Program Overview

Each year the NASA Space Grant Program at Augsburg offers competitive scholarships for incoming freshmen and undergraduates majoring in the natural sciences. Throughout their undergraduate studies, many of these scholarship awardees conduct undergraduate research in one of the many active research programs sponsoredby Physics faculty members Dr. Mark Engebretson, Dr. Ken Erickson, and Dr. Jeff Johnson. Currently, five undergraduate research assistants are supported in various research projects.

Over the last six months 6 undergraduates have been involved with a variety on research projects during this spring/summer. Seniors Physics majors, Courtney Jenkins, Brad Motl, and Jared Mack worked with Dr. Ambrose Wolf on the expansion of a UHV MBE system. New expansion features include a load lock, z-manipulator, and two new pressure sensors. Junior, Ryan Shea, worked with Dr. Wolf this summer.

Geoff Shelburne (Junior, Physics) worked extensively with Dr. Mark Engebretson on NSF supported space science research during the school year and during the summer. Geoff studied naturally occurring modulations in VLF-frequency radio emissions in Earth-space environments and their connections to magnetic field pulsations.

Further Pursuits of NASA Undergraduate Research Assistants
Graduating undergraduate research assistant Jared Mack (Physics, 2003) is in a Physics doctoral program at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Courtney Jenkins (Physics, 2003) will be starting a graduate program in Electrical Engineering at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Brad Motl, (Physics, 2003) is in a doctoral engineering program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

02 Summer Undergrad Research Assistant, Kailash Thapa, (Senior, Mathematics) worked this past year with Dr. Nick Coult, Mathematics on a NSF grant “Multiscale approach to wave propagation through turbulent regions of Earth's space environment." In that role is helping Dr. Coult develop mathematical models of waves in the near-Earth space environment. He will be presenting his research at the CSEMS seminar on September 18, 2003. He will also be giving the Mathematics Colloquium at Augsburg College on September 24, 2003.

Presentations:
Engebretson, M. J., J. L. Posch, G. A. Shelburne, and A. J. Halford (Augsburg College), A. J. Smith (British Antarctic Survey), R. L. Arnoldy (University of New Hampshire), and M. Spasojevich and U. S. Inan (Stanford University), “Diurnal Variations of QuasiPeriodic and Periodic VLF emissions in the Outer Magnetosphere,” to be presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, Dec. 8-12, 2003.

Jesse Woodroffe and Alexa Halford, class of 2003, both participated with full NSF support in the Summer 2003 GEM (Geospace Environment Modeling) Workshops sponsored by NSF's Magnetospheric Physics Program in Snowmass, CO, June 22-27, 2003. Jesse Woodroffe presented a poster on the research he had been conducting with Dr. Engebretson comparing ULF wave observations from the European Space Agency's Cluster satellites with data from various ground observatories worldwide. Later, and again with full NSF support, both Jesse and Alexa participated in a sten-day Space Physics Summer School for beginning and returning graduate students at Boston University, organized as part of Boston University's Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling. Jesse is now a graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, with a probable specialization in Space Physics. Alexa is now a graduate Teaching Assistant and Research Fellow at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado.

Presentations; change Engebretson's Fall AGU talk to "presented"

Please add the following:

Heather Greene, poster at McNair Conference at Penn State in August 2003, poster at Fall AGU in December 2003, poster at Minnesota State Capital as part of Minnesota Private College Research Fair.

Magnetic Field Oscillations and Associated Energetic Ion Modulations Occurring on December 20, 2002 in the Dusk Sector Outer Magnetosphere, H.L. Greene, M.J. Engebretson, and K.N. Erickson (Augsburg College), W.K. Peterson, (University of Colorado). K.H. Trattner (Lockheed-Martin Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, CA), C.Z. Cheng (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory), and C.T. Russell,(UCLA), presented at the Fall AGU Meeting, San Francisco, California, December 11, 2003.

Jenkins, C. Development of Low Cost Variable Speed Drive for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Applications, Ronald E. McNair Post baccalaureate Achievement Program, Student Poster Session September, 2002; Minneapolis, MN and at Michigan State University, August, 2002, East Lansing, MI

Publications submitted:
Tunable Magnetization Reversal in Epitaxial bcc Fe 1-xCox Films on Vicinal Surfaces, J.A. Wolf, K.K. Anderson, E.D. Dahlberg, P.A. Crowell, L.C. Chen and C.J. Palmstrom, Journal of Applied Physics, to appear in April, 2003 if accepted.

Engebretson, M. J., J. L. Posch, A. J. Halford, G. A. Shelburne, A. J. Smith, M.
Spasojevic`, U. S. Inan, and R. L. Arnoldy, Latitudinal and Seasonal Variations of Quasi-Periodic and Periodic VLF emissions in the Outer Magnetosphere,
submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research, November, 2003.