathematics in mid-90's. Now working for IBM in the LA area.
Harold Bolton
Received Ph.D. from Scripps in La Jolla in mid-90's in geophysics. Works with the USGS in Golden, CO. He is part of the Geologic Hazards Team.
Dan Krulewich
Teaching science at Central High School in Kansas City, MO.
Jeff Sabby
Received his Ph.D. in the Physics Department in 2006 working with Dr. Claud Lacy. Now an Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville studying binary-star systems.
Bryant Heikkila
Went to NMSU for his Ph.D. He now does research in astronomy. Recent work includes analyzing data from Voyager.
1988 Graduates
Tacy Joffe-Minor
UA B.S. 1988 UA M.A. 1990 PhD 1997 from Northwestern University
1983 Graduates
John Smith
Graduate B.S. 1983. Ph.D. Texas Tech 1989 in pulsed power physics. Postdoc - Los Alamos National Lab. Owner and President of IUP Corporation] based in Van Buren, AR.
1978 Graduates
Ken Vickers mailto:vickers@uark.edu
Past Graduates
Patrick Marsh
Front page in the OU newspaper, 2007.
I am studying meteorology at Oklahoma and will be finishing up my Masters of Science this spring. Then my sights will be focused on the PhD. My current focus is on assessing the severe weather environment of current and future climates. This is a fancy way of saying I'm studying how global warming (man-made or natural) will affect Severe Thunderstorms and Tornadoes.
I am also Director of Operations for a student led forecasting group here at the University of Oklahoma. You can check out our website here[2]. The picture above is from a story on this forecasting group written by the OU student paper. You can read the article here[3].
I am also in charge of creating weather maps of the upper air. This is another part of the forecasting group - the development side. You can view this website here[4] mailto:patricktmarsh@gmail.com
Jon Hubbard
Medical School UAMS mailto:HubbardJonathanJ@uams.edu
