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Physics

Spring 2010

Windsor Tanner’s hobby is also his day job. This Indiana University Bloomington graduate student has turned his love of the stars into a career.

Tanner began his career at Texas Tech University, with a double major in Math and German. Shortly, after graduating with his Bachelor’s Degree, Tanner moved to Giessen, Germany, to pursue a Masters degree in Financial Economics at the University of Giessen. Upon completion of his studies, he worked as a market risk controller for a regional bank in Hanover, where he first became interested in astronomy through participation in a local group of hobby astronomers. This hobby soon became his core research interest and primary occupation. He is currently an MAT Physics student at IU, and is nearing graduation this summer (2010). He is also a member of the Midwest Crossroads AGEP and participated in the AGEP Kick-Off Fall 2007 Reception.

Currently, Tanner is working on a yearlong project for the Indiana Space Grant focusing on the numerical simulation of interacting/colliding spiral galaxies. He is also teaching the lab component of two courses at IU: P201-Introduction to Physics for non-majors and Q202-Physics for Elementary Teachers. He said he truly enjoys teaching both of these classes.

The first class enables him to bring his love of physics to students who are just learning about it for fun rather than advanced study, he said, but “the second class is my favorite to teach, because it allows me to break physics down so that elementary children can understand and relate to it.”

In the future, Tanner would like to continue teaching at the university level, in the areas of astronomy and physics. He would also like to get the chance to work in an observatory as well as in a national research laboratory.

Tanner loves the aspect of having a career that lets him combine his love for mathematics, astronomy, physics, and computing into one project, he said.

“Try, try again. Failure is a delight not the end.”

Physics

Spring 2009

Rashid Williams-Garcia began his graduate studies in the Department of Physics at Indiana University-Bloomington in the fall of 2008. Rashid chose IU Physics because of the opportunity there to study neurophysics – the intersection of physics and neuroscience. He presently studies neurophysics on the systems scale, looking at the behavior of networks of neurons.

Prior to arriving in Bloomington, Rashid lived in Los Angeles, where he was raised, attended college at UCLA, and participated in a post-baccalaureate program to gain further skills before going to graduate school. UCLA’s PREP program – Post-Baccalaureate Research and Education Program – trains small cohorts of college graduates from underrepresented minorities in order to prepare them for graduate studies in biomedically relevant science disciplines. While in the PREP program, Rashid studied with faculty mentor Dr. Dolores Bozovic, whose research focuses on the physics of hearing. His experiences in her lab reinforced his love of research. Rashid also attributes his enjoyment of learning to being home-schooled by his father. His only classmate – his sister – went on to major in Physics at UCLA as well.

Bloomington provided Rashid with a bit of culture shock upon his arrival from LA. However, he soon grew to enjoy the friendliness of the small city and its surrounding Midwestern culture. The novelty of “random people talking to you” and Bloomington’s compact downtown are two things that have surprised him.

A favorite quote of Rashid’s is by Francis Crick: “It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.” Rashid’s future plans definitely involve research in neurophysics. He may also look into improving the standard introductory Physics texts that have confounded him during his first year as a graduate student.