Department of Physics Lectures

Dan Boye

Dr. Dan Boye, Paul B. Freeland Professor of Physics at Davidson College, presented Tubes and Lips: Resonance and Superposition during the Junior and Senior Seminar class in March 2023. He discussed how expression through words and songs is at the heart of human communication. Physics can help us understand how the tubes and lips in our head and neck coordinate vocal expressions ranging from the raucous to the sublime. Dr. Boye engaged the audience as they discovered how linear analysis can model the subtleties of the human voice. Several physics majors went to breakfast at D-Hall with Dr. Boye where they could ask questions and have more in-depth conversations.

Dr. Boye maintains active research programs in 3D volumetric x-ray imaging as it applies to art and artifact and in developing new optical and luminescent materials. He graduated from Emory & Henry College and the University of Georgia.  With a rich and strong bass-baritone voice, he is a veteran of over 40 traditional and contemporary operatic productions and leading roles in musical theater and oratorio.

Joanna Behrman

Dr. Behrman, Assistant Public Historian for the Center for History of Physics, gave the public talk More Than Marie Curie: Centering Women in the History of Physics in the Ukrop Auditorium in January 2023. This was a collaborative event between the Departments of Physics, Education, History, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Attendees chatted with Dr. Behrman afterward at a reception. Members of UR's Alpha Sigma Kappa welcomed attendees from the community and students from various majors across campus. Read more in this Collegian article by Journalism and English double major Mary Margaret Clouse.

Students in the Junior and Senior Seminar class heard from Dr. Behrman the next day when she presented When Physics was for Girls: Overturning Gender Stereotypes in the History of Physics Education. All physics students were invited to attend. Several physics majors went to lunch with Dr. Behrman at D-Hall for a small group conversation.

Nancy Levenson

Dr. Levenson, Interim Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, presented a community talk titled Art and Science from the James Webb Telescope in November 2022. Afterward, physics majors attended a small reception where they talked with Dr. Levenson and UR physics faculty. They extended the conversation the next day when several majors had lunch at D-Hall with Dr. Levenson.

Additionally, during the Junior and Senior Seminar class, Dr. Levenson presented Dusty Winds of Active Galactic Nuclei: Recent James Webb Space Telescope Observations. All physics students were invited to attend.

The STScl, an 800-person, world-class research facility, conducts science and flight operations for NASA's flagship astronomical observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, and science operations for the iconic Hubble Space Telescope and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Dr. Levenson is also a research professor at Johns Hopkins University's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Keegan Sherman

In November 2022, UR Physics graduate Keegan Sherman '17 talked with the Junior and Senior Seminar class about his work as a nuclear physics graduate student at Old Dominion University (ODU). He conducts research at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab), and his work explores the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which describes the behavior of quarks and gluons that bind together to form hadrons such as protons.

In addition to the class talk, Mr. Sherman met with a group of physics majors to discuss his time at Richmond, graduate school, his research at ODU, and undergraduate research at UR.