Physics major wins award

Sophie Taylor, a junior physics major, was the winner of the best poster award in the “Condensed Matter/Materials Science/Nano-Science/Surface” category at the recent PhysCon conference in Washington DC. PhysCon, which is run by the national Society of Physics Students organization, is the major conference for undergraduate physics students in the US. Every three years it brings together several thousand undergraduate students to hear talks, participate in workshops and showcase their research. Sophie was one of over 300 students to present a poster on their research. Her presentation, entitled “A Continuation of Characterization of Polystyrene Nanocapsules”, described her work on synthesizing and characterizing nanocapsules with a liquid-core and polymer shell.  Working together with fellow undergrads Yuri Chung and Sam Becker and graduate student Eleni Hughes in the research lab of Prof. Ed Van Keuren, she helped develop these novel materials, which could have applications in areas such as drug delivery and as nanoreactors. Sophie has presented her research at several other conferences and is first author on a recently submitted manuscript describing her work.