The Physics and Astronomy Club (PandA) recently held a club meeting where they hosted a set of quick faculty talks where each attending faculty member got up and spoke for approximately 5-10 minutes about their research. The event was held to give students and idea of what type of research was being done in the department and what they needed to do to get involved. Dr. McGahee, Dr. Calamai, and Dr. Amet spoke at the event. Below is a short debriefing of what each faculty member spoke about.
Dr. McGahee conducts research in astronomy looking into stellar clusters and their formation. She is primarily studying Messier 67 (M67) and does so by looking at the spectra from the cluster. In looking at the spectra from starts, astronomers are able to determine information about that star and others like it. Aside from looking at M67, she has two other projects she is working on. These projects focus on rapidly rotating stars and shell stars. For more information, contact Dr. McGahee at mcgaheece@appstate.edu.
Dr. Calamai does his research in the Ion Trapping lab here in Garwood. The type of trap used in the lab is an RF trap which uses an electric field to trap charged particles. In his lab, he also likes to study flourescense of different materials such as rubies as well as flourescense by ultrasound. For more information, contact Dr. Calamai at calamaiag@appstate.edu.
Dr. Amet studies condensed matter physics where he looks at quantum electric and thermal properties of different materials. Some of the fields that Dr. Amet conducts research in include: nanofabrication, superconductivity, thermal transport, controlling electrons in 1D and 2D, electron optics, and the simulation of dynamical systems. For more information, contact Dr. Amet at ametf@appstate.edu.