Preparing scholars, presenting excellence
William & Mary’s graduate students came together in the Sadler Center on March 26 and 27 to share ongoing research at the Ninth Annual Graduate Research Symposium.
Under the theme Preparing Scholars, Presenting Excellence, the event also included presentations from graduate-level researchers at nearly twenty other universities. More than 135 research projects were presented in either poster sessions or oral presentations. A set of judging panels conferred sponsored awards on several symposium participants for excellence in research and scholarship. Other graduate students were recognized for excellence in the mentoring of undergraduates.
Nathaniel Phillips, a graduate student in physics, was one of the award winners. He is working on a system that would use the principles of quantum mechanics as a basis for a “perfectly uncrackable” encryption paradigm, allowing encoded messages to be transmitted safely. The project, he said, has important implications for national security.
“Technologies that enable uncrackable encryption will have to incorporate quantum mechanics,” he explained. His plan is to use an interaction between light and atoms as an encryption scheme. Phillips explained that information encoded in pulses of light can be reversibly mapped onto long-lived quantum atomic spin states, to be retrieved only by a recipient that holds “quantum key.”
Jonathan Skuza was one of the winners of the winners of the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring. He said that mentoring experience benefits the graduate mentors as well as their undergraduate protégés.
“To be an effective mentor, you need patience, plus the ability to convey concepts and teach,” Skuza said. “These are characteristics that faculty need to teach all students, graduate and undergraduate. I think that being able to mentor an undergraduate helps prepare one to be a faculty member, which is what I hope to become.”
In addition to the presentations from the Arts & Science graduate programs, the symposium featured a panel discussion by the Graduate Studies Advisory Board on the value of a graduate education.
Symposium Award Winners
Market Access International, Inc. Award for
Excellence in Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Nancy Hillman
The College of William and Mary,
History. Advisor: Melvin Ely
A
Complex Fellowship: Black and White Baptists in Southeastern Virginia,
1800-1860
Northrop Grumman Corporation Award for
Excellence in Scholarship in the Natural and Computational Sciences
Nathaniel Phillips
The College of William and Mary,
Physics. Advisor: Irina Novikova
Quantum
memory under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency and
four-wave mixing in a hot atomic gas
Incogen, Inc. Award for Excellence in
Scholarship in the Natural and Computational Sciences
Sara Kampfe
The College of William and Mary,
Chemistry. Advisor: Deborah Bebout
Processing
and Conversion of Algae to Bioethanol
William & Mary Award for Excellence in
the Humanities and Social Sciences
Kathryn Holt
Psychology, Advisor: Paul
Kieffaber
Cognitive Aging: Influences on Attention
and Response Switching
William & Mary Honorable Mentions
Jennifer Ogborne
Anthropology, Advisor: Martin
Gallivan
So… What Am I Supposed To Do With This
Big Pile of Cans?: Methodological Techniques for Coping with 19th and 20th
Century Can Dumps
Sarah Glosson
American Studies, Advisor: Charles McGovern
Domestic Music Making in Late
Eighteenth-Century Elite Chesapeake Society: Playing Music, Performing Identity
Visiting Scholar Award for Excellence in
the Humanities and Social Sciences
Susan Llewellyn
History, George Mason University,
Advisors: Joan Bristol, Kathy McGill
Competing for Power: An Examination of
Motivations Behind Changes in Women's Property Rights in Colonial Virginia
Visiting Scholar Honorable Mention
Ashley Whitehead
History, West Virginia University,
Advisor: Peter Carmichael
"A Debt of Honor": The
Benevolence of Richmond's Female Elites at the "Last Confederate
Christmas" of 1864
William & Mary Award for Excellence in
the Natural & Computational Sciences
Lei Lu
Computer Science, Advisor: Evgenia Smirni
Blocking for Efficient Server Overload
Management under Bursty Arrivals
William & Mary Honorable Mentions
Shahla Nasserasr
Applied Science/Mathematics,
Advisor: Charles Johnson
Conditions for a TP2-Completion
Kevin Smith
Physics, Advisor: Gunter Lupke
Optical Control of Ultrafast Spin-wave
Relaxation by Magnetic Anisotropy in a Ferromagnet
Visiting Scholar Award for Excellence in
the Natural & Computational Sciences
Samuel Shimp, III
Biomedical Engineering, Virginia
Tech
Advisors: Marissa Rylander, Christopher Reilly
Computational modeling of Hsp90 as a
therapeutic target to inhibit immune-mediated inflammation in systemic lupus
erythematosus
Visiting Scholar Honorable Mention
Senthilraja Singaravelu
Physics, Old Dominion University,
Advisors: Michael Kelley, Geoffrey Krafft
Laser Processing on bulk Niobium to
produce Niobium nitride
Johns Hopkins University
Information Security Institute Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the
Computational Sciences
Duy Le
Computer Science, College of
William & Mary, Advisor: Haining Wang
Detecting
Kernel Level Keyloggers Through Dynamic Taint Analysis
Award for Excellence in
Undergraduate Mentoring in the Humanities and Social Sciences
David Brown
History Department
Julia Kaziewicz
American Studies Program
Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring in the
Natural and Computational Sciences
Stephen Cole
Biology Department
Jonathan Skuza
Physics Department
