#physics phd in germany

[quantimist]

Ph.D. Researcher in Quantum Technologies and Public Outreach

This opportunity is offered by the chair of Public Policy, Governance and Innovative Technologies at the TUM School of Social Science. As an interdisciplinary, public-interest-minded, and impact-oriented team based at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, we study, teach, and shape in practice a broad range of policy and governance issues concerning innovative technologies. We work…

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

a big german newspaper (die zeit) recently published a more critical article on the so called „verrichtungsboxen“ (literally: boxes of execution; boxes on the street where prostituted women and sex buyers can go to consummate the sexual acts; anyone who knows german will know this is a gross terminology, fitting for a gross concept).

while the fact these boxes exist is in itself a tragedy, the letters to the editor are giving me hope that there are sane people left in this country - even though from their names and writing style i would guess they are of the older generation, pension age.

heinz wohner: „if you dont get a visceral reaction of disgust and shame looking at these obfuscating boxes called ‚eco toilets‘ and the image of what is going on in them, you have to be extremely cold. calling what is being done to these women for little money ‚work like any other‘ is sugarcoating the issue.“

wolfgang wendling: „maybe there are women who voluntarily prostitute themselves, but the majority is doing it out of necessity and under pressure. calling the oldest trade in history a profession like any other is pure mockery. its not an honor to call our country europe‘s biggest brothel. but it‘s true. we should be ashamed that women are being exploited, humiliated and abused before our eyes. the more severe the poverty is in the country of origin, the cheaper you can have them. we should finally stop this, which is the only appropriate action for a civilised country.“

brigitte kosfeld: „the photo of these boxes alone speaks volumes on the inhumane practices hidden behind the liberalisation of prostitution. when the law was introduced, there were convinced social democratic women who were holding speeches on ‚prostitution as a profession‘. the intentions behind the law might have been honorable, but the reality has always been deeply anti-woman.“

professor claudia reuter, phd: „the liberalisation of prostitution in germany has failed in all regards. according to a french study, the average life expectancy of a prostitute is 33 years. babbling about self-determination in this case is inhumane. the state is not supporting prostitutes’ workers rights and their health, but their economic and sexual exploitation. its about time for the swedish model: protection for women and consistent punishment for sex buyers and pimps.“

joachim kasten: „social democrat august bebel already wrote in 1879 (…) that ‚honorable family men‘ were contributing to uphold the system prostitution with their money. according to him, they were generously let off their responsibility to disappear in anonymity. apparently today we are still where we were at the end of the 19th century.“

sabine moehler: „the description [in the article] of typical injuries prostitutes have reminded me very much of those women in physically abusive relationships show as well. a man who abuses, humiliates and demeans a prostitute in any way will do the same to his partner, wife or lover as soon as he doesnt like her behavior. (…) even reading about this is upsetting me a lot.“

and of course the one sex buyer who just had to write to the editors, peter müller: „its one sided to use the misery in berlin street prostitution with sex on public toilets as a reason to debate the liberalisation of prostitution. there are many brothels were the ladies are treated with respect. of course working as a prostitute harbors certain risks - but there are women who freely choose this job, and in my experience, some of them are doing it with passion and love. the regular prices are not the dumping prices you mentioned (5-10 euros) [note: which is indeed normal in street prostitution] but actually 80-100 euros for half an hour - not to mention those dont include extras and humiliating sex practices. i met women who earn better in prostitution than some employees in germany.“

loose translation and highlights by me.

[whencyclopedia]

Discovery of X-Rays

The discovery of X-rays – a form of invisible radiation that can pass through objects, including human tissue – revolutionised science and medicine in the late 19th century. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), a German scientist, discovered X-rays or Röntgen rays in November 1895. He was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics for this discovery in 1901.

The thrill of the discovery became caught up in the late Victorian obsession with ghosts and photography. X-rays could 'photograph' the invisible, penetrating flesh, exposing bones and the human skeleton. 'Bone portraits' became popular, and photographers opened studios for a public fascinated by otherworldly images of skeletons.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Wellcome Collection (CC BY)

One of the first medical uses of X-rays occurred in 1896 when John Francis Hall-Edwards (1858-1926), a British doctor, located a needle embedded in a colleague's hand. X-ray technology soon moved from being seen as a new form of photography to a modern diagnostic tool used by hospitals and medical practitioners.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a meticulous scientist, but the discovery of X-rays may have been an unintentional result of his work with cathode rays in his Würzburg laboratory in Bavaria, Germany.

Early Years

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born in Lennep, Prussia (Remscheid-Lennep, Germany) on 27 March 1845, to a German textile merchant father and a Dutch mother. He was an only child and spent his early years in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. His father, Friedrich Conrad Röntgen (1801-1884), managed a cloth manufacturing business in Apeldoorn. The family had also moved due to political unrest in Prussia.

Röntgen attended the Utrecht Technical School from 1861 to 1863 but was expelled when a fellow student drew a caricature of a teacher. Röntgen was implicated but refused to name the student responsible. Despite excellent marks, he did not graduate with a technical diploma and could not obtain a degree in the Netherlands. He was accepted by the Mechanical Technical Division of the Federal Polytechnic School in Switzerland in 1865, where he gained a diploma in mechanical engineering and, in 1869, a PhD in physics with his thesis Studies on Gases.

The German experimental physicist August Kundt (1839-1894) was Röntgen's supervisor. In 1866, Kundt designed the Kundt Tube, a glass apparatus that measured the speed of sound in gases. Kundt significantly influenced Röntgen and his research career.

Röntgen followed Kundt to the University of Würzburg in 1870, where he worked as an unpaid assistant during a time of rapid advancements in experimental physics. Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was researching electromagnetic radiation and established the connection between light and electromagnetic radiation. Maxwell also took the first colour photograph in 1861, based on his three-colour theory that the human eye sees colour through a combination of blue, red, and green light. Massachusetts-born Samuel Morse (1791-1872) developed the electric telegraph, which transmitted messages over long distances, and Morse code to encode messages, while Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) invented the telephone.

Of particular interest to Röntgen was the work of German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) and British chemist William Crookes (1832-1919). Both scientists studied cathode rays – invisible streams of electrons whose behaviour can be observed when an electrical current is passed between the two electrodes (cathode and anode) in a glass vacuum tube. It is called a cathode ray because the electrons are emitted from the cathode (or negative electrode) when an electrical current heats it, and the electron stream glows. Johann Wilhelm Hittorf (1824-1914) was the first to detect cathode rays glowing green in the glass wall of a vacuum tube in 1869 but did not realise that X-rays had been produced during his experiments.

Röntgen became fascinated with the fluorescence caused by cathode rays hitting certain materials, such as salts like barium platinocyanide, which glow a greenish-yellow colour when exposed to cathode rays. It was this fascination that led to the discovery of X-rays.

Continue reading...

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Michael Polanyi (11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976)

Born Mihály Pollacsek in Budapest in 1891, Michael Polanyi first studied medicine at the University of Budapest before studying chemistry in Germany. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army as a medical officer during World War I, finishing a PhD on adsorption in the meantime, then returned to medicine after the war. He emigrated to Germany briefly, then again to the UK in 1933 after the rise of the Nazi party, working in the field of physical chemistry. Polanyi is often regarded as a polymath, with diversified interests throughout his life including chemistry, economics, and philosophy. In the field of materials science he is known for his work, simultaneous but independent from the work of Egon Orowan and G.I. Taylor, proposing a theory of plastic deformation in ductile materials using the theory of dislocations.

Sources/Further Reading: (Image source - Wikipedia) (infed.org) (ISI) (1996 article)

[sysy-studyblr]

hey! i just finished my grade 12 exams and was looking into studying in germany. i was just curious what exactly you’re doing right now?

hi! so I have been waiting for someone to ask me this omg!!! currently cracking my knuckles opening up my laptop to answer this one

curriculum

so! essentially the main thing here is whether your high-school diploma is enough for university study, i.e: is it qualified as a Hochschulzugangsberechtigung, HZB. I did the International Baccalaureate diploma, and based on the curriculum (and subjects chosen) you have studied, the route will be different for you. the German curriculum is of course best for studying there, but the IGCSE one is solid too. I am not sure for others, I live in kenya, so the main education systems are the Kenyan one, IB, and the Cambridge IGCSE one. best websites to use to figure out how to get there are as follow. DAAD is based on anabin, but anabin is from the culture ministers conference (the OG guys of deciding this study)

DAAD:

https://www.daad.de/en/studying-in-germany/requirements/admission-database/

anabin:

https://anabin.kmk.org/no_cache/filter/schulabschluesse-mit-hochschulzugang.html#land_gewaehlt

the main categories are:

a. diploma valid in both country of education + Germany

b. diploma valid in only country of education, not germany

c. diploma not valid

field of study

based on your choice for your field, and also bachelors, masters or phd, all play a role. stem courses will generally not be taught in English, and you will just have to know German, if you want to study stem. unless you can find a specific international university, there are almost no courses (I could not find even one pure physics course in English) for stem in English. if there are, you will probably compromise on quality of education.

humanities courses are taught in English, so if you go into literature, business, psychology, economics, hotel management, etc. there are plenty of courses at very very good universities.

public universities are usually the best in Germany, have relatively low tuition (recently introduced in some uni's for international students) and are extremely high in quality.

what I am doing rn

my diploma went into category b, above. despite getting above average IB points, being a student with tons of extracurriculars, the subjects I took, along with the general regard of the IB diploma in Germany resulted in my situation.

I have to do a studienkolleg (a foundation course for international students). in order to apply for a stem oriented course, as I am going into physics (women in stem!!), I need a studienkolleg, and in order to go into the studienkolleg, I need B2 German.

I have essentially taken a year off (may 2023 - sept 2024) to figure out how I am getting there. I started German in September 2024, after figuring out I need to know it + I need a foundation. everyone online has said you can't learn a foreign language in a year - do not listen to them, it is entirely possible, difficult, but honestly doable.

so yeah! ask if you have any other questions. despite all this, the reason I want to study there is quality of education in relation to tuition, the job market, the benefits for international students, and the quality of life.

[cheerycherrycandy-resurrected]

Ghost Mutuals Tag Game 🦇 Send this to the last ten Ghesties in your notifications, then reply here with ten facts about yourself! Let's get to know each other!

and @sovaghoul and @to-spread-the-ministry

Thanks for the tag!! I have no imagination, so have 10 incredibly mundane facts:

I used to play the viola (until I moved countries)

my favorite colour is purple

I'm doing a PhD in physics (thoughts and prayers are welcome)

I currently live in Germany, this is still the most impulsive and best thing I've ever done

I spent lockdown making my (parents') cat instagram famous

I'm a somewhat fussy eater - I recently spent 30mins with a knife chiseling pea-sized chunks of blue cheese off 2 frozen pizzas

I like to crochet

I broke my ankle in my first term at uni, falling up a flight of stairs

the first fanfiction I ever wrote was a 5-chapter shitpost about draco malfoy and an apple

there is no 10 I have run out of ideas and want to have dinner now

[newluddite]

Oppenheimer the movie.

I may not bother to see it. I know the story. The birth of the A-Bomb is a great and terrifying story. I grew up in the duck and cover age. If you do not know about that google it. Feeling fear makes one want to know why. The movie explosions may be fun, but my wife hates things like that and so its go alone or not at all.

The Manhattan project was huge, dangerous, and expensive. It established towns built for the job that were not there before. In Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Los Alamos, New Mexico new towns eventually small cities were made. One because there was abundant electrical power the other because it was so isolated and remote in case something happened.

Money was no object it was war.

First thing to note is that it was not the most expensive WW2 project. Developing the Boeing B29 bomber cost more. That is just one plane type.

The B29 is the plane that dropped the two A-bombs in Japan. It is also the plane that firebombed cities in Japan which actually killed more people and destroyed more homes that the A-Bombs. I do not say that to minimalize the impact of the A-Bomb. It was horrible, but many other horrible things were done as well by the winning side.

I want to talk about the Bhagavad Gita. Hard turn there? No not really. Much is made of the Oppenheimer Quote "Now I have become Death destroyer of Worlds". As in many things there are layers to see that superficial people will miss. That is a line from the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna who is a powerful god avatar shows his "true" form of Vishnu to Arjuna the prince. In doing so he recites those words.

At issue is Arjuna, a Prince in command of an army who does not want to fight the battle as the other side is powerful and has his friends and relatives and revered teachers in it. He knows many will die and is racked by guilt and reluctance. The back story is long and complex and beyond knowing this immediate situation is not necessary to get into.

I am far from a scholar, but Oppenheimer was. He read and translated the story from Sanskrit. He also spoke German Fluently as he was of German Jewish heritage which is why his family moved to the US. He studied Physics in Germany and wrote several papers in German and that is where he got his PhD in 1927. He knew most if not all the people working in Germany in advanced Physics. He had friends there.

When a few scientists during WW2 wrote the US president a letter noting that a huge new bomb was possible and that the leading experts were in Nazi Germany the math was done. It was a race. It was war, and I am still talking about the Bhagavad Gita.

The core issue is Dharma / Karma and well as I said I am not a scholar, but I take those as a mixture of Fate and Duty. The battle Arjuna must fight must go on, it will go on. That is Fate. He must do his best as a soldier and general that is duty. There is no choice. Krishna is explaining in detail why he must proceed.

So here is a man deeply conflicted with the skills and knowledge to do a hard thing who must actually do it even though others, many who he knows and loves may die.

Oppenheimer knew that the bomb was possible. He knew the people on the other side who were working on it and could do it. He knew it would be done. As it could be done it must be done. All that is discussed in the Bhagavad Gita and was deeply known to Oppenheimer.

So the simple line about destroyer of worlds is not as simple as simple people would have it.

Oppenheimer became a proponent of nuclear disarmament. He was also caught up in the red scare of Joseph McCarthy. He knew communists. They were for a long time just a political movement. Then they became the Enemy in the USA. Just as Jews were the Enemy in Nazi Germany. A convenient hate target for small people who craved power.

[phantom-le6]

Film Review - Oppenheimer

Now we come to what I feel has been the cinematic centrepiece of 2023 films, and after so long on science-fiction franchises, it’s a real breath of fresh air in the realm of war-era biographical drama from what I’ve recently been looking through.  Yes, folks, this is my review of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer…

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

In 1926, the 22-year-old doctoral student J. Robert Oppenheimer grapples with anxiety and homesickness while studying experimental quantum physics under Patrick Blackett at the University of Cambridge. Oppenheimer clashes with Blackett and leaves him a poisoned apple but later retrieves it. Visiting scientist Niels Bohr advises Oppenheimer to study theoretical physics at the University of Göttingen.

Oppenheimer completes his PhD and meets scientist Isidor Isaac Rabi. They later meet theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg in Switzerland. Wanting to expand quantum physics research in the US, Oppenheimer teaches at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. He marries Katherine "Kitty" Puening, a biologist and ex-communist, and has an intermittent affair with Jean Tatlock, a troubled communist psychiatrist who later dies by suicide.

When nuclear fission is discovered in 1938 after the Germans succeed in splitting the atom, Oppenheimer realizes it could be weaponized. In 1942, during World War II, US Army Colonel Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, recruits Oppenheimer as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory to develop an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer fears the German nuclear research program, led by Heisenberg, might yield a fission bomb for the Nazis.

Oppenheimer assembles a team consisting of Rabi, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller, and collaborates with the scientists Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and David L. Hill at the University of Chicago. Teller's calculations reveal an atomic detonation could destroy the world. After consulting with Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer concludes the chances are acceptably low. Teller attempts to leave the project after his proposal to construct a hydrogen bomb is rejected, but Oppenheimer convinces him to stay.

After Germany's surrender in 1945, some scientists question the bomb's relevance. Oppenheimer believes it would end the ongoing Pacific War and save Allied lives. The Trinity test is successful, and President Harry S. Truman orders the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in Japan's surrender. Though publicly praised, Oppenheimer is guilt-ridden and haunted by the destruction and mass fatalities. After Oppenheimer expresses his guilt to Truman, the president berates him and dismisses his plea to cease further atomic development.

As an advisor to the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Oppenheimer's stance generates controversy, while Teller's hydrogen bomb receives renewed interest amidst the burgeoning Cold War. AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss resents Oppenheimer for publicly dismissing Strauss's concerns about exporting radioisotopes and for recommending negotiations with the Soviet Union after the Soviets successfully detonated their own bomb. Strauss also believes that Oppenheimer denigrated him during a conversation Oppenheimer had with Einstein in 1947.

In 1954, wanting to eliminate Oppenheimer's political influence, Strauss secretly orchestrates a private security hearing before a Personnel Security Board concerning Oppenheimer's Q clearance during which his loyalty to the United States is questioned. However, the hearing is a trial in all but name. Oppenheimer's past communist ties are exploited and his associates' testimony is twisted against him, with Teller's being the most damaging. After Kitty delivers impassioned testimony in defence of herself and her husband, the board no longer suspects Oppenheimer of disloyalty but revokes his clearance, thereby damaging his public image and limiting his influence on American nuclear policy.

In 1959, during Strauss's Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Commerce, Hill testifies about Strauss's personal motives for engineering Oppenheimer's downfall. Strauss's nomination is voted down. In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson presents Oppenheimer with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation.

A flashback reveals that Oppenheimer and Einstein's 1947 conversation never mentioned Strauss. Instead, the two discussed Oppenheimer’s legacy, and Oppenheimer expressed his fear that they had indeed started a chain reaction that will destroy the world.

Review:

What began for me as just something I was just kind of curious to see at the cinema has, in hindsight, probably turned out to be my top film of 2023.  While efforts in the MCU, DC live-action and animation and the Transformers have wowed audiences with some element of spectacle or other, Oppenheimer wows us with acting ability and an all-star cast delivers on a great story.  Of course, when a film is handling the kind of subject matter that Oppenheimer does, a great story narrative is crucial, and thankfully the film delivers.  Now it isn’t a completely accurate story, but it is apparently very accurate, and where the inaccuracies occur, I would argue that these do not detract from the film we are presented with.  Why?  Well, let’s consider where the inaccuracies lie and we shall see.

Firstly, like any film, Oppenheimer is not a factual documentary, but a feature-length dramatic narrative, and moreover, it is based on a specific biography about Oppenheimer written by people other than Oppenheimer or any close family, friends or contemporaries.  As such, the medium of this story and its source material will bring inaccuracy to the table even before any effort is made to actually write a story.  Second, while some wider events are omitted, that is because they didn’t happen to Oppenheimer, so looking at the impact of nuclear weapons on Japan, other sites involved in the Manhattan project and the aftermath among Native Americans in the Los Alamos area isn’t relevant to this particular re-telling of this history.  The film is about the title character, so its focus isn’t going to be on wider events.

As such, if people want to see wider events in film in the wake of Oppenheimer, if Nolan’s work is to spark a cinematic chain reaction as much as the real Oppenheimer’s work set off a chain reaction of nuclear proliferation, then I would say write those films and get them made.  Don’t just criticise this film for not covering a wider perspective of things; if people really care about seeing more of World War 2 than just your bog-standard Pacific naval battle or soldiers and tanks rolling over Europe, then they need to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.  This is what I do to try and create fiction with autistic main characters like myself, and if I knew more about World War 2, I’d probably dive into that myself.  We should see the other aspects of nuclear weapons being developed back in the 1940’s, as well as American internment camps for Japanese-Americans, a more nuanced and less America-centric look at the events preceding Pearl Harbour, and so on.  However, it is not the place of this specific film to tell those stories, as Oppenheimer is as much a biographical film as it is a war film, so let’s let it be what it is and make other war films to tell the wider stories.

The only other inaccuracy, or supposed inaccuracy, relates to the poison apple scene from early in the film.  This is apparently something Oppenheimer himself recounted, but it’s not anything that can apparently be substantiated.  However, given that some later film scenes take us into the imaginings of certain characters, particularly Kitty Oppenheimer, and given that the supposed poisoning occurs when Oppenheimer was homesick and sleep-deprived, it could well be that what Oppenheimer believed to happen was simply his sleep-deprived mind confusing imagination with reality, and his recounting of the event later could simply indicate he never untangled the two.  Regardless of whether this event is true or simply an error in the biography that the film replicates, it’s one of many examples that shows Oppenheimer to be a fundamentally complex, contradictory and fascinating human being.

The film handles its presentation of Oppenheimer’s life and work very well, in large part due to Cillian Murphy’s performance in the lead role, backed up by one of the most amazing all-star ensemble casts I’ve ever seen.  Many of the cast are people I recognise from at least one past film or another that I’ve seen, and not one of them ever seems to put a foot wrong here.  If I have any critique of the film, it’s only that some of the more badgering moments in Oppenheimer’s security clearance appeal hearings were not my personal cup of tea, which doesn’t detract in any way from the overall quality of the film, nor from its end score.  10 out of 10, hands down, and I would say that a lot of film makers need to watch this film before making anything more either in wholly original films or franchise instalments, because Oppenheimer really helps to showcase what other films are currently lacking.

[denimbex1986]

'On the morning of 16 July 1945, a blinding light tore through the still-dark sky over the Jornada Del Muerto desert in New Mexico. It was the birth of the Atomic Era, but theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s response was a curt, “I guess it worked”— at least according to his brother Frank Oppenheimer.

Years later, in an NBC news documentary, Oppenheimer recited a line from the Bhagavad Gita when talking about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

This powerful and chilling quote features twice in Christopher Nolan’s 2023 biopic of one of the most celebrated and vilified scientists in history. But the movie Oppenheimer is not just about Oppenheimer. It also illuminates the evolution of the Manhattan Project and the alliance of brilliant minds working to create the world’s first atomic bomb.

Overall, it’s the story of an era when World War-II ignited a race to harness the atom’s hidden power after the discovery of nuclear fission by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman in 1938. For all its destructive capabilities, or perhaps because of it, the atomic bomb became a symbol of power.

Just as artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics are central to the current scientific epoch, the exploration of atomic energy and nuclear fission powered the science of the 1940s.

But the film’s gaze, focused on Oppenheimer, offers only glimpses of his scientific contemporaries —some, recipients of the Nobel Prize— whose contributions were pivotal to shaping the course of modern physics.

Its lens also did not capture parallel developments on the other side of the globe in India, where Homi Bhabha was leading the country’s quest for atomic energy.

In 1948, for instance, Bhabha had urged Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that the development of atomic energy be “entrusted to a very small and high-powered body composed of say three people with executive power, and answerable directly to the Prime Minister without any intervening link.”

Here’s a look at some key figures from the atomic era, some portrayed in the film and others whose roles remained beyond its scope.

A rough start

Robert ‘Oppie’ Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) was born into a wealthy New York Jewish family in 1904. After getting his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Harvard, he went to Cambridge University to study physics.

He did not see instant stardom. As shown in the movie, he was so bad at experimental work that he was miserable. It was also in Cambridge that he met soon-to-be Nobel laureate Patrick Blackett (James D’Arcy), featured in the movie as the professor he tried to poison with an apple. While no one ate the apple, his mischief became known and his parents had to convince authorities to not press charges.

Notably, Homi Bhabha, later to be known as the father of the Indian atomic programme, studied in Cambridge in the late 1920s, and worked at the Cavendish lab, which Oppenheimer wanted to join.

But Oppenheimer left Cambridge battling severe depression and in 1926 moved to Germany where he completed his PhD in physics. He was 23 years old, and Europe was still uneasy in the aftermath of the First World War. Mussolini had seized power in Italy and Hitler was just rising in popularity in Germany.

Early encounters with friends & foes

During his stay in Germany, Oppenheimer cultivated relationships with several fellow colleagues, some of whom would become future collaborators.

Among them was Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi (Danny Deferrari). While he joined the Manhattan Project relatively late, he played a role in selecting Japanese targets. In the 1930s, Bhabha also collaborated closely with Fermi while he was on the Isaac Newton scholarship in Rome.

Significantly, it was Fermi who alerted military leaders to nuclear energy’s potential and is renowned for creating the first nuclear reactor. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize for his work on radioactivity and discovery of transuranium elements— the synthetic element fermium is named after him.

Like Oppenheimer, Fermi opposed the development of hydrogen bombs. He defended Oppenheimer in the security hearing in 1954 when the latter was accused of being a Soviet spy during the McCarthy era.

Oppenheimer also became close to Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighöfer), a German theoretical physicist whose legacy includes the uncertainty principle and the 1932 Nobel Prize for “creation of quantum mechanics”.

However, Heisenberg was also the principal scientist in the Nazi nuclear weapons programme during World War-II, and contributed to West German nuclear reactor development.

The movie shows Oppenheimer’s team in a race with Heisenberg’s to develop the bomb, but in reality, Heisenberg never came close to success on this front. In fact, it is believed that conscientious German scientists secretly sabotaged the research.

Heisenberg, notably, spent time in India in the 1920s as a guest of Tagore, indulging in deep discussions about philosophy, life, and science.

In Germany, Oppenheimer also became friendly with Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), whose calculations were often referred to in the movie. The relationship between the men, however, eventually soured.

Teller and Oppenheimer disagreed about the type of weapon to prioritise in the Manhattan Project. Teller was a proponent of developing hydrogen bombs, and, in fact, came to be known as the father of the hydrogen bomb. In the closed-door hearing, he testified against Oppenheimer.

Onscreen, Teller can be easily identified by his sweaty eyebrows. He is the person with whom Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty refuses to shake hands.

Another member of Oppenheimer’s circle in Europe was Polish-American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz). In the film, Rabi is featured in a scene where Oppenheimer is about to give a lecture in Amsterdam. Rabi offers to help a Dutch scientist translate Oppenheimer’s lecture into English. However, Oppenheimer surprises everyone by speaking in Dutch himself, a language he learned in just a few weeks.

Rabi was a lifelong friend of Oppenheimer, and in the movie, he is the only one who talks about Oppenheimer’s religion, addressing it in the train scene. He won the 1944 Physics Nobel for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in MRIs today. His work also led to the development of the microwave oven.

Return to America

When Oppenheimer returned to the USA in the late 1920s, he received job offers for professorships at both UC Berkeley and Caltech. He opted for the position at Berkeley while also taking on a visiting teaching role at Caltech.

At this time, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent time at a New Mexico ranch to recover. He fell in love with the region, where he had also been sent as a teenager to recover from dysentery. It was here that he would later set up his secret Los Alamos laboratories.

In Berkeley, in the 1930s, he worked with another Nobel Prize experimental physicist, Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett). Oppenheimer was introduced to the Manhattan Project through Lawrence, who later became an H-bomb proponent.

In the early days of their relationship, Oppenheimer and Lawrence were very close, with the latter even naming his son Robert. The two fell out later due to political disagreements, but Lawrence refused to testify against Oppenheimer in 1954.

Meanwhile, what is now called the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen had become another big hub for theoretical and nuclear physics research in the late 1930s. Here, Homi Bhabha worked with the likes of Wolfgang Pauli, Hans Kramer, Enrico Fermi, and, of course, Neils Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) himself.

Bohr, who discovered the internal structure of an atom and showed that electrons orbit the nucleus, was involved with the Manhattan Project only for a short time, but is known for his work on quantum theory, for which he won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was involved in the establishment of CERN. After the war, he became a proponent of international cooperation on nuclear energy.

Bohr had visited India on a couple of occasions, upon the invitation of physicist Alladi Ramakrishnan, who had him deliver lectures in Chennai. Bohr was particularly taken with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and was very supportive of the Indian nuclear research programme.

In the movie, he can be seen handling the poisoned apple, which was not intended for him, and asking Oppie to listen to music instead of reading sheet music.

Communism, a car named Garuda, marriage

Many of Oppenheimer’s political and spiritual beliefs coalesced in the years leading up to World War-II.

In the early 1930s, his interests expanded to encompass languages, myths, and religion. Mesmerised by the Bhagavad Gita, he learned to read Sanskrit and even named his car ‘Garuda’ after the divine vehicle of Lord Vishnu.

Through this decade, Oppenheimer studied cosmic rays, nuclear physics, quantum electrodynamics, as well as relativity and astrophysics. However, the onset of World War II in 1939 forced many scientists, including Homi Bhabha, to return to their home countries.

By this time, Oppenheimer had adopted many ideas for social reform that came to be categorised as communist. While he never was an open member of the Communist Party of USA, he donated money through communist channels for social causes.

In the film, Oppenheimer’s wife, Katherine “Kitty” Puening (Emily Blunt) is depicted as testifying to this effect during her hearing.

Kitty, whom Oppenheimer met in 1939, was a huge influence in is life and remained by his side until his death. A German-born American botanist, she was a former member of the communist party.

Before Oppenheimer had even joined the Manhattan Project, an FBI file was opened on him in 1941.

Manhattan Project kicks off

Oppenheimer’s work in quantum mechanics and nuclear physics had caught the eye of many scientists, and his ability to be an informed liaison between scientists and defence forces led to General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) handpicking him as a “genius” to lead the Manhattan Project. The two are often credited together for producing the world’s first atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer started off by holding a summer school for bomb theory in Berkeley, involving many of his colleagues and students, including Robert Serber (who was romantically involved with Kitty after Oppenheimer’s death) Teller, and German-American theoretical physicist Hans Bethe (Gustaf Skarsgård).

Bethe was personally asked by Oppenheimer to join the Manhattan Project and oversee its theoretical division. He is best known for his work at the confluence of astrophysics and nuclear physics, winning the 1967 Physics Nobel for his work on stellar nucleosynthesis, the process by which heavier elements are created in stars.

In 1942, the plans for a secret lab in Los Alamos were in place. The US military notified the local Indian tribes living in the area that they had 24 hours to vacate, and usurped the land.

Set up at the Los Alamos Ranch School, the Manhattan Project grew from 1943 to 1945 to include thousands of people. Oppenheimer ran the project efficiently, and was noted for his administrative ability among scientists and military personnel.

At the same time as the establishment of Los Alamos in US, a premier institute of research was being established in India. At the time, Bhabha was a professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), and was working with JRD Tata and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar to establish TIFR in Mumbai.

‘The world will never be the same again’

In 1945, the Trinity test marked the world’s first atomic bomb trial, and the first occurrence of a mushroom cloud.

Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid) claimed to be the sole person to witness the test without protective glasses. The famous (or infamous) physicist was a graduate student when he joined the Manhattan Project, Feynman contributed to safety protocols for uranium storage. His work in quantum electrodynamics earned him the 1965 Physics Nobel.

After the test, Oppenheimer famously remarked that the world would never be the same again.

Indeed, the Trinity test released nuclear fallout into the atmosphere, which continues to persist today and has contaminated modern steel. This led to the use of “low-background steel” or pre-Trinity steel in modern physics experiments and radiation-sensitive devices like Geiger counters. Sunk WWII submarines have long been illegally scavenged for their pre-war steel.

Moral doubts & Szilárd petition

After the test, as shown in the movie, some scientists at the project began to express their moral qualms about dropping the bomb on civilians.

In 1945, Hungarian-German-American physicist Leo Szilárd (Máté Haumann) initiated the Szilárd petition, co-signed by 70 Manhattan Project scientists. The petition advocating for the US to forewarn Japan and to deploy the bomb in unpopulated islands.

Szilárd, the first to conceive nuclear chain reactions, drafted the letter for Einstein’s approval of the Manhattan Project. But despite his involvement, he became a vocal anti-nuclear warfare proponent.

Notably, he briefly resided in India during the 1930s while his wife worked with children. He interacted with many Indian scientists, including Obaid Siddiqui, founder-director of TIFR’s National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS).

One of the signatories of Szilárd’s petition was Lilli Hornig (Olivia Thirlby), who had originally joined as a typist at Los Alamos. Her scientific skills, however, proved prodigious. While she wanted to work with plutonium, there were concerns among the men that the radioactive element could be dangerous for the female reproductive system, as depicted in the movie. Hornig, therefore, worked with high-explosive lenses instead.

She later became a chemistry professor at Brown University and played a key role in establishing the Korea Institute for Science and Technology.

American nuclear physicist David Hill (Rami Malek) also signed the Szilard petition.

In the movie, he is shown giving a searing testimony in 1959 against U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) and his treatment of Oppenheimer— but more on that later.

Manhattan Project scientist Luis Walter Alvarez (Alex Wolff) also makes an appearance in the film. He is depicted as the scientist running out of a shop to tell Oppenheimer the news of German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann achieving nuclear fission.

Alvarez won the Nobel Prize in 1968 for his work in designing a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber which could take photographs of subatomic particles. However, his most enduring legacy is arguably the Alvarez Hypothesis, which he co-developed with his geologist son Walter Alvarez. The hypothesis states that the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impact.

Post-war tumult

After the Manhattan Project and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Oppenheimer grew disillusioned with atomic and hydrogen bombs.

He subsequently took over as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and later chaired the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission, while other nations pursued their own nuclear programmes, including India, where the Atomic Energy Commission of India was set up in 1948 under Bhabha’s leadership.

But Oppenheimer’s left-leaning communist ideals caused the US government to become suspicious of him as fear of USSR’s technological and military advances grew.

Adding to these suspicions was his on-and-off affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a communist party member. The two intermittently shared a relationship both before and during his marriage with Kitty. Oppenheimer even named the 1945 Trinity test as a tribute to her, as she had introduced him to John Donne’s sonnet that said “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”.

The two last met in 1943 when Oppenheimer was already under FBI surveillance. And while Tatlock was found dead by suicide in 1944, at the age of 29, the affair had ripple effects even a decade later.

The pall of doubt over Oppenheimer’s ideological leanings led to a hearing by the AEC in 1954 that resulted in the revoking of his security clearance and effectively his role in the US atomic energy establishment. This initiative was backed by politician and then AEC chairman Lewis Strauss, depicted as Oppenheimer’s prime antagonist in the movie.

Upon hearing the news of Oppenheimer’s treatment, many in the scientific community were outraged and offered shelter to him in other countries.

Homi Bhabha was upset too. He was friends with both Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer and often dined with them when he was in New York. Bhabha went as far as to urge Prime Minister Nehru to invite Oppenheimer to immigrate to India after the 1954 hearing.

Oppenheimer, however, refused to leave the US, claiming it would not be inappropriate until he was cleared of all charges.

Significantly, the controversial hearing led to a backlash against Strauss too. In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Strauss as Secretary of Commerce. But in the hearing to consider his nomination, depicted in black and white in the movie, many senators questioned his qualifications, specifically in the view of the Oppenheimer controversy. Strauss’s nomination was ultimately rejected by the Senate.

Epilogue

Oppenheimer’s time at Los Alamos and outside of it was full of legends of physics. The most well-known of these was, of course, Albert Einstein (Tom Conti).

A key scene in the film shows Oppenheimer seeking advice from Einstein about calculations suggesting that a nuclear explosion could destroy the earth.

However, as director Nolan has acknowledged in interviews, this interaction did not happen. Oppenheimer did seek similar advice, but he went to Arthur Compton, a Nobel Prize winner and director of Manhattan Project’s centre at the University of Chicago.

In real life, Einstein and Oppenheimer did become friends, but were closest when they worked together at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. It was here where Oppenheimer served the last years of his career, retiring in 1966. A year later, he died of throat cancer.

In December 2022, shortly after the release of the trailer of the biopic, the 1954 ruling to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance was nullified, citing a flawed process.'

[chiefarbitermoon]

William J. Spain Seismology Observatory at Fordham University

William J. Spain Seismology Observatory at Fordham University

Kevin Bergin

Adjunct College Professor at Marist College

March 5, 2021

When a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Alaska struck with enough power to generate a tsunami warning. Scientists all around the world compiled extensive data from many international sources concerning this frightening event. Included in their analysis were seismic recordings from Fordham University’s Observatory. A seismic station developed chiefly by the contributions of two extraordinary men.

The William J. Spain Seismic Observatory, on the university's Rose Hill campus, in The Bronx, rests approximately 5,000 miles from the epicenter of this sudden, earth shaking release of energy in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands region. Despite the great distance, the seismology center provided valuable information as it has continued to do for over 100 years.

Fordham is not an institution that you might typically think of for this very nuanced, capital-intensive field of investigation. But The Jesuits have had a long history working in this field. According to an article in the Seismology Society of America Journal: The first seismographic station installed by Jesuits was about 1868 in the Observatory of Manila. In 1909 sixteen identical horizontal Wiechert seismographs of 80 kg mass were purchased in Germany and were distributed to fifteen colleges in the United States and one in Canada.

In fact, the university doesn’t have a geology department. But because of the unique rock-formations, in that part of The Bronx, and the generosity brought on by a school tragedy, the oldest observatory in the region, as well as one of the oldest in the United States, was developed.

"(It is) best with contact to underground bedrock.” explained Stephen Holler, PhD, Associate Professor of Physics and literally the keeper-of-the-keys for the observatory, “In this part of The Bronx, the bedrock, is exposed near the surface on the campus as well as the nearby New York Botanical Gardens and Bronx Zoo.

The superstructure of the observatory was a beautiful quadrangular Gothic building of native gneiss ( metamorphic rock) which was quarried from the excavations for the Grand Concourse Subway station.* It included a flat roof, turreted ledge and two smaller wings, which extended the building into an oblong structure approximately 40 feet by 20 feet. A concrete pier was sunk to the bedrock. This is essential for obtaining proper, accurate readings.

William Spain Steps In

On April 3rd, 1922, William Spain Jr. died as a sophomore at Fordham. His father, William J. Spain Sr., a late 19th Century Irish immigrant, famous hurler and Gaelic footballer, donated the seismic observatory. It was erected to the memory of his son. Spain graciously assumed all the expenses including donating a new set of three electro-magnetic seismographs, two horizontal components and vertical component(s).

The building was opened in October of 1924. At the dedication ceremony, the building was blessed by Bishop John Collins S.J. (after whom the Collins Auditorium was named). The prayer used at the ceremony blessing was sent over from The Vatican and has since become the official prayer to be used at any future Blessing of Seismic Observatories anywhere in the world. In addition, Pope Pius XI sent over a bronze plaque; which depicts a 4th Century Roman Bishop, St. Emidio, who performed rescue work-some deemed miraculous-after a tragic Italian earthquake during his time.

The 3rd Time or the 3rd location seems to be the charm

Originally located by the slope across from where the softball field currently stands, near Faber Hall, it was moved two years later, “since the rock on which the observatory had been built, sloped off or down rather sharply.” According to Professor Holler.

As a result, the pier developed a decided daily tilt or sway, mostly as a result of thermal expansion caused by the sun's rays. The lines on the record-which should be straight lines-wandered all over in response to the pier's tilt. The recording of an earthquake, during such wandering, was nearly impossible. The observatory was moved in one piece on soaped beams. Those supporting beams of the observatory were slid a few feet at a time. The new site chosen, known as Rose Hill, was an outcrop of (bed)rock that comes to the surface.

Moving the seismology station under the direction of J. Joseph Lynch, S.J.

In the 1930s, the University made the decision to create a more powerful structure on the site known as Rose Hill. Although generally referred to as the collective name of Fordham’s Bronx campus, its specific location, complete with previously mentioned exposed bedrock, lies below the Gothic-Stone structure and internationally known clock tower, at the centerpiece of the campus-named Keating Hall.

To make room for this construction, the seismology station would be moved once again. Now it rests at its current location just off Edwards Parade Ground.

Building a Support Structure to Last

To take care of the seismographs, specifically to avoid corrosion, an underground vault some 40 feet by 20 feet, was first blasted out of the rock. This vault was lined with concrete walls and a roof one foot thick. Buried deep in the ground it created a dark soundproofed repository

The top of this 10 feet high vault, ended 6 ft. below the surface level of the ground. This depth was necessary to maintain a constant temperature (65 degrees Fahrenheit during Winter & Summer). Any use of artificial heat would impact the sensitive instrument readings.

From the earliest days of earthquake recording, annoying, disturbing ground waves were observed periodically on seismograph outcomes. “When the waves from an earthquake roll into an observatory, superimposed angry ground waves make it almost impossible to decipher the quake.” Wrote Father John Joseph Lynch, S.J., who directed Fordham’s seismology center for over 30 years and in 1946, designed an observatory for the Dominican Republic to give warning of earthquakes. “Heavy commuter trains from the neighboring New York Central (now Metro-North rail lines) all leave their distinctive record and can be identified.” Father Lynch, also encouraged the class of 1924, as Sophomores, to donate the first modem addition to the Station in the form of a horizontal seismograph with optical recording.

To avoid the interference of the Big City, including the then active 3rd Avenue el train, a new station was set up at the Jesuit Seminary, College of St. Andrew, in Hyde Park, NY (which is now the main campus of the Culinary Institute of America).

“Not only were readings affected by traffic and trains.” added Doctor Holler, “They had horses to eat the grass rather than have lawnmowers disturb readings.”

Stephen Holler obtained his Doctorate in Applied Physics from Yale University and joined the faculty of Fordham in 2011.

Rev. J. Joseph Lynch, SJ: An Immigrant Story

Father Lynch was born in London. He joined the Society of Jesus and was sent to study the physical sciences in the Netherlands and at Oxford University. He once likened the earth to a ''bowl of Jell-O'' and said that New York City was just ''writing her autograph'' each day at rush hour. He came to Fordham in 1920 where he began work on the university's seismic observatory and served as a professor of seismology and mathematics until 1967. At the New York World's Fair in 1939 and again in 1940 an extensive seismological exhibit was set up with an attendant in charge daily from 10 a.m. until 10 pm. Some 3,000,000 people visited the exhibit.

Among his lifetime of dedication to causes both geological and religious, in 1951, he conducted seismic tests in Rome to help Vatican Officials search for the tomb of St. Peter. Described in a March 1954 article in Pageant magazine as “six-feet-two with a broad, trim build.” Since the age of nine, Lynch was without the tips of his first two fingers, on the right hand, because of an accident on his Aunt’s farm, in Ireland, while playing near a thrashing machine.

Father Lynch holds a graph which may have recorded China's 1st atomic bomb detonation.

In his memories, Watching our Trembling World for 50 Years, Lynch recounts an incident in 1929. He spied a running car, near present day Finlay Resident Hall (then the Chemistry Building) with its lights out after 10 PM. It proved to be two bootleggers. They had imported bulk liquor in barges brought up the nearby Harlem River. It was bottled and likely diluted under a Grecian stage on the Southeast corner of Edwards Parade ground, then used for graduation ceremonies. As the tall priest approached, the intruders tried to flee in their “darkened car”. He Jumped in the car, via the back seat. Despite the criminals efforts to knock Father Lynch from the vehicle, he held his position and was taken for a gangland style ride through the then relatively deserted swamps of The Bronx.

After some negotiation, the apparently unarmed bootleggers agreed to return the Jesuit to campus.

If true, Father Lynch concludes this tale with a bit of a comic narrative:

“The bootleg era … gave rise to gangland murders ... to much bad liquor, but to many good stories. It was by no means agreed among theologians whether the Prohibition Law was a moral law or merely penal. Newly ordained neophytes (priests) were therefore sometimes on the spot. A young curate, with one such offender in the confessional box, excused himself and asked an experienced pastor for guidance. ‘Father, I have a bootlegger in the confessional, what should I give him?’ The answer came back at once, ‘don’t give him more than four dollars a quart.”

William J. Spain: An Immigrant Story

William J Spain Sr. (September 3, 1865–April 9, 1936) was a famous Irish hurler and Gaelic footballer. He was the first player to win All Ireland hurling and football medals. He played Gaelic football with the Limerick senior inter-county team in the 1880s. Spain also played hurling with the CJ Kickhams club. Spain emigrated to the United States in April 1890. Spain played in an exhibition Gaelic football game in Madison Square Gardens in December 1890 for New York Gaelic who beat Port Chester Sarsfields.

Spain settled in New York and became a very successful silk merchant. He married Margaret Shanahan and they had two children. His son William died aged twenty while a student at Fordham University. His daughter Mary married Herbert Weston and they had a daughter Melissa who married Thomas Bancroft Jr.

William J Spain died at his holiday home in Florida on April 9, 1936. (Courtesy of William J. Spain Wikipedia Page)

*The 5 train on White Plains Road opened in 1920 and may be a better materials source?

Check this Out

There is a lot more to the history of Fordham and seismology. Check out the Pinterest link to meet other early directors of the observatory; photos of the World’s Fair Exhibits (1939-40) as well as a Seismology PinBall game: https://www.pinterest.fr/bergin0639/fordham-seismology/

Bibliography

The Fordham University Seismic Station, New York, New York, St Louis University Archives, Monograph, J.Joseph Lynch, SJ

nytimes.com › 1987/05/17 the rev. j. joseph lynch, 92; noted scholar of seismology

Pageant Magazine, 1954, Vol. 9 No. 9

Seismology Society of America, (from Seismological Research Letters, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 10-19; May/June 1996)

Watching Our Trembling World For 50 Years, J. Joseph Lynch, SJ © 1970.

William J. Spain, Wikipedia page

[evoldir]

Fwd: Postdoc: UMainz.Two.EvolutionaryBiology

Begin forwarded message: > From: evoldir@evol.biology.mcmaster.ca > Subject: Postdoc: UMainz.Two.EvolutionaryBiology > Date: 11 September 2024 at 05:11:50 BST > To: rdmpage@gmail.com > > > Two 3-year postdocs: (1) Theoretical evolutionary ecology, (2) Avian > life history evolution > > We (kokkonuts.org) are interested in strengthening our research team > that works on life history evolution in a broad sense, including the > evolution of ageing, sexual reproduction, and evolutionary conflicts. We > are therefore offering two postdoctoral positions. > > Both are offered for 3 years, ideally starting in January 2025 (with > considerable flexibility). You will join a research group that will offer > collaboration prospects within the group, with other researchers at JGU, > as well as elsewhere via Prof. Kokko’s international network. Short- > and long-term visitors, from workshops to sabbatical-length visits, > bring in excellent prospects for collaboration and idea exchange between > the postdoc and other theoreticians/empiricists as well. > > The precise topic of position (1) will be developed > together with the postdoc (see application procedure > below), while the postdoc of position (2) will take part > in a new collaboration between Prof. Kokko, Prof. Bouwhuis > (https://ift.tt/7LOv30Y) and Dr. Vedder > (https://ift.tt/sunJE7F). This > collaboration has a focus on life history theory, but also offers > opportunities for field- and experimental work on common terns and/or > captive quails, respectively. > > While primarily focused on research, both positions come with a 4 h/week > teaching expectation during semester times, with content that will be > developed together with Prof. Kokko and her other group members. The > working language of the group is English, and teaching can be arranged > flexibly in either English or German. > > We expect: > A PhD degree in a suitable field (biology, physics, mathematics) > Skills in theoretical evolutionary ecology > An interest in working in a ‘theory hub’ with full-time junior > researchers as well as short-term visitors > Proven capability of producing publishable research > An interest in developing one’s teaching skills > > We offer: > A chance to work within a newly established hub in theoretical > evolutionary ecology > A renumeration package that follows the > German EG13 scale (range marked as ‘13’ on > https://ift.tt/Bxk5XSV > Flexible working hours > Internal and external training opportunities > The position complies with the German §57 High Education Act > (Hochschulgesetz) > > To apply, please send > (1) CV + publication list; (2) a 1-page motivation letter, that also > indicates the position of primary interest (‘bird’ or ‘non-bird’); > (3) Comments on 1 paper, chosen either from the journal club list of > www.kokkonuts.org (section ‘journal club’), or from Prof. Kokko’s > Google scholar profile. This part of the application should list the > comments that the applicant would plan to give in a journal club if this > paper was discussed there. The length of this document is not prescribed: > concise expression, but with enough detail so that a reader can follow > the logic, is ideal; (4) Two names & email addresses of references. > > The above should form a single pdf and be sent to Hanna Kokko > (hkokko@uni-mainz.de) by 15.10.2024. > > > > > Prof. Hanna Kokko > > Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE) > Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz > Hanns-Dieter-Hüsch Weg 15 > 55128 Mainz > Germany > > > kokkonuts.org > > Twitter: @kokkonutter > > Email: hkokko@uni-mainz.de > > > "Kokko, Hanna"

[doorsblacksea]

Launch of Deep Sea Observatory provides new collaboration with ESRE placement.

The latest DOORS cruise has seen us launch a Deep Sea Observatory alongside the EMSO EUXINUS station (EuxRoOB3) in the Black Sea, while also providing an exciting research placement opportunity for student, Olga Schmitz through our Early-Stage Researcher Exchange (ESRE).

The Deep Sea Observatory is fitted with newly developed oceanographic sensors from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), that will continuously measure physical and chemical parameters of the sea water, helping us to understand temporal variation as we test these sensors in the open sea environment. The Observatory will remain in position until spring 2025.

This work also provided a collaborative placement opportunity for Olga Schmitz, PhD Candidate from the Institute of Geosciences of Friedrich-Schiller University and Department of Archeology of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. She was offered the opportunity to go onboard the RV Mare Nigrum to spend 9 days at sea, led by biological group from GeoEcoMar (GEM), National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). And together with Prof. Peter Frenzel and Diego Volosky from the Institute of Geosciences of Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena and Dr. Andrei Briceag from GeoEcoMar in Bucharest they launched a pilot project on a “Collaborative Initiative for Enhanced Water Quality Monitoring in the Black Sea Region with a use of Ostracoda and Foraminifera”.

Foraminifera are single cell organisms and are an important part of the marine food chain. They are wide-spread in marine and outer estuarine settings, are sensitive to environmental changes, and their assemblage composition and diversity can reveal information about water quality and pollution levels. Ostracoda, a group of minute Crustacea with a double valved calcified carapace, are important index fossils and proxies in geosciences, but rarely used for water quality assessment so far. They inhabit all water conditions and complement Foraminifera and diatoms as bioindicators in estuarine systems with variable salinity. And so, this research aims to correlate fauna with heavy metals and microplastics data, for example, to evaluate the current environmental situation and impacts from human activity.

This is just one example where we have matched early stage research interests with the scientific work ongoing in the project. This summer we have funded and supported 5 other placements through the DOORS Early-Stage Researcher Exchange (ESRE). This is an international programme of collaborative research mobility activities, to foster and deepen connections within and between Black Sea countries, and international partners across Europe.

Video: The above video shows sediment from a core, taken with a multi corer. The team subsamples, stains and then with a sieve they wash and dry the samples while on the ship. The idea is to investigate the samples for water quality with microfossils to look into microplastics and heavy metals.

The placements have covered a range of topics supporting students from universities all over Europe:

Olga Schmitz (Germany)- Collaborative Initiative for Enhanced Water Quality Monitoring in the Black Sea Region.

Leidy Maricela Castro Rosero (Spain) -  Analysis of spatial distribution of marine litter pollution in the western Black Sea through numerical model integration and in situ measurements.

Tatiana Sitchinava (Georgia) - Towards Sustainable Coastal Communities: Understanding and Mitigating Marine Litter in Romania's Black Sea Beaches.

Alessandro Galdelli (Italy) - Advancing Marine Research through Strategic Collaboration: Integrating Cutting-edge Algorithm for Enhanced Fishing Effort Estimation in the Black Sea,

Florin Miron (Romania) - Analysing Coastal Hydrodynamics and Discharge at River Mouths: The Impact of Winds and Waves on Hydrological Processes Using SWOT Satellite Data,

Sofia Sadogurska (Ukraine) -  Taxonomic studies of the Black Sea brown algae (Phaeophyceae, Heterokontophyta).

“This has been a fascinating opportunity for me, as I never worked on such a big ship before. I am very thankful to DOORS for this chance and looking forward to future collaborations, publications and sampling campaigns with Dr. Briceag and GeoEcoMar. It is the beginning of a long partnership between our research groups.” said Olga.

You can follow Olga's journey on Instagram , Facebook, LinkedIn and X, and learn more about her research.

[jobtendr]

(37) PhD, Postdoc and Academic Positions at Max Planck Institute in Germany

Max Planck Institute in Germany invites application for vacant (37) PhD, Postdoc and Academic Positions Max Planck Institute in Germany invites application for vacant PhD, Postdoc and Academic Positions, an independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. PhD Position (m/f/d) | Collective Dynamics of Living Neuronal NetworksJULY 15, 2024Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen Postdoctoral Positions (f/m/d) | Plate and Star FormationJULY 15, 2024Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg Dissertation Writing-up Fellowships for the Department ‘Law & Anthropology’JULY 12, 2024Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) Student Assistant (m/f/d)JULY 12, 2024Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen PhD student position (m/f/d) for chimpanzees projectJULY 12, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Postdoctoral Research Position (f/m/d) in Single-Molecule BiophysicsJULY 11, 2024Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen Postdoctoral Research Position (f/m/d) | Lab-On-Chip Technologies and Smart Polymers to Study Living MatterJULY 11, 2024Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen Senior Research Fellow / Post-Doc (f/m/d)JULY 10, 2024Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich Technical Assistant (CTA) (m/f/d) | Applied chemistry and battery researchJULY 08, 2024Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg 2 Postdocs (m/f/d) | Root Biology and MycorrhizaJULY 08, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam-Golm Research assistant position (m/f/d) | Social Microbiome Research GroupJULY 05, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Postdoctoral Position (m/f/d) | Galaxy Evolution with JWST Spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in HeidelbergJULY 04, 2024Astronomy AstrophysicsMax Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg     PhD student (m/f/d) | Organizing ArchitecturesJULY 03, 2024Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main Experienced Postdoc (m/f/d) | (Chemist / Material Scientist / Physicist (PhD)) for the SOLBAT projectJULY 02, 2024Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart Electron Microscopy Specialist / Facility Leader (m/f/d)JULY 02, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden Postdoc, Engineer and Ph.D. student positions (m/f/d) at the German-Ukrainian Core of Excellence “Plasma-Spin-Energy”JULY 01, 2024Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale) Postdoctoral positions (m/f/d) | Observational Cosmology in the ERC Funded Project DarkQuestJULY 01, 2024Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching Technical Assistant (BTA/MTA/CTA or equivalent) (m/f/d) | Molecular biology and advanced cell culture workJUNE 28, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden Student assistant positions (m/f/d) | Data entry for Carneiro Database ProjectJUNE 27, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Doctoral position (m/f/d) | Social effects on animal microbiomesJUNE 27, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig     Postdoc(s) (m/f/d) | Mechanisms of tissue organogenesis and repairJUNE 27, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden Doctoral position (m/f/d) | Primate microbiomesJUNE 27, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Postdoctoral Position or Ph.D. student (m/f/d) | Energetics of Biological SystemsJUNE 27, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden Research Communicator (m/f/d)JUNE 27, 2024Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin Research Fellow (Postdoc) (m/f/d) for ScandinaviaJUNE 26, 2024Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich Postdoc Experimental Physicist (m/f/d)JUNE 25, 2024Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (Greifswald), Greifswald Postdoctoral position (m/f/d) | Synthetic BiologyJUNE 24, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund     Head of Visitors Program (m/f/d)JUNE 24, 2024Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden Post-doctoral researcher (m/f/d)JUNE 24, 2024Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg IT Generalist (m/f/d) in full-timeJUNE 20, 2024Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Bad Nauheim Post-Doc Researcher (f/m/d) | Nanostructures and Optical MaterialsJUNE 20, 2024Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr Student or Research Assistant (m/f/d) | Skeletal GenomicsJUNE 19, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Four Doctoral Students (m/f/d) for the Law & Anthropology DepartmentJUNE 17, 2024Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) Data Scientist (m/f/d)JUNE 17, 2024Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund PhD Students (m/f/d) | International Max Planck Research School for Global Biogeochemical Cycles (IMPRS-gBGC)JUNE 13, 2024Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena     Postdoc Position (m/f/d) | ERC Synergy Grant Project QUANTAJUNE 13, 2024Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig HPC Applications Expert (m/f/d)JUNE 13, 2024Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF), Garching PhD Student (f/m/d) | Microtubule Nanomechanics and Turnover under Cell-like Physical ConstraintsJUNE 10, 2024Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen Engineer for Electron Microscopy and Focused Ion Beam Systems (FIB) (m/f/d)MAY 31, 2024Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg Postdoc (m/f/d) – Molecular Biology / BiotechnologyMAY 23, 2024Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Magdeburg Postdoctoral Researcher (m/f/d) | Development of Ion Soft Landing InstrumentAPRIL 19, 2024Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart WiQO – Women in Quantum Optics Postdoc ProgramMARCH 27, 2024Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching Read the full article

[myastrouniverse]

July/2024🌗♏️Dr. Who, What, When, Where?

♃︎ ☸︎ 🦺 ⭐️Dr.Kaku, I believe my old friend, Dr. Steven Tester may deserve a PhD in Quantum Physics and a possible PhD in Philosophy. Dr. Tester currently has a PhD in German studies, but I have no idea what the topic of his dissertation was. He has a wife he met at Northwestern, in Chicago. He was living in Frankfurt Germany with his wife and two daughters but I believe he is now living close to his family somewhere in Tennessee.

🌗 < ♆︎ I met Dr. Tester at the Sea Lion Caves in Oregon. I was seven years old and Dr.Tester was five. I took a picture of him in my mind. I asked for his name and I saw him again when he turned 21 and was going to school in Eugene at the U of O. Go ducks. Dr. Tester originally majored in Philosophy but he was never awarded a PhD in the field. He simply couldn’t think of an original dissertation. He was the first person I called when I got home after the planes hit on 911. He knew a lot of things that he didn’t think I knew. We watched Hedwig, together in Eugene. Johnny Amundsen was actually in another musical in Ashland with the actor who played Hedwig. I loved Steve. I really was in love with him once. He talks like Mascis and sounds like Mascis. He is goofy like Mascis, but he doesn’t play guitar. He plays Cello and string base. He is also in the time loop. I knitted him an orange and green scarf and sent it to him when he left for Northwestern. I want his family safe. I want him and his family safe.

☿︎ Λ ♄︎ I’m processing at lot of dimensional shifts so fuck time right now.

🌗 Λ ☊ Dr. Who do you think you are? No. Who do you think YOU are? You keeping seeing yourself through me rather than looking at YOU. Is that good or bad? It’s only bad, if YOU don’t know, who YOU are.

🌞▪️🚑 What was YOUR motivation? That is the REAL question. Were you motivated by lust or love? Stability or greed? If you had a good intention which lead to bad action, and you understand the consequences; it’s possible I may forgive. It really depends on motivation. It depends on self awareness. I want to know what you have LEARNED ABOUT YOURSELF AND OTHERS!

♂️ ☌ ♅︎ OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED: FREE THE SLAVES!

🌗 ☸︎ 🌽 I live in the USA and I am a free individual under the Declaration of Independence. If YOU want to fuck up the constitution to ONLY serve corporate shareholders and the 1%, I am not obligated to pay taxes, since my own government refuses to represent me. In other words we have two countries. The PEOPLE vs. Corporate Shareholders/Israeli terrorists/foreign investors/mafia.

☿︎▪️🎸 Mascis and I have a quantum love life that looks sort of like an American Pie movie and yes, that made me laugh on so many fucking levels. Mascis is a really funny, asshole.

🌗 < 🦚 I like people who like me because I like to like people. Being a Queen of Cups, I need to see people in a good light or I can’t see me. If that makes sense.

Don McLean - American Pie

[sunaleisocial]

Eleven from MIT awarded 2024 Fulbright fellowships

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/eleven-from-mit-awarded-2024-fulbright-fellowships/

Eleven from MIT awarded 2024 Fulbright fellowships

Eleven MIT undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have won Fulbright grants to embark on projects overseas in the 2024-25 grant cycle. Two other students were offered awards but declined them to pursue other opportunities.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers year-long opportunities for American citizen students and recent alumni to conduct independent research, pursue graduate studies, or teach English in over 140 countries.

MIT has been a Fulbright Top-Producing Institution for five years in a row. MIT students and alumni interested in applying to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program should contact Julia Mongo, MIT Fulbright program advisor, in the Office of Distinguished Fellowships in Career Advising and Professional Development.

April Cheng is a junior studying physics with a minor in mathematics and is fast-tracked to graduate this spring. They will take their Fulbright research grant to the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany, where they will study different statistical techniques to infer the expansion rate of the universe from gravitational waves. They first developed an interest in gravitational waves and black holes at the MIT LIGO and Caltech LIGO labs, but their research spans a wide range of topics in astrophysics, including cosmology and fast radio bursts. Cheng is passionate about physics education and is heavily involved in developing educational materials for high school Science Olympiads. At MIT, they are a member of the Physics Values Committee, the physics mentorship program, and the MIT Lion Dance team. After Fulbright, Cheng will pursue a PhD in astrophysics at Princeton University, where they have received the President’s Fellowship.

Grace McMillan is a senior majoring in literature and mechanical engineering with a concentration in Russian language. As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Award recipient, she will teach at a university in Kazakhstan. McMillan’s interest in Central Asia was sparked by a Russian language immersion program she participated in during her sophomore summer in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, funded by MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI). She is excited to help her students learn English to foster integration into the global academic community. During her time at MIT, McMillan has conducted research with faculty in nuclear science; earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences; and the Digital Humanities Lab. Outside of academics, she has been an active member of her sorority, Sigma Kappa, and has served on the MIT Health Consumers’ Advisory Council for two years. After Fulbright, McMillan hopes to attend law school, focusing on education reform.

Ryan McTigue will graduate this spring with a BS in physics and mathematics and a concentration in Spanish. With a Fulbright award to Spain, he will do research at the University of Valencia’s Institute of Molecular Science focusing on the physics of two-dimensional multiferroic nanodevices. He is looking forward to improving his Spanish and getting the opportunity to live abroad. At MIT, McTigue became interested in condensed matter physics research with the Checkelsky group, where he focused on engineering materials with flat bands that exhibited correlated electron effects. Outside of research, McTigue has been a mentor in the physics department’s mentoring program and a member of the heavyweight men’s crew team. After his Fulbright grant, McTigue will begin a PhD in physics at Princeton University.

Keith Murray ’22 graduated from MIT with a BS in computation and cognition and linguistics and philosophy. He will receive his MEng degree in computation and cognition this spring. As a Fulbright Hungary research grantee at the HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Murray will design generative AI models inspired by the primary visual cortex with the goal of making AI models more interpretable. At MIT, Murray’s research experiences spanned from training mice to perform navigation tasks in virtual reality to theorizing about how neurons might compute modular arithmetic. He was also a member of the men’s heavyweight crew team and the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. After Fulbright, Murray will pursue a PhD in neuroscience at Princeton University.

Maaya Prasad ’22 completed her undergraduate education at MIT with degrees in both electrical engineering and creative writing and will graduate this month with an MS in mechanical and ocean engineering. Her thesis research focuses on microplastic detection using optical sensing. Prasad’s Fulbright fellowship will take her to Mauritius, an East African island country located in the Indian Ocean. Here, she will continue her master’s research at the University of Mauritius and will work with local researchers to implement a microplastic survey system. While at MIT, Prasad joined the varsity sailing team with no prior experience. Her time spent on the water led her to pursue marine research at MIT Sea Grant, and she eventually earned an honorable mention to the 2023 All-American Sailing Team. After Fulbright, Prasad hopes to pursue a PhD in applied ocean engineering.

Anusha Puri is a senior majoring in biological engineering. Her Fulbright award will take her to Lausanne, Switzerland, where she will conduct cancer immunology research at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. At MIT, Puri’s work in the Weinberg Lab focused on understanding mechanisms that drive resistance of breast cancer to immunotherapy. On campus, she founded and serves as president of MIT’s premiere stand-up comedy group, Stand-Up CoMITy, leads MIT’s Bhangra dance team, and is the editor-in-chief of the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal. She looks forward to engaging with teaching outreach and practicing her French in Switzerland. After her Fulbright grant, she plans to pursue a PhD in biomedical science.

Olivia Rosenstein will graduate this spring with a BS in physics and a minor in French. Her Fulbright will take her to ENS Paris-Saclay in Palaiseau, France, where she’ll deepen her education in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics. At MIT, Rosenstein has worked in Professor Mark Vogelsberger’s group researching models of galaxy formation and the early universe, and in Professor Richard Fletcher’s group on an erbium-lithium experiment to investigate quantum many-body dynamics in a degenerate mixture. In France, she will expand on the skills she developed in Fletcher’s lab by contributing to a project using optical tweezer arrays to study dipolar interactions. After Fulbright, Rosenstein plans to return to the United States to pursue a PhD in experimental AMO at Caltech.

Jennifer Schug will receive this spring an MEng degree in the Climate, Environment, and Sustainability track within the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. During her Fulbright year in Italy, she will conduct research on carbon storage in the Venice lagoon at the University of Padua. Schug is excited to build upon her research with the Terrer Lab at MIT, where she is currently investigating the effectiveness of forestation as a carbon sequestration strategy. She also looks forward to improving her Italian language skills and learning about Italian history and culture. Before beginning Fulbright this fall, Schug will study ecological preservation in Sicily this summer through an MIT-Italy collaboration with the University of Catania. After Fulbright, she hopes to continue researching nature-based solutions as climate change mitigation strategies.

Vaibhavi Shah ’21 earned a BS in biological engineering and in science, technology, and society at MIT, where she was named a Goldwater Scholar. She is now a medical student at Stanford University. As a Fulbright-Fogarty Fellow in Public Health, Shah will use both her computational and humanities backgrounds to investigate sociocultural factors underlying traumatic surgical injuries in Nepal. While at MIT, she was on the executive board of GlobeMed and the Society of Women Engineers, and she hopes to use those experiences to amplify diverse voices in medicine while on her journey to becoming a neurosurgeon-scientist. After Fulbright, Shah will complete her final year of medical school.

Charvi Sharma is a senior studying computer science and molecular biology with a minor in theater arts. As a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Spain, she is excited to engage in cross-cultural exchange while furthering her skills as a teacher and as a leader. In addition to teaching, Sharma looks forward to immersing herself in the country’s vibrant traditions, improving her Spanish proficiency, and delving into the local arts and dance scene. At MIT, through Global Teaching Labs Spain and her roles as a dynaMIT mentor, an associate advisor, and a captain and president of her dance teams Mirchi and Nritya, Sharma has served as a teacher of both STEM and dance. Her passion for making a difference in her community is also evident through her work with Boston Medical Center’s Autism Program through the PKG Public Service Center and as an undergraduate cancer researcher in the Yaffe Lab. After Fulbright, Sharma plans to pursue an MD and, ultimately, a career as a clinician-scientist.

Isabella Witham is a senior majoring in biological engineering. As a recipient of the Fulbright U.S.-Korea Presidential STEM Initiative Award, she will conduct research at Seoul National University’s Biomimetic Materials and Stem Cell Engineering Lab. Her work will involve creating biomimetic scaffolds for pancreatic cell transplantation to treat type I diabetes. While in South Korea, Witham aims to improve her language skills and explore cultural sites and cities. At MIT, she worked in the Belcher Lab on nanoparticle formulations, was a tutor for MIT’s Women’s Technology Program, and volunteered as a Medlink. After her Fulbright fellowship, she plans to pursue a PhD in biological engineering.

[jcmarchi]

Eleven from MIT awarded 2024 Fulbright fellowships

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/eleven-from-mit-awarded-2024-fulbright-fellowships/

Eleven from MIT awarded 2024 Fulbright fellowships

Eleven MIT undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have won Fulbright grants to embark on projects overseas in the 2024-25 grant cycle. Two other students were offered awards but declined them to pursue other opportunities.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers year-long opportunities for American citizen students and recent alumni to conduct independent research, pursue graduate studies, or teach English in over 140 countries.

MIT has been a Fulbright Top-Producing Institution for five years in a row. MIT students and alumni interested in applying to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program should contact Julia Mongo, MIT Fulbright program advisor, in the Office of Distinguished Fellowships in Career Advising and Professional Development.

April Cheng is a junior studying physics with a minor in mathematics and is fast-tracked to graduate this spring. They will take their Fulbright research grant to the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany, where they will study different statistical techniques to infer the expansion rate of the universe from gravitational waves. They first developed an interest in gravitational waves and black holes at the MIT LIGO and Caltech LIGO labs, but their research spans a wide range of topics in astrophysics, including cosmology and fast radio bursts. Cheng is passionate about physics education and is heavily involved in developing educational materials for high school Science Olympiads. At MIT, they are a member of the Physics Values Committee, the physics mentorship program, and the MIT Lion Dance team. After Fulbright, Cheng will pursue a PhD in astrophysics at Princeton University, where they have received the President’s Fellowship.

Grace McMillan is a senior majoring in literature and mechanical engineering with a concentration in Russian language. As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Award recipient, she will teach at a university in Kazakhstan. McMillan’s interest in Central Asia was sparked by a Russian language immersion program she participated in during her sophomore summer in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, funded by MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI). She is excited to help her students learn English to foster integration into the global academic community. During her time at MIT, McMillan has conducted research with faculty in nuclear science; earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences; and the Digital Humanities Lab. Outside of academics, she has been an active member of her sorority, Sigma Kappa, and has served on the MIT Health Consumers’ Advisory Council for two years. After Fulbright, McMillan hopes to attend law school, focusing on education reform.

Ryan McTigue will graduate this spring with a BS in physics and mathematics and a concentration in Spanish. With a Fulbright award to Spain, he will do research at the University of Valencia’s Institute of Molecular Science focusing on the physics of two-dimensional multiferroic nanodevices. He is looking forward to improving his Spanish and getting the opportunity to live abroad. At MIT, McTigue became interested in condensed matter physics research with the Checkelsky group, where he focused on engineering materials with flat bands that exhibited correlated electron effects. Outside of research, McTigue has been a mentor in the physics department’s mentoring program and a member of the heavyweight men’s crew team. After his Fulbright grant, McTigue will begin a PhD in physics at Princeton University.

Keith Murray ’22 graduated from MIT with a BS in computation and cognition and linguistics and philosophy. He will receive his MEng degree in computation and cognition this spring. As a Fulbright Hungary research grantee at the HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Murray will design generative AI models inspired by the primary visual cortex with the goal of making AI models more interpretable. At MIT, Murray’s research experiences spanned from training mice to perform navigation tasks in virtual reality to theorizing about how neurons might compute modular arithmetic. He was also a member of the men’s heavyweight crew team and the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. After Fulbright, Murray will pursue a PhD in neuroscience at Princeton University.

Maaya Prasad ’22 completed her undergraduate education at MIT with degrees in both electrical engineering and creative writing and will graduate this month with an MS in mechanical and ocean engineering. Her thesis research focuses on microplastic detection using optical sensing. Prasad’s Fulbright fellowship will take her to Mauritius, an East African island country located in the Indian Ocean. Here, she will continue her master’s research at the University of Mauritius and will work with local researchers to implement a microplastic survey system. While at MIT, Prasad joined the varsity sailing team with no prior experience. Her time spent on the water led her to pursue marine research at MIT Sea Grant, and she eventually earned an honorable mention to the 2023 All-American Sailing Team. After Fulbright, Prasad hopes to pursue a PhD in applied ocean engineering.

Anusha Puri is a senior majoring in biological engineering. Her Fulbright award will take her to Lausanne, Switzerland, where she will conduct cancer immunology research at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. At MIT, Puri’s work in the Weinberg Lab focused on understanding mechanisms that drive resistance of breast cancer to immunotherapy. On campus, she founded and serves as president of MIT’s premiere stand-up comedy group, Stand-Up CoMITy, leads MIT’s Bhangra dance team, and is the editor-in-chief of the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal. She looks forward to engaging with teaching outreach and practicing her French in Switzerland. After her Fulbright grant, she plans to pursue a PhD in biomedical science.

Olivia Rosenstein will graduate this spring with a BS in physics and a minor in French. Her Fulbright will take her to ENS Paris-Saclay in Palaiseau, France, where she’ll deepen her education in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics. At MIT, Rosenstein has worked in Professor Mark Vogelsberger’s group researching models of galaxy formation and the early universe, and in Professor Richard Fletcher’s group on an erbium-lithium experiment to investigate quantum many-body dynamics in a degenerate mixture. In France, she will expand on the skills she developed in Fletcher’s lab by contributing to a project using optical tweezer arrays to study dipolar interactions. After Fulbright, Rosenstein plans to return to the United States to pursue a PhD in experimental AMO at Caltech.

Jennifer Schug will receive this spring an MEng degree in the Climate, Environment, and Sustainability track within the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. During her Fulbright year in Italy, she will conduct research on carbon storage in the Venice lagoon at the University of Padua. Schug is excited to build upon her research with the Terrer Lab at MIT, where she is currently investigating the effectiveness of forestation as a carbon sequestration strategy. She also looks forward to improving her Italian language skills and learning about Italian history and culture. Before beginning Fulbright this fall, Schug will study ecological preservation in Sicily this summer through an MIT-Italy collaboration with the University of Catania. After Fulbright, she hopes to continue researching nature-based solutions as climate change mitigation strategies.

Vaibhavi Shah ’21 earned a BS in biological engineering and in science, technology, and society at MIT, where she was named a Goldwater Scholar. She is now a medical student at Stanford University. As a Fulbright-Fogarty Fellow in Public Health, Shah will use both her computational and humanities backgrounds to investigate sociocultural factors underlying traumatic surgical injuries in Nepal. While at MIT, she was on the executive board of GlobeMed and the Society of Women Engineers, and she hopes to use those experiences to amplify diverse voices in medicine while on her journey to becoming a neurosurgeon-scientist. After Fulbright, Shah will complete her final year of medical school.

Charvi Sharma is a senior studying computer science and molecular biology with a minor in theater arts. As a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Spain, she is excited to engage in cross-cultural exchange while furthering her skills as a teacher and as a leader. In addition to teaching, Sharma looks forward to immersing herself in the country’s vibrant traditions, improving her Spanish proficiency, and delving into the local arts and dance scene. At MIT, through Global Teaching Labs Spain and her roles as a dynaMIT mentor, an associate advisor, and a captain and president of her dance teams Mirchi and Nritya, Sharma has served as a teacher of both STEM and dance. Her passion for making a difference in her community is also evident through her work with Boston Medical Center’s Autism Program through the PKG Public Service Center and as an undergraduate cancer researcher in the Yaffe Lab. After Fulbright, Sharma plans to pursue an MD and, ultimately, a career as a clinician-scientist.

Isabella Witham is a senior majoring in biological engineering. As a recipient of the Fulbright U.S.-Korea Presidential STEM Initiative Award, she will conduct research at Seoul National University’s Biomimetic Materials and Stem Cell Engineering Lab. Her work will involve creating biomimetic scaffolds for pancreatic cell transplantation to treat type I diabetes. While in South Korea, Witham aims to improve her language skills and explore cultural sites and cities. At MIT, she worked in the Belcher Lab on nanoparticle formulations, was a tutor for MIT’s Women’s Technology Program, and volunteered as a Medlink. After her Fulbright fellowship, she plans to pursue a PhD in biological engineering.