Two awards for undergraduate majors are given every year:
- Best Junior in Physics and Astronomy - awarded to the student in his/her junior year with the best academic record for courses that count toward the major. Research and other physics-related activities are also taken into account.
- Best Senior Thesis - The honors committee selects one senior thesis as the best of all submissions that year. All students submitting an honors thesis are automatically considered.
The students who received honors in 2011 are:
David Caratelli (Adviser: André de Gouvêa) and Sascha Herrmann (Adviser: Adilson E. Motter) received the "Outstanding Junior in Physics and Astronomy” award.
Greg McGlynn (Adviser: Brian Odom) received the “Outstanding Senior Thesis in Physics and Astronomy” award for his senior thesis entitled, Laser frequency stabilization systems for laser cooling of trapped barium ions.
Ian Lizarraga (Adviser: Frederic Rasio), Greg McGlynn (Adviser: Brian Odom), Spencer Nelson (Adviser: Dave Meyer) and Michael Tremmel (Adviser: Vicky Kalogera) all graduated with departmental honors. To learn more about their work, click on the links below to read their senior theses:
Ian Lizarraga: Secular Dynamics of Three-Body Systems and the Origins of Retrograde Hot Jupiters
Greg McGlynn: Laser frequency stabilization systems for laser cooling of trapped barium ions
Spencer Nelson: A Search for Solar-System-Scale Structure in the Vibrationally-Excited H2 Gas Toward HD 37903
Michael Tremmel: The Evolution of X-ray Binaries on Cosmological Timescales
