Letter from the Chair

Update from the Department Chair, Theresa Lynn

Last May, we said goodbye to about 25 physics graduates in the Class of 2017. These new alumni have gone on to graduate study at Princeton, Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, Cornell University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and numerous other places. Their fields of study will include physics but also chemistry, materials science, atmospheric science and operations research.

We have winners of several prestigious graduate fellowship awards from the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense (National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship).

Our graduates who were not graduate school-bound headed instead for a wide array of positions that use their HMC educations. They accepted industry positions with titles from software engineer to bioengineer to my favorite, quantum engineer (two new graduates are now working at quantum computing hardware companies). One 2017 graduate is teaching high school physics and math with Teach for America. Meanwhile, we all continue to miss Willie Zuniga ’17, who was a senior physics major when he passed away last February; Willie’s family came to commencement in May to accept his posthumously awarded degree.

We hope you enjoy the highlights of the 2016–2017 academic year in this new PDF newsletter format. We look forward to sending updates annually and welcome your input, especially news about what you are doing. We are always eager to hear from alumni! Send your news or remarks to the department administrator Alison Rauchfuss (arauchfuss@g.hmc.edu) or to me. I hope 2017 was a good year for you, and best wishes as we move toward 2018.

Theresa Lynn

lynn@g.hmc.edu

Chair, Department of Physics