Alumni

March 2, 2017 at 8:00 am

Physics & Astronomy Alumni News, 2010-16

Physics & Astronomy alumni news from 2015-16.

2010 – 16

Sean McGraw, Ph.D. 2016 (adviser Shields), will start in Fall 2016 as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Penn State in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Brian Muccioli, Ph.D. 2016 (adviser Prakash), is working for Frontier Technologies as a research scientist, working to calibrate satellites both before launch and when they are in space using special software. He lives in Beverly, MA.

Sneha Pandya, Ph.D. 2016 (adviser Kordesch) is a Process Engineer at Intel, where she develops nano-scale e-beam lithography patters to be used for polymer-based optical systems and organic sensor transistors. She lives in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Ramana Thota, Ph.D. 2016 (adviser Stinaff), is working as a Process Engineer at Intel, where he is developing the next generation of materials and processes that will advance the scope of semiconductor applications. He lives near Portland, Oregon.

Alexander Marshall, HTC Engineering Physics 2015, is working as a data scientist for The Perduco Group, a data science consulting firm that specializes in defense, healthcare, and sports, in Dayton, OH.

Shloka Chandavar, Ph.D. 2015 (adviser Hicks), is working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Michigan State University in the field of nuclear physics. She lives in East Lansing, MI.

Haocheng Zhang, PhD 2015 (advisor Boettcher), is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Los Alamos National Lab and will be moving to a postdoc position at the University of New Mexico in 2016.

Karina Avila-Coronado, Ph.D. 2014 (adviser Castillo), has been working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Goettingen, Germany, and she will move in Fall 2016 to be a Visiting Scholar in the Physics Department at the University of Illinois, working with Karin Dahmen.

Norman Israel, M.S. 2014 (adviser Roche), is a Science Teacher in Jamaica where he will be implementing a Physics program at his high school for the first time. He is also working on a project with John Moffat of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics based on his generalized theory of gravity.

Sajida Khan, Ph.D. 2014 (adviser Hla), is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, where her research interests are molecular physics, condensed matter, and cryogenics.

Rakitha Beminiwattha, Ph.D. 2013 (adviser Roche), will join the faculty of Louisiana Tech University as an Assistant Professor of Physics in Fall 2016. His main research interests remain precision tests of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, and the search for new physics beyond the SM.

Yinyun Li, Ph.D. 2013 (adviser Jung), is an Assistant Professor at a university in Beijing, China, and teaches classes on Statistical Physics.

Greg Peterson, Ph.D. 2013 (adviser Sandler), holds the position of Algorithm Engineer in TSI Incorporated. He and his wife Mahin Shahlari (also an OHIO alumna) become parents of Cyra Petersen this year. They live in Shoreview, Minnesota.

Keith Hawkins, B.S. 2013, is a Marshall Scholar who completed a PhD in Astrophysics at Cambridge University in the UK in August 2016. He returned to the department as a presenter at the Astrophysics seminar in January 2016. The title of his presentation was “Galactic Archeology: Piecing together the Milky Way with Large Surveys. He is a Research Fellow in Astrophysics at Columbia University, New York, NY.

Tejinder Kaur, Ph.D. 2013 (adviser Sandler), is a Technical Lead Consultant at CVS/Caremark and lives with her husband in Allen, Texas. She is mom of Jasmine and she is expecting a baby.

David Ruiz-Tijerina, Ph.D. 2013 (adviser Ulloa), is a postdoc at the Univ de Sao Paulo, Brazil. He has accepted a postdoc position at the Graphene Institute at the Univ of Manchester, UK, to start in 2017.

Gcina Mavimbela, Ph.D. 2012 (adviser Castillo), is a Lecturer of Physics at the University of Swaziland, in Kwaluseni, Swaziland.

Chen Ji, Ph.D. 2012 (adviser Phillips), is a postdoctoral researcher at the European Centre for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas located at Trento, Italy. Starting from September 2017, Chen will take an associate professor position at the Central China Normal University located at Wuhan, China.

Peng Zhao, B.S. 2012, received an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2014 and is currently working at Intel as a Validation Engeinner. He lives in California.

Anton Wiranata, Ph.D. 2011 (adviser Prakash), is a Lead Data Scientist at Overstock.com, developing mathematical models for Machine Learning applications which can be used for pricing, optimizing sales, etc. He and his wife live in Salt Lake City and have a 13-month-old baby daughter.

Juan Enrique Rolon, Ph.D. 2011 (adviser Ulloa), has taken a Lecturer position at Centenary College of Louisiana, in Shreveport, LA.

Sergey Postnikov, Ph.D. 2010 (adviser Prakash), is Head of Research and Development at AR3C, where he develops energy efficient technologies for sustainable post-agricultural products.

Joel Vaughn, Ph.D. 2010 (adviser Kordesch), and his wife are awaiting the arrival of their second son in Oct. Joel was granted two more patents for improved sintering and testing of polycrystalline diamond compacts. His business continues to grow.

Chieh-Jen (Jerry) Yang, Ph.D. 2010 (adviser Phillips), was a post-doctoral research at the University of Arizona and is now with the European Center for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas. He lives in France with his wife Huichun (who is also an OHIO alumna with a Masters in Counsellor Education) and daughter Lotus (who just turned 4).

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