Student Profiles
Welcome the Class of 2020!
William Charles
William received his BS degree in physics and mathematics from Fordham University where he conducted research in liquid crystal optics, lattice quantum chromodynamics, and automated stock trading. He went on to receive his MS degree from Fordham as well where he worked in Fordham’s computational neuroscience lab and did research in the areas of machine learning and computer vision. He wrote his master’s thesis on modeling childhood visual development more accurately for machine learning applications. William’s current interests in physics include statistical physics and hard condensed matter. Outside of physics he is interested in machine learning and public policy.
Thy Doan Mai Le
Thy, originally from Vietnam, graduated from Ithaca College with a B.S. in Physics and a minor in Computer Science. During her undergraduate years, Thy focused on a variety of projects, from designing control systems, renovating very old experimental devices to soft matter computational work. Her senior thesis, for example, involved the renovation of a diffraction grating spectrograph originally manufactured in 1985, by creating a modern control system (using Arduinos) that is compatible with the original spectrograph. In addition to engineering projects, her most recent work implemented a Python module for the inference of particle size distributions in dynamic light scattering experiments using latent Gaussian processes. Outside of her work, Thy is often found perfecting various famous dessert recipes and brewing too much of Earl Grey tea.
Students at various stages of the program
Daniel O’Brien, Class of 2017
The GU Physics department was a perfect fit for me; its interdisciplinary nature affords access to specialists in a range of fields. This expertise, when paired with state-of-the-art experimental facilities like GNuLab and ISM, means I have the ability to conduct advanced technological research. Lastly, our geographical placement in DC both brings in speakers and collaborators from government labs and offers access to plenty of “nature” just a few miles outside of town.
Luogen (Logan) Xu, Class of 2018
The physics graduate students here at Georgetown are a close-knit community. I get to discuss research ideas with fellow graduate students with great passion and hang out with them outside of work. During stressful times, they were great companies to have intellectually engaging and calming conversations with. The faculty here is welcoming and caring. They do fascinating research and they really love physics. As it turns out, coming here has been one of the best choices I made in my life!
Davonne Henry, Class of 2018
During my undergraduate work, I was not able to explore specialized Physics topics and engage in research as freely as I have been able to do at Georgetown. I have gotten to engage with experimental and theoretical collaborators and I have the opportunity to take advantage of diverse areas of expertise among the faculty and students. Outside of research, I have enjoyed the opportunity to have serious conversations within the department about our responsibility to build a diverse and inclusive STEM community.