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Graduate Student Awards - 2007

Please join us in congratulating the recipients of the 2007 Graduate Student Awards !

Graduate Teaching Awards

David James DeSario

David DeSario is an excellent teacher. His scores on student evaluations place him in the top 10% of College of Science and Technology instructors. His Math C085 (Calculus I) section last fall had the highest course average among the thirteen sections of Calculus I and the third highest median on the common final. With this award, we recognize David’s accomplishments as an instructor and his hard work and dedication to teaching.

Michael Dion

Michael has been a teaching assistant for a variety of first year and advanced Physics courses where he has earned high praise from students and faculty alike. At present, he is in charge of the Modern Physics Laboratory. This advanced laboratory contains a number of complex computer-controlled experiments that demonstrate effects of quantum mechanics and special relativity. Michael takes great care to instruct the students in the ideas behind the experiments as well as the technical details of operating them. He has also dealt very effectively with a number of equipment failures. Michael's teaching evaluations on instructor-related items are consistently high, reflecting the care and attention he devotes to his assignments.

Joseph Jupin

Joseph Jupin is recognized as an outstanding teacher because of his dedication to his students and his exceptional professionalism as a graduate lab instructor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences. Joe is revered by his students for his preparation, his availability and willingness to help, his timely assistance as a consultant and a grader, and his attention to detail in the preparation of complete and precise instructional material and lab project specifications. As one student remarked, “Joe is the best, most helpful TA I’ve had at Temple.”

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Graduate Research Awards

Ergin Hayri Ahmed

Ergin Ahmed’s research focuses on laser spectroscopy of small molecules, and has led to improved understanding of coherence effects in laser-molecule interactions. His experiments have contributed to the first-ever mapping of the absolute value of the electronic transition dipole moment as a function of inter nuclear distance. Ergin is notably independent in the laboratory. His skills are prodigious in both theoretical and experimental realms. Since 2003, Ergin has co-authored five peer-reviewed papers at Temple, three as first author.

Ryan Compton

Ryan Compton’s research involves the use of photonic reagents to promote chemical processes. In this work, intense laser pulses are used to manipulate chemical reaction pathways. By manipulating the phase and amplitude of the pulses, roughly 1050 distinct time-dependent fields can be generated. Ryan uses an adaptive algorithm to search through the space of possible pulses for one with a desired effect. Ryan has been invited to two Gordon Conferences to present these results. Ryan has developed a new form of spectroscopy that employs femtosecond laser beams. This method has the highest temporal precision of any type of spectroscopy. Ryan is first author on a manuscript to be submitted to physical Review letters describing theoretical and experimental results with fs CARS. Ryan is “among the best graduate students” seen by our Chemistry faculty.

Douglas Hausner

Douglas Hausner is one of the most promising students in recent years in Temple’s Chemistry Department, at the top of his cohort in terms of dedication and achievement, working at a level typical of postdoctoral fellows. Doug is mature, a self-starter and has naturally assumed a leadership role in his research group, and amongst graduate students in the department. Doug’s research is focused on the surface properties of minerals such as calcite in contact with water. Doug uses an array of techniques to analyze these surfaces including Scanning Probe Microscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Dynamic Light Scattering, and UV-VIS spectroscopy. Because these minerals are common in the earth’s crust, discovering the properties of the mineral-aqueous interface has important environmental impacts. Doug’s research has focused on the organic and heavy metal species interacting with the calcite surface. Doug has published three papers and “has proved to the backbone” of his advisor’s research group, excelling in his own research while helping others.

Tadele Adamtie Mengesha

Tadele Mengesha is “among the best of the best” students ever to have worked in the Department of Mathematics. Tadele has developed a novel method in the Calculus of Variations that permitted him to answer a long-standing question about sufficient conditions for strong local minima for vectorial variational problems. He has published one paper on this topic and submitted a second. Tadele is a very hard-working and talent student who has used his time at Temple to lay a solid foundation for a strong research career. He will continue to produce excellent results.

Peng Qi

Peng Qi’s research focuses on high-resolution laser spectroscopy of hyperfine interactions and global analysis of coupled states in the sodium dimer. Peng has contributed to the development of a new triple resonance spectroscopic technique to measure the transition dipole moment of Na2 using Autler-Townes splitting. His observations on electromagnetically induced transparency in a 2-photon transition are the first observed with a single laser that happen to be “precisely resonant on two transitions in the cascade scheme.” Peng’s efforts have already led to four peer-reviewed publications and two papers in preparation.

Deepa Rapolu

Deepa Rapolu has prepared various constrained ß-amino acids with functional groups in well-defined orientations. These amino acids are used to prepare oligomers with well-defined folding propensities, compounds known as “foldamers.” Deepa has co-authored several papers in the Journal of Organic Chemistry with several more in preparation. She has presented her work at meetings of the American Chemical Society, winning an award for best poster in 2005. Deepa has not only had a profound impact through her discoveries, but also through her interactions with her labmates. During her tenure in the Krow research group, she has mentored at least six undergraduates, successfully guiding them through both published procedures and novel research. She has also mentored two new graduate students, and provided them with a firm foundation of academic and technical knowledge that enabled the new students to quickly become productive contributors to the research group. Deepa has a superior work ethic, and is extremely dedicated and hard working.

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Peter Havas Fund for Outstanding Physics Graduate Students

Sonja Ingram

Computer and Information Sciences Department Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant

Vishnuprasad Radhakrishnan

 

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