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Current and Past Colloquium Schedules

Fall 2024 Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

A map of campus highlighting parking locations and buildings of interest for visiting speakers can be found here.

Below is the schedule for this semester's colloquia. Beneath that are the talks from previous years, with some of the talks during the height of the pandemic having links to video recordings. Note that colloquia marked with * are exceptions to the norm (e.g. occuring on a Tuesday rather than a Thursday).

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024 N/A Sac State Physics & Astronomy Introduction session for new students MND 1015
Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 Physics Majors' Summer Research 1: Victor Hernandez, Sean Currier, Ethan Potter

Sac State Physics & Astronomy Three short talks on student research experience over summer break MND 1015
Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024 Physics Majors' Summer Research 2: Justin Alejandro, Towy Zheng, Rocco Marshall Sac State Physics & Astronomy Three short talks on student research experience over summer break MND 1015
Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024 Veronika Kruse Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Physics Careers and Navigating Your Path MND 1015
Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 Vishal Gajjar UC Berkeley, SETI A New-Era in Search for Technologically Advanced Life in the Universe MND 1015
Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024 Erika Holmbeck Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory The Origin of the Elements: Astronomy at the Intersection with Nuclear Physics MND 1015
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024 Ali Behzadan Sac State Mathematics Understanding Einstein: From Differential Geometry to General Relativity MND 1015
Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024       MND 1015
Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024       MND 1015
Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024       MND 1015
Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024 Shahzad Ali CSU East Bay Quantum Entanglement in Top Quarks: A Landmark Observation at the LHC MND 1015
Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024 Daniel Jontof-Hutter University of the Pacific Three-body Resonances in Multitransiting Expolanetary Systems MND 1015
Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024 Atul Parikh - CANCELLED UC Davis Physical Biology of Membranes: Mixing Water, Transducing Energy, Shaping Membranes MND 1015
Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024 No talks - Thanksgiving - - -
Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024 Sacramento State Physics Major Senior Project [tentative] Sac State Physics & Astronomy TBD   MND 1015

Spring 2024 Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024 N/A Sac State Physics & Astronomy Welcome Back Physics Majors Ice Cream Social MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024 CSUS Faculty 1: Michael Ray, Brianna Santangelo, Alexander Pettitt Sac State Physics & Astronomy Research opportunities in the department MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024 Kinjal Dasbiswas  UC Merced Active Mechanics of Cells and Tissues MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024 Inna Vishik UC Davis Quantum Materials and Adventures in Momentum Space MND 1015
Thursday, Mar. 7, 2024 Gina Quan San Jose State University Supporting Physics Instruction through Learning Assistant–Faculty Partnerships MND 1015
Thursday, Mar. 14, 2024 CSUS Faculty 2: Rodolfo Barniol, Mikkel Jensen, Eliza Morris Sac State Physics & Astronomy Research opportunities in the department MND 1015
Thursday, Mar. 28, 2024 Francois Foucart University of New Hampshire From Chirps to Gold: Colliding Neutron Stars as a Laboratory for Extreme Physics MND 1015
Thursday, Apr. 4, 2024 Alessandro Savino UC Berkeley The Distant Past of Nearby Galaxies MND 1015
Thursday, Apr. 11, 2024 Samantha Abbott UC Davis, Sac State Physics Alum, Class of 2018 Search for Pair-Produced Vector-Like Quarks in the All-Hadronic Final State using the Boosted Event Shape Tagger with Full Run 2 Data Collected by CMS MND 1015
Thursday, Apr. 25, 2024 Department Awards Night; Dr Eliza Morris Sac State Physics Alum Oh, the Places You’ll Go! From Particle Physics and Lasers to Biophysics and Education Research (and Everything in Between) MND 1015
*Tuesday, April 30, 2024 Sacramento State Physics Major Senior Project 1 Sac State Physics Majors Xuan Gip - Using Monte Carlo Simulations to Analyze the Striped Jet Model

Phillip Sommerfeld - Initial Studies of diHiggs Production Through the ttHH Mode in the ATLAS Detector
MND 1015
Thursday, May 2, 2024 Sacramento State Physics Major Senior Project 2 Sac State Physics Majors Wesley Eby - Semi-Automated Analysis of Stress vs. Strain Data

Jeydon Jennings - Permeability of Polylactic Acid (PLA) at Low Temperatures

Justin Vian-Reagan - Measuring the Thermal Expansion of Polylactic Acid at Low Temperatures
MND 1015
*Tuesday, May 7, 2024 Sacramento State Physics Major Senior Project 3 Sac State Physics Majors Ryan Caywood - From Black Hole to Afterglow

Chevy Cecil - Idealistic Simulations of Multidimensional Quantum Many-body Systems
MND 1015
Thursday, May 9, 2024 No talk scheduled - - -
Thursday, May 16, 2024 No talks - Finals Week - - -

Fall 2023 Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Sept 7th, 2023 Sukanya Chakrabarti University of Alabama in Huntsville Towards Precision Measurements of Dark Matter from Acceleration Measurements and Direct Distances MND 1015
Thursday, Sept 14th, 2023 Physics Majors' Summer Research

Theresa Nguyen,
Phillip Sommerfeld,
Haley Steuber,
Chevy Cecil,
Towy Zheng, and
Justin Vian-Reagan
Sac State Theresa Nguyen - Investigating the Nature of Spiral Arms: Tidal Interactions

Phillip  Sommerfeld - Feasibility Study of Higgs Boson Pair Production in Preparation for Future Collider Experiments

Haley Stauber - The Reduction and Analysis of New Brown Dwarf Spectra Contained in the IRTF/SpeX Archive

Chevy Cecil - Dynamical Simulatins of the 2-Dimensioinal Transverse Field Ising Model on a Square Lattice Using Emulated Qubits

Towy Zheng - Exploring the Spurs of the Galaxy and What They Would Look Like from Earth's Perspective

Justin Vian-Reagan - Measuring the Thermal Contraction of Polyactic Acid
MND 1015
Thursday, Sept 21st, 2023 Wenbin Lu UC Berkeley Dangerous Dances of Stars around Supermassive Black Holes MND 1015
Thursday, Oct 5th, 2023 Jing Xu UC Merced Bending and Weighing with Light: a Day in the Life of a Biophysicist MND 1015
Thursday, Oct 12th, 2023 Valentin Taufour UC Davis Combining Topology and Superconductivity: Can We Discover Unconventional Superconductors Methodically? MND 1015
Thursday, Oct 19th, 2023 Haichen Wang UC Berkeley The Top Frontier of the Higgs Physics MND 1015
Thursday, Oct 26th, 2023 Thomas Madura San Jose State Nested Dust Shells around the Wolf-Rayet Binary WR 140 Observed with JWST  
Thursday, Nov 2nd, 2023 Gabriel Martins Sacramento State Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics Topological Study of Magnetic Confinement and Magnetic Quantum Tunneling MND 1015
Thursday, Nov 9th, 2023 Kendall Hall Chico State Comparing Diffuse Dark Gas Tracers in the Perseus Giant Molecular Cloud MND 1015
Thursday, Nov 16th, 2023 Brianne Gutmann San Jose State Reframing Physics Student Preparation: Supporting Conversation about Ethics, Science, and Sociey in the Classroom MND 1015 
Thursday, Nov 23rd, 2023 No talks - Thanksgiving      -
Thursday, Nov 30th, 2023 Long Huynh Sacramento State Physics Major Senior Project Investigating Chemical Properties of Giant Molecular Clouds MND 1015
Thursday, Dec 7th, 2023 No talk scheduled     -
Thursday, Dec 14th, 2023 No talks - Finals Week      -

Spring 2023 Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023 Rodolfo Barniol Duran, Mikkel Jensen, Alexander Pettitt Sac State Topic: Faculty-Student Research Opportunities MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023 Brianna Santangelo North Dakota State University Measuring More than Physics Content Understanding MND 1015
*Tuesday, Feb 7, 2023 Salem Mosleh Harvard University The Making of Flatland: From Bacteria to Batteries MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023 Felipe González UC Berkeley Quantum Simulations at Extreme Conditions: from Planetary Interiors to Dense Plasmas MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023 Claudio Savarese Princeton University Exploring the Frontier of Light Dark Matter MND 1015 
Thursday, Mar. 2, 2023 Marina Radulaski UC Davis Quantum Nanophotonic Hardware with Integrated Color Centers MND 1015
Thursday, March 9, 2023 Kathryn Grimm CSU East Bay Di-Higgs Production - Results from the ATLAS Particle Physics Experiment MND 1015
Thursday, March 16, 2023 Hilary Hurst San Jose State Quantum State Engineering through Weak Measurement MND 1015
Thursday, March 30, 2023 Na Ji  UC Berkeley Imaging the Brain at High Spatiotemporal Resolution MND 1015
Thursday, April 6, 2023 Wing To CSU Stanislaus Developing Undergraduate Research in High Energy Physics at Minority Serving Institutions with Multi-Institutional Consortium MND 1015
Thursday, April 13, 2023 Pawan Kumar University of Texas at Austin Spectacular Explosive Events in the Universe Associated with Black Holes and Neutron Stars MND 1015
Thursday, April 20, 2023 Grad school panel Sac State Panel consisting of Professor's Block, Lege, Morris and Moss. MND 1015 
Thursday, Apriil 27, 2023 Sasha Asghari and Sigma Pi Sigma Awards Night Sac State Physics Aluma Class of 2012 Brownian Motion, or: One CSUS Physics Major's Path (so far) MND 1015
Thursday, May 4, 2023 Sac State Physics Majors Senior Projects Sac State Anna Gagnebin: Exoplanet Model Atmospheres for JWST Spectroscopy

Artyom Filippov: Phase Transition in the Diamond Lattice Using Quantum Monte Carlo
MND 1015
*Tuesday, May 9, 2023 Sac State Physics Majors Senior Projects Sac State Kyle Miller: Evaluating the Thermal Conductivity of 3D-Printed PLA

Nisha Wilson: Electrical Characterization of Pixel Modules for the ATLAS Group at Cern
MND 1015
Thursday, May 11, 2023 Pei-Chun Ho CSU Fresno Intriguing High-TemperatureHigh-Magnetic-Field Phase Boundary due to Valence Transition in CeOs4Sb12 MND 1015
Thur., May 18, 2023 No talks - Finals Week N/A  N/A   

Fall 2022 Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022 Sac State Physics Majors Summer Research Summaries: Part 1 Sac State 5 short talks on student research experience over summer break MND 1015
Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022  Andrew Wetzel UC Davis Simulating the Formation of our Milky Way Galaxy MND 1015
Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022 Sac State Physics Majors Summer Research Summaries: Part 2 Sac State 5 short talks on student research experience over summer break MND 1015
Thursday, October 20, 2022 Daniel Kasen UC Berkeley The Brightest Stellar Explosions MND 1015 
Thursday, October 27,2022 Justin Perron CSU San Marcos Probing Quantum Mechanics with Silicon Electronics MND 1015
Thursday, November 3, 2022 Charli Sakari San Francisco State Galactic Archaeology: Unraveling the Complex Assembly Histories of Galaxies with Chemical Abundances of Metal-Poor Stars MND 1015
Thursday, November 10, 2022 Hyewon Pechkis Chico State Making a Difference in First Generation and Underrepresented Students' Education Through Research: Quantum Coherence in a Bose Thermal Gas MND 1015
CANCELED -    Thursday, November 17, 2022 Pei-Chun Ho Fresno State Talk is postponed until Spring 2023  
CANCELED - Friday, December 2, 2022 Pawan Kumar University of Texas at Austin Talk is postponed until Spring 2023  
Thursday, December 8, 2022 Hannah Redhead

and

Kyle Granados
Sac State Physics Majors' Senior Project Talks Modelling the Afterglow and Prompt Emission of Neutron Star Mergers

and

Optimization of the κ2V Parameterization Metric in the HH→bbτhadτhad Decay Channel
MND 1015

Spring 2022 Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, February 3, 2022 Sarah Loebman UC Merced Connecting Across Scales: Simulating & Understanding the Evolving Milky Way This talk was not recorded for later viewing.
Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022 Short research presentations by our faculty:

Mikkel Herholdt Jensen

Michael Ray

Rodolfo Barniol Duran
Sac State Quantitative analysis of liquid-liquid phase separation in biological cell model systems”; 

Research in “The Coolest Place in Sacramento”;

"Understanding Astrophysical Jets in Neutron Star Mergers"
MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022 Short research presentatiions by our faculty:

Alexander Pettitt

Joshua Moss
Sac State
"The Structure of Spiral Galaxies"


"ATLAS, CERN, and the LHC"
 MND 1015
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022 Panel discussion on graduate school in astronomy: Professors Rodolfo Barniol Duran, Vera Margoniner, Alexander Pettitt, Christopher Taylor, and Kyle Watters Sac State    MND 1015
Thursday, Mar. 3, 2022 Brian Morsony Stanislaus State Gamma-Ray Bursts and Gravitational Waves Recording of Dr. Morsony's talk
Thursday, Mar. 3, 2022 - *6pm Alexander Pettitt Sac State Physics & Astronomy STEM Scholars Lecture, “Understanding the Grandeur of Spiral Galaxies.” Questions can be directed to the Center for Science and Math Success at (916) 278-2789 or via email.
Thursday, March 10, 2022 Nathan Erickson Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp. Operating a Pressurized Water Nuclear Reactor Recording of Dr. Erickson's talk
Thursday, March 17, 2022 Kevin Geoghegan Defense MicroElectronics Activity (DMEA) The Defense MicroElectronics Activity: Your Local Neighborhood DoD Federal Laboratory MND 1015
Thursday, April 14, 2022 David Smith University of California, Santa Cruz High-Energy Radiation from Thunderstorms  MND 1015
Thursday, April 28, 2022 - also Awards Night Rob Custodio California Department of Public Health, Radiologic Health Branch; Sac State Alumnus Class of 2008 So, You Want to Be a Health Physicist? An introduction to radiation followed by a sight-seeing tour of your friendly, local radiation control agency  MND 1015
Thursday, May 5, 2022 Mikkel Herholdt Jensen Sac State Physics & Astronomy The Role of Mechanics in the Gut-brain Axis Recording of Dr. Jensen's talk
*Tuesday, May 10, 2022 Prince Yadav Sac State Physics major Quantifying the Intestinal Tissue Mechanics in Drosophila Fruit Flies Carrying Genetic Mutations No recording available for this talk.

Fall 2021 Physics & Astronomy Virtual Colloquium Schedule - 4pm

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021 Yilen Gomez Maqueo Chew UNAM / Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México What Do Astronomical Observations Tell Us of Stars and Exoplanets?  (Poster) (Abstract) Recording of  Dr. Gomez Maqueo Chew's talk
Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021 Alexandra Miller Sonoma State University How Hole-y is your Spacetime? aka How to Measure Topology in Quantum Gravity. Recording of Dr. Alexandra Miller's talk
Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021 Daniel Hayden Michigan State University Combination of Heavy Resonance Searches Using the ATLAS Detector Recording of Dr. Daniel Hayden's talk
Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021 John Davis University of Alberta Quasi-2D Superfluid 3He Recording of Dr. John Davis's talk
Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021 Nikhil Malvankar Yale University How Do Environmentally-important Bacteria Breathe Without Oxygen? Structures, Functions and Electron Transfer Mechanisms of Protein Nanowires. Recording of Dr. Nikhil Malvankar's talk
Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021 Samantha Benincasa Ohio State University BESPOKE Galaxy Samples: A Tailor-made Approach to Galaxy Simulations Recording of Dr. Benincasa's talk
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021 Michael Loverude  CSU Fullerton Beyond Procedures: Student Sensemaking in Mathematical Methods in Physics Recording of Dr. Loverude's talk
Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021 Christina Pino (Sac State Physics Alumna, Class of 2020) and Tyler Johnson (Sac State Chemistry Alumnus, Class of 2014) SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) Experimental Control Systems at LCLS Recording of C. Pino's and T. Johnson's talk
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021 Alexander Pettitt Sac State Physics and Astronomy How Stars Bite at the Mouths That Feed Them Recording of Dr. Pettitt's talk

Spring 2021 Physics & Astronomy Virtual Colloquium Schedule

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location
Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021 Raffaella Margutti Northwestern University "The Renaissance of Astrophysics: a landscape of opportunities in the era of Time Domain Multi-Messenger investigations" Recording of Dr. Margutti's talk
Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 Richard Lebed Arizona State University "The XYZ Affair: Tales of the Third (and Fourth) Hadrons" Recording of Dr. Lebed's talk
Thursday, March 4, 2021 Amy Furniss California State University - East Bay  “Coping with Impostor Syndrome” Recording of Dr. Furniss's March 4 talk. 
Thursday, March 11, 2021 Amy Furniss California State University - East Bay  “Let’s Talk About Implicit Bias” Recording of Dr. Furniss's March 11 talk. 
Thursday, March 18, 2021 Ashkan Salamat University of Nevada, Las Vegas "Room Temperature Superconductivity in a Carbonaceous Sulfur Hydride" Recording of Dr. Salamat's talk
Thursday, April 1, 2021 Arvinder Sandhu University of Arizona "Attosecond Science: Resolving the electron dance" Recording of Dr. Sandhu's talk
Thursday, April 8, 2021 Paula Heron University of Washington "Improving Student Learning in Physics: The dual roles of conceptual understanding and reasoning ability" Recording of Dr. Heron's talk
Thursday, April 22, 2021 Raúl Herrera  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Sac State Physics Alumnus, Class of 2010 "Applications of Operator Strength Decompositions to Computational Nuclear and Stellar Physics"  This talk was not recorded.
*Tuesday,  May 11, 2021 Ryann Hee Sac State Physics Major Senior Project "Measurement of the Low Temperature Porosity of 3D Printed Materials" Recording of Ryann Hee's talk (beginning of recording)
*Tuesday,  May 11, 2021 Alejandro Reyes Borunda Sac State Physics Major Senior Project "Thermal Conductivity of Polylactic Acid at Low Temperatures" Recording of Alejandro Reyes Borunda's talk (starting at 25:10)
Thursday, May 13, 2021 Herminio Carrillo Sac State Physics Major Senior Project "Numerically Calculating the Time Evolution of an Off-Axis Short Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow" Recording of Herminio Carrillo's talk (beginning of recording)
Thursday, May 13, 2021 Jared Sutton Sac State Physics Major Senior Project "Quantum Monte Carlo Simulation of an SO(N) Singlet Projector Model on the Pyrochlore Lattice" Recording of Jared Sutton's talk (starting at 26:15)

Fall 2020 Physics & Astronomy Virtual Colloquium Schedule

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location Time Notes - 
Thursday, October 1, 2020 Dimitrios Giannios Purdue University The Journey of Relativistic Astrophysical Jets Recording of Dr. Giannios's talk 4:00-5:15 pm  
Thursday, October 8, 2020 Shima Parsa Rochester Institute of Technology The Anomalous Origin of Polymer Enhanced Oil Recovery Recording of Dr. Parsa's talk 4:00 - 5:15 pm  
*Friday, October 16, 2020 NSM Virtual Research Symposium 2020 Sac State NSM majors Line-up of Physics Majors presenting research posters   *3:00 - 7:00 pm Line-up and times of student presenters is in the Title/Abstract column to your left
Thursday, October 22, 2020 - this talk has been cancelled and replaced - see next row Laura Chomiuk - Cancelled   Michigan State University What's So Classical about Classical Novae?      This talk will be rescheduled for a future date
Thursday, October 22, 2020 Jaroslav Trnka UC Davis Geometric Picture for Scattering Amplitudes Recording of Dr. Trnka's talk *4:05-5:15pm  
Thursday, October 29, 2020 Allison Fleshman Lawrence University Adventures at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Tracking Single Molecules with a Really Fancy Laser for a Really Good Cause Recording of Dr. Fleshman's talk 4:00 - 5:15 pm  
*Thursday, November 5, 2020 2020 Student Research & Creative Activity Fall Poster Forum Sac State (campus-wide) Undergraduate, Master's and Doctoral Students   Link to view ALL the posters from the Poster Forum 4:00 - 5:15 pm All posters have now been archived and are available to anyone to view via link to your left. 
Thursday, November 12, 2020 Elizabeth Fernandez Forbes Magazine Science Contributor Being (and Talking to) a Scientific Journalist   4:00 - 5:15 pm  
Thursday, November 19, 2020 Klaus van Benthem University of California, Davis Imaging Nanofunctionality: Evolution of Atomic Scale Defect Structures under Applied Stress   4:00 - 5:15 pm  
*Tuesday, December 8, 2020 Nicholas Sanders Sac State Physics Major Senior Project Talk Short Gamma Ray Bursts and the Intrinsic Nature of their Luminosity    4:00 - 5:15 pm  
*Tuesday, December 8, 2020 Christopher Carnahan Sac State Physics Major Senior Project Talk Analyzing Structures in Artificial Biological Cells   4:00 - 5:15 pm  
Thursday, December 10, 2020 Nathaniel Shepard Sac State Physics Major Senior Project Talk Investigation of Shock-induced Star Formation in Merging Cluster ZwCl 0008.8+5215 Recording of today's talks: Nathan's talk begins approximately 00:40 4:00 - 5:15 pm  
Thursday, December 10, 2020 Kathleen Scanlon Sac State Physics Major Senior Project Talk Star Formation Rates in the Galaxy Cluster Merger Abell 3365 Recording of today's talks: Katie's talk begins approximately 26:45 4:00 - 5:15 pm  
Thursday, December 10, 2020 Jeffery Cavanaugh Sac State Physics Major Senior Project Talk Developing Instruments for a New Soft Condensed Matter lab: From Lasers to Guts Recording of today's talks: Jeff's talk begins approximately 48:30 4:00 - 5:15 pm  

Spring 2020 Colloquium Schedule

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location Time Notes
Thursday, 2/20/20 Dr. Chris Weber Santa Clara University "Toward Ultrafast Control of Dirac Electrons: Coherent Phonons in a Topological Semimetal" MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm  
Tuesday, 3/3/20 Dr. Jordan Stone University of Arizona "Understanding the Giant Planet Formation Process with Direct Imaging" MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm  
Thursday, 3/5/20 Dr. Nicholas McConnell Institute for Scientist & Engineer Educators, UC Santa Cruz  "Supermassive Black Holes and Extreme Astrophysics in Massive Galaxies" MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm  
Tuesday, 3/10/20 Dr. Triana Almeyda University of Southampton, UK  "Mapping Active Galactic Nuclei Using Light Echoes" MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm  
Thursday, 3/12/20 Dr. Alex Pettitt Hokkaido University, Japan  "The Structure and Evolution of Star-forming Galaxies" MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm  
*CANCELLED

Tuesday, 3/17/20
Dr. Curtis Asplund Franklin & Marshall College, PA "Dialogue Concerning Two Great Theories" MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm  CANCELLED
*CANCELLED

Thursday, 3/19/20
Dr. Dimitrios Giannios Purdue University "The Journey of Relativistic Astrophysical Jets" Will be rescheduled for an upcoming semester   CANCELLED - Rescheduled for October 1, 2020.  
*CANCELLED

Thursday, 4/23/20
Rob Custodio Sac State Physics Class of 2008, Radiologic Health Branch, California Dept. of Public Health CANCELLED MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15pm CANCELLED
Tuesday, 5/5/20 Brandon Thomas Sac State Physics Major "Modeling electron capture in simulated 3-D semiconductor detector" Via Zoom 3:30pm Senior Project talks
Tuesday, 5/5/20 Rafael Umeda Sac State Physics Major "Improvements and Application of the Quantum Anti-Ferromagnetic Heisenberg Monte Carlo Simulator to the Honeycomb Lattice" Via Zoom 4:30pm Senior Project talks
Wednesday, 5/6/20  Mason Bender Sac State Physics Major TBA Via Zoom 4:00pm Senior Project talks
Wednesday, 5/6/20 Kevin Coan Sac State Physics Major "Measuring the Low-Temperature Porosity of 3D printed Polylactic Acid" Via Zoom 4:45pm Senior Project talks
Thursday, 5/7/20 Jeremy Tollefson Sac State Physics Major "Designing an Advanced Lab for Undergraduate Physics: Heat Propagation and Thermal Diffusivity" Via Zoom 4:00pm Senior Project talks
Friday, 5/8/20 Joseph Moore  Sac State Physics Major "Thermal Contraction of Polylactic Acid" Via Zoom 3:00pm Senior Project talks

Fall 2019 Colloquium Schedule

Day/Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract Location Time Notes
Thursday, 8/27/19 Alexander Tchekhovskoy Northwestern University Disks, Jets, and other Black Hole-powered Transients MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 9/12/19 Wesley Frey UC Davis - McClellan Nuclear Research Station Public Health Consequences of a Nuclear Powered Cruise Missile MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 9/26/19 David Strubbe University of California, Merced Computational studies of materials for solar cells and space exploration MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 10/3/19 Amy Furniss California State University, East Bay Studying the Most Extreme Processes in the Universe with VERITAS MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 10/17/19 Riccardo Bassiri Stanford University LIGO, the Era of Gravitational Wave Astronomy, and the Science that Makes it Possible MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 10/24/19 Hernan Garcia University of California, Berkeley Physical Biology of Living Embryos MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 11/7/19 Cassandra Paul San Jose State Equitable Grading Practices: grade-scales in introductory physics classes MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 11/14/19 Jake Koralek SLAC National Accelerator Lab The Linac Coherent Light Source: SLAC’s two-mile-long X-ray laser MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  
Thursday, 12/5/19 Elizabeth Gabler Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk NASA’s DART Mission MND 1015 4:00 - 5:15PM  

Spring 2019 Colloquium Schedule

Date Speaker Institution Title/Abstract
2/14/19 Sydney Schreppler University of California, Berkeley Building, Measuring, and Entangling Superconduction Qubits
3/7/19 Tammy Ma Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Creating a Star on Earth: Ignition Experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF)
3/28/19 Lauren Tompkins Stanford University The World's Most Complicated Game of Bingo: Pattern Recognition at the Large Hadron Collider
4/4/19 Sattar Taheri-Araghi California State University, Northridge Dying Bacteria Absorb Antibiotics to Help Survival of a Population Under Attack by Antimicrobial Peptides
4/11/19 Krista Lynne Smith Stanford University Exoplanet Satellites and High Energy Astrophysics
4/18/19 Joel Fajans University of California, Berkeley Fundamental Tests with Antihydrogen Atoms
4/25/19 AJ Sisneros Luther Burbank High School, Sac State Alumnus Class of 2011 Teaching Physics: a persepctive from a high school physics teacher
5/2/19 John Jaycee Cao Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk Improving Electrostatics Labs by Identifying Student's Conceptual Difficulties
5/2/19 Andrew Pace Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk Grasping Physics on the Autism Spectrum
5/7/19 Jeremy Rowe Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk Magnetic Field Measurements of the Niobium-Tin Quadrupole Magnet for the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider Upgrade Program
5/7/19 Sonny Shachar Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk Gamma-Ray Bursts: Unveiling the Mystery of the Gamma-Ray Emission
5/9/19 Andrew Fruneaux Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk Simulated Annealing of Nanowire Structures using a Quantum-Based Model
5/9/19 Kai Hu Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk The Global Feature Extractor: An Upgrade to the ATLAS Calorimeter Trigger
5/9/19 Kenia Medina Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project Talk Data Quality Monitoring Display for the FLIC Board in the ATLAS FAST TracKer Trigger at CERN

Fall 2018 Colloquium Schedule

Speaker Institution Title/Abstract
John Gillaspy National Science Foundation How NOT to get a grant from NSF
Helene Flohic University of the Pacific Observations of Supermassive Black Holes in Transition States
Rae Robertson-Anderson University of San Diego Untangling the Mechanics of Entangled Biopolymer Composites
Laura McWilliams California State Senate, Energy Policy Committee From Lasers to the Legislature
John Estrada Head of eFX Trading at Credit Suisse, Sac State Physics Alumnus Class of 1995 Out of the Box, Physics in Finance
Derek Kimball California State University, East Bay Uncovering the Nature of Dark Matter with Magnetic Resonance Experiments
Christopher Garnier Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project  
Dustin Johnson Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project  
Gino Fabricante Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project  
Matthew Idler Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project  
Danielle Taylor Sac State Physics Major - Senior Project