Jackie Corbitt is a shining example of the opportunities available to graduates of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

Corbitt, who graduated from the Department of Physics & Astronomy in 2011 and is now doing graduate work at the University of Washington, recently received a fellowship from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

An NSF Fellowship is a prestigious honor awarded to only a few top graduate students around the nation each year in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These fellowships provide three years of financial support, which may be used over a period of five years.

Dr. Gus Hart, who advised Corbitt while she was a physics undergraduate at BYU, noted that her driven nature and responsible attitude toward her work gave Corbitt a great advantage when she moved into her graduate program.

Dr. David Allred worked with Corbitt in the classroom and in research-based writing and was impressed by her ability to excel.

“She was already operating at a graduate level as an undergraduate,” he said.

Corbitt explained that her positive experience as an undergrad in the College provided “fantastic growth experiences” that prepared her for the work she does now at the University of Washington.

“I had the opportunity to give formal scientific talks at local and national American Physical Society meetings as well as the annual CPMS Student Research Conference,” she said. “The professors, especially Drs. Hart, Turley, and Allred, were very supportive of my goals, and remembering their encouragement helped me get through the challenges of the first year of graduate school.”

Corbitt took many different kinds of classes as an undergraduate, building a strong background in biology, which helped in her future graduate work.

“The College allowed interdisciplinary studies, enabling me to expand my knowledge base in preparation for the biophysics research I now do,” Corbitt said.

With the help of the NSF Graduate Fellowship, Corbitt is currently studying a type of bacterial secretion system that could assist in the treatment of cystic fibrosis and chronic wound infections.

The fellowship allows Corbitt to dedicate more time to this important research “without the added stress of continually seeking funding or working long hours as a TA,” she explained. “More importantly, it offers me national distinction that honors BYU . . . and sets me apart for future employment opportunities.”

Dr. Allred feels that Corbitt’s success will inspire future students to reach toward high goals.

“Students need to understand that it is possible for them to get a prestigious fellowship like this. They need to try for this—and more than once,” Dr. Allred said.

Corbitt encourages interested students to apply.

“Writing fellowship applications is an excellent preparation for writing grant proposals, and the reviewer feedback is priceless,” she said. “Beyond that, you may surprise yourself and receive the award!”

Corbitt expects to receive her doctorate in physics with a research focus in biophysics in 2016 and hopes to mentor future physicists through research and teaching.

—Meg Monk, College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences

A growing number of college students are using the ADHD medication Adderall to give them an academic edge, and they’re tweeting about it.

Thanks to Twitter, tracking roughly when and where Adderall use happens is now possible. So a group of BYU health science and computer science researchers did just that.

Their six-month study, appearing in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, produced two major revelations about Adderall:

1. It is mentioned most heavily among students in the northeast and south regions of the U.S.
2. Tweets about Adderall peak sharply during final exam periods.

“Adderall is the most commonly abused prescription stimulant among college students,” said lead researcher Carl Hanson, a professor of health science at BYU. “Our concern is that the more it becomes a social norm in online conversation, the higher risk there is of more people abusing it.”

For the study, researchers monitored all public-facing Twitter mentions of “Adderall” between November 2011 and May 2012, but removed tweets from users whose screen-names indicated they were promoting Adderall.

The results showed 213,633 tweets from 132,099 unique users mentioned the drug during the study, with an average of 930 per day. Though the analysis didn’t sort out “legal” vs. “illegal,” use, Adderall tweets spiked sharply during traditional finals periods, with peaks on Dec. 13 (2,813) and April 30 (2,207).

Researchers also found that Adderall tweets peaked during the middle of the week and declined by the weekend. Both findings are consistent with previous research that shows college students who abuse ADHD stimulants do so primarily during times of academic stress.

For the rest of the story, see BYU News.

—BYU News

It’s not rocket science. Oh wait, it is.

Physics graduate student Ben Christensen received first place in the first ever BYU Grad Expo, which was sponsored by the Graduate Studies Society. Competing against every department in the university, Christensen won with his oral presentation on creating microphones strong enough to study the sound waves of NASA rockets.

“We all know rockets are noisy. Who cares?” Christensen said. “But they’re actually so noisy that the sound causes vibrations that can damage fancy and expensive equipment.”

For the past five years, Christensen and others in the Department of Physics and Astronomy have been trying to develop durable probes carrying multiple microphones that are able to measure the sound of rockets and the direction that sound is coming from.

The data retrieved by these probes may make it easier for NASA to be able to control the sound emitted by rockets to protect satellites and other delicate equipment onboard from the rockets’ blasts.

“The idea is to hopefully control the noise better, because it’s really hard to reduce it,” Christensen said. “You can’t just put a muffler on it.”

Those who attended were able to vote for their favorite project. The attendees of the Grad Expo appreciated Christensen’s project and voted his presentation into first place.

Second place at the Expo went to law student Jed Bigelow for his presentation on creating better rehabilitation programs (http://goo.gl/H1dAr) while third place went to health science student Cameron Lister for his presentation on using twitter to track public health (http://goo.gl/v5Er4).

“It was really fun to be able to present this to people who aren’t die-hard physicists,” Christensen said.

Christensen was grateful to his wife for listening to him practice his presentation and to his friend Jay Eyring for making a demo of the microphone to show people at the Expo.

His presentation may have not blown people away, but it certainly could have positive implications for NASA in the future.

—Curtis Penfold, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Discovery has personal meaning for one scientist.

As a teenage student athlete, Emily Bates hated never knowing when the next migraine would strike, disrupting her schoolwork, practices and competitions.

Now it’s payback time.

The BYU chemistry professor published research this week in Science Translational Medicine that identifies mutations in a gene that makes people more susceptible to migraine headaches. The study is the first demonstration of a genetic cause for the common migraine and is an important step in the search for a cure.

“I had migraines really frequently and severely,” Bates said. “I would lose my vision, vomit uncontrollably – it would wipe out an entire day. I decided then as a high school student that I was going to work on migraines, that I was going to figure them out and help find a cure.”

“Her last migraine happened the day before a marathon she planned to run in October 2003. Though her migraines eventually stopped, she didn’t.

For the rest of the story, see BYU News.

—BYU News

For anyone who ever fantasized about life as an astronaut, launching rockets, or exploring Mars, BYU’s Astrofest makes those dreams a reality.

On May 18, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., kids and adults can gather to the Eyring Science Center to celebrate space and science with free hair-raising experiments and hands-on activities.

Participants can craft their own rockets to launch outside or compete in paper airplane competitions.

To experience the rough terrain of Mars, visitors will scale a rock wall and traverse an inflatable obstacle course. Geology students will teach visitors how to identify meteorites, and the BYU Mars rover group will show off their current rover.

Those who want an “out-of-this-world experience” can stop by the Royden G. Derrick Planetarium for free half-hour shows and stargazing.

Throughout the day, BYU physics students, with the help of volunteers, will demonstrate everything from the power of gravity to acoustic absorption. Last year, participants held their breath as students lay across a bed of nails and hovered plastic balls near the ceiling.

The community is welcome to join the fun at the 2013 Astrofest on Saturday, May 18 at the BYU Eyring Science Center Pendulum Court and outdoor west plaza. In case of inclement weather, activities will move inside the ESC. More information is available at astrofest.byu.edu.

—Carly Huchendorf, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Watch the science behind Ziggy’s talent.

April 26, 2013

Imagine getting hit by a 6-foot-6-inch, 270-pound man running at you at sixteen miles per hour.

If you can imagine that, you can imagine playing football with statistics major Ezekiel “Ziggy” Ansah. No wonder the Detroit Lions chose him as the fifth pick in the first round of the NFL draft.

The fact that Ziggy was chosen so early in the draft is even more impressive considering that he didn’t start playing football until about three years ago.

Originally from Ghana, Ziggy came in contact with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he started playing basketball with the missionaries. After being baptized, he came to BYU on an academic scholarship, hoping to be able to play basketball. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the cut.

Ziggy then tried running for the track team, but he was so big that he’d run into the other runners. His coach suggested he try out for football, a sport Ziggy had originally viewed as being too violent.

When Ziggy tried out for football, Coach Bronco Mendenhall was hesitant to let him on the field considering his lack of experience. But Ziggy was willing to come to practices every day and work hard; he turned out to be a fast learner.

“He’s smart, very, very cerebral, very analytical,” Mendenhall said.

Ziggy quickly became a key player with his speed, size, and brain. He really wanted to attend graduation this April, but instead, he was in New York getting drafted.

“It means a lot, you know,” Ziggy said. “Just to represent BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

For more information on Ziggy, watch this video.

Click here to listen to Ziggy talk about his statistics major during his introductory press conference with the Detroit media.

-Curtis Penfold, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

You can’t win a student Emmy for cutting hair, but you can win one for making a short film about a Spanish hair stylist with a unique client.

BYU’s Center for Animation, with its impressive animation and computer science students, achieved such a feat on April 25th when they were awarded first place at the College Television Awards for their short animated film, Estefan.

“If we don’t win the Emmys, we’re losers compared to previous years,” said Lauren Oppenlander, director of Estefan, before the award ceremony took place.

The BYU Center for Animation has won 11 College Television Awards, (http://animation.byu.edu/awards) (also known as Student Emmys) as well as four Student Academy Awards. This is an impressive accomplishment considering that BYU is competing against schools from all around the world.

Lauren Taylor, the animation student who produced the film, was in Los Angeles to accept the award for Estefan.

“It doesn’t feel like you’re accepting it for you,” Taylor said. “It feels like you’re accepting it for the film, and you just got to be a part of it…You wish everybody could go on stage with you.”

Oppenlander and other students were present for the ceremony.

“(Taylor) has to go give a talk. And we’re going to be in the background making faces,” said Oppenlander before the ceremony. “Or at least I will be.”

Two years and thousands of man-hours went into the making of this five-minute film. The students who participated in it say they didn’t do it for the grade.

“In animation, whether or not you get a degree doesn’t get you a job. It’s all about the portfolio,” said Thomas Ellsworth, a computer science student who helped with the creation of Estefan.

Ellsworth was thankful for the experience he was able to get creating Estefan, and plans to add scenes of the film to his portfolio as he prepares to enter the workforce.

The students who helped with the project also felt a certain attachment to the film, especially Oppenlander who created the character of Estefan and stayed with him until the final cut.

“It’s kind of like her baby,” Taylor said.

Oppenlander agrees.

“My parents printed off our concept art for Estefan and have it hanging on our mantle,” Oppenlander said. “My mom’s like, ‘Estefan’s like our grandson.’”

Last year, Estefan became a legend within the Center of Animation, when it won an even bigger award with AMC SIGGRAPH (The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer and Interactive Techniques)—the first Center of Animation film to achieve such an honor. (http://goo.gl/7VYgs)

-Curtis Penfold, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

What if we could starve cancer?

Dr. Joshua Andersen, of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, aims to do just that, with his team of eight students and a slew of tumors in petri dishes.

“If we can prevent tumors from using energy, we can basically starve them and the tumors die,” Andersen said.

All cells have a metabolism that uses energy, typically in the form of glucose. But tumors use this energy in a fairly unique way. Andersen’s team hopes to inhibit proteins involved in tumor metabolism with the hope of starving the cancer cells.

Because metabolic proteins are used differently in tumors, Andersen hopes that they can create drugs that target only these proteins without hurting other parts of the body.

Chemotherapy, in theory, should be more effective at killing tumors if the tumors are unable to sustain themselves because these proteins are inhibited.

“In reality, there are always side effects to any treatment, ” Andersen said. “But the Holy Grail is to design therapies that target tumors and spare other tissues in the body. It is our hope that by gaining an understanding of the unique aspects of tumor metabolism, we can get closer to that ultimate goal.”

Andersen has been studying cancer metabolism for the past seven years. This year, he wrote an article for Molecular Cell (http://goo.gl/CGydV) outlining most of the research done so far on the topic of cancer metabolism. He also outlined his hopes of where this type of research should be headed.

“This is a very exciting time in the field of tumor metabolism. Clinicians and scientists alike are developing strategies to target tumor metabolism as we speak. But at the same time, we still have a lot to learn,” Andersen said.

—Curtis Penfold, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

BYU student programmers Alyssa Meservy, Paul Draper, and Ryan Stringham, coded a win on Saturday, March 23, at the BYU ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) Team Coding Challenge.

Each semester, the BYU student chapter of ACM invites students from eight schools across Utah to practice their skills and compete for prizes. The competition is modeled after the annual ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Competition), where teams of three students have four hours to solve challenging programming problems.

With the help of its sponsor Epic, BYU hosted 130 participants (almost double past semesters’ turnouts).

“We were looking for a company that could help us, because there are a lot of costs,” said BYU ACM president Wade Anderson, who helped plan the event. “There’s food, breakfast and lunch, and prizes. We reached out to [Epic], and they said, ‘Yes, we’ll do it.’ And they just took care of everything for us.”

During the competition, each team attempted to solve seven problems written by Epic developers, and according to Anderson, the questions were not easy, which makes the winning team’s victory especially impressive.

Paul Draper was one of the organizers of BYU ACM’s first programming competition last winter, so he was prepared for this year’s event. He had worked with Alyssa and Ryan before, and he was confident they could do well together.

“There’s three people at one computer, which forces you to have some good teamwork, and we had some really bright people on our team, which was neat to see. Ryan and I do a lot of practice, so I guess you could say that it’s something that we’re used to.”

Alyssa Meservy agreed that the competition was a great chance to work as a team and practice their skills not only in preparation for the ICPC, but also for future job interviews.

“I really think it’s something that helps with interviewing as well. It’s not just something that helps preparing for that competition. I interviewed at a lot of companies this semester, and that was probably one of the biggest helps for me.”

This is one of the key reasons that the BYU ACM hosts these events. For computer science majors, interviews often involve spending hours in front of a white board answering a series of questions, and these competitions help prepare students to perform well.

Draper, who graduates this fall, attributes his upcoming job at Lucidchart to his practice here at BYU and the connections he made with the company when they hosted last semester’s competition.

Beyond practice, however, all the competitors seemed to genuinely enjoy competing and interacting with programmers from other schools. According to Meservy, the students had a great time.

“I think everyone there really enjoyed it. It’s fun to see this many people coming together that enjoy this type of stuff and to be able to collaborate with your friends. I think it’s a really fun opportunity. It’s really casual, and I think it’s a really great chance for us to get involved.”

—Carly Huchendorf, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Terik Daly, a former BYU student in the Department of Geological Sciences, recently received a highly competitive NSF (National Science Foundation) Graduate Research Fellowship as well as the Geological Society of America’s Stephen E. Dwornik Award. Both of these significant awards came as a result of Daly’s research on something very small—dust. Cosmic dust, that is.

“Space is a very dusty place, and the dust that’s out there comes from a variety of sources,” said Daly. “It tells an important story about solar system history and processes. So the goal is to create a tool that we can use to study cosmic dust in the lab.”

According to Daly there are experimental apparatuses available for studying cosmic dust, but their capabilities are limited. At BYU, he worked with chemistry professor Dr. Daniel Austin on overcoming these limitations so that scientists could better understand how the solar system was formed and what has happened since that formation.

Together, Daly and Austin developed a technique to electrically charge mineral grains for acceleration to the high velocities needed for impacts. Daly authored two publications based on this research.

Daly’s studies have evolved since he began his graduate work at Brown University last fall. He’s now looking at what happens to asteroids, comets, and meteorites when they collide with planets (or each other), a process that has been happening all throughout the solar system’s history.

“It’s called impact cratering, and it’s probably the most fundamental process that affects solid objects in solar systems,” said Daly. “This process has been recognized for several decades, but a lot of work still needs to be done to understand what happens to the asteroid, or comet, or meteorite when it hits its target.”

Daly is studying how much of these projectiles survive impact, their physical state, and the physical and chemical mixing that happens during impact.

“For example, if you have an asteroid that has water in it, and you smash that into a planet, how much of that water ends up mixing with the planet and being retained by that body? How does the cosmic shooting gallery that is our solar system—that process of impact—affect the composition of solar system bodies through time?”

Terik Daly’s fascination with impact cratering began in the eighth grade when he saw a NOVA documentary on Eugene Shoemaker, a pioneer in planetary science. Intrigued by the potential importance of impact cratering, Daly followed Shoemaker’s lead with high school science projects focused on impact cratering.

That interest continued at BYU where his research with Austin helped him earn his spot at Brown. Daly was accepted into all seven of the graduate programs he applied to largely based on his undergraduate research background.

“In a very real way, the undergraduate experiences that I had at BYU were fundamental to my getting accepted to these different programs. Once I got here, the research experiences that I had as an undergraduate really allowed me to hit the ground running.”

—Carly Huchendorf, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences