Summer 1999 · Department Homepage

A Letter from the Chair
Chip Brock

It is my pleasure to invite you to the first in what we intend to be a regular series of newsletters produced for alumni and friends of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. My name is Chip Brock and I've been chairperson of the Department for a bit more than five years. As you'll learn over the next year or so, we've embarked on a number of exciting projects which will continue to increase the quality and visibility of our research efforts and significantly enhance the educational experiences which we offer to our students. We have not done an acceptable job of keeping our extended family up to date and I hope that you'll appreciate our new efforts.

For those of you who have not been in touch with us for a while, we've grown into a large physics and astronomy department with 59 full time faculty, still concentrated into four "interest groups." We are an active department: 89% of the faculty are supported by regular federal research grants which now amount to approximately $13M per year, including $9M from the NSF for the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. Support for our faculty comes from NSF, DOE, NIH, and various agencies of the DOD. 97% of the faculty published results of their research in peer-reviewed journals last year.

We are an active department: 89% of the faculty are supported by regular federal research grants which now amount to approximately $13M per year, including $9M from the NSF for the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

All groups are involved in major initiatives, and we'll touch on them in coming issues. Briefly: the nuclear physics group has begun a major upgrade of their unique facility in order to evolve into the premier source of high-intensity radioactive beams in the world. The competition for this upgrade was fierce and was won as a major construction project of the NSF due to the reputation and skill of the nuclear group as well as the imagination of the central MSU administration. The high energy physics group is deeply involved in both the leadership and the details of the upgrades of the two major detectors at Fermilab which are in pursuit of the top quark and the Higgs Boson. All 7 of the high energy physics faculty are similarly involved in the design and construction of the Atlas detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. A major initative of the condensed matter physics group has recently been renewed for another five year period in their successful $12M Materials Research, Science and Engineering Center grant from the NSF. We're also embarking on major programs at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory and have begun significant research efforts in what has come to be known as "quantitative biology". Finally, the department has, after many years of trying, found a permanent astronomical home for optical and infrared astronomy. We have joined a consortium to construct a 4m telescope in Chile which should be completed by 2002. All of these efforts demonstrate the significant degree to which we're continuing to excel in our research during time of difficult overall funding. We've hired a number of excellent young faculty in all areas and they have taken on their responsibilities with enthusiasm. In this and subsequent issues, we'll endeavor to describe our research efforts in detail through short articles by the faculty involved.

One of the big stories for us is that after a half century we have begun construction of a new building to be located on south campus. This will be a fantastic structure for research and teaching. Wayne Repko has a short article in this issue with more detail. Please note drawings on the back of this letter.

After an all-time high in 1991 of 170 graduate students, we are currently supporting 125 as TA's and RA's. It's no secret that we, like most physics departments, are actively searching for good students as our research programs are easily able to support more. We've recently reviewed the entire graduate program and have significantly altered our examination procedures and have coordinated our basic graduate course content. We have similarly reviewed our undergraduate major program and are considering the introduction of a series of applied degree options in concert with other departments on campus. I anticipate an external review of this particular effort and may be contacting some of you with a request for your help and advice.

The last couple of years have delivered some sadness to us. In February of 1997 we were shocked when Professor Carl Foiles collapsed while playing tennis and subsequently did not recover from a massive heart attack. Then, just last month, we were saddened when Jerry Cowen's heroic yearlong battle with cancer took his life in a swift decline. Both faculty will be remembered with fondness for their commitment to their department and their superior work as undergraduate teachers. [As we were completing the preparation of this Newsletter we learned the sad news that another longtime faculty member, Harvey Edwards, passed away on April 14. Professor Edwards came to MSU in the middle 50's after completing his PhD at the University of Michigan.]

We hope to hear from you. Jules Kovacs is attempting to find as many of you and your classmates as he can. If you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of your friends, we'd appreciate hearing from you. We plan to construct a chat area in our web site specifically for you to encourage your assistance as we try to establish the whereabouts of more of our alumni. Visit our cyber home at http://www.pa.msu.edu in order to catch up and stay informed as we pursue our future programs. You'll also hopefully find it as a means of reestablishing contact with your former colleagues. We'll be in touch with you again in the fall as we introduce our new classes to you. Please feel free to drop any of us a note or email message!

Raymond Brock
brock@chip.pa.msu.edu