Undergraduate Researcher of the Year 2009
College of Science

While pursuing a double major in Physics and Mathematics, Sydney Chamberlin first became involved in undergraduate research during Fall 2005 in an NSF-REU project.  This research, performed under the direction of Dr. Tapas Kar (Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry), focused on chemical approaches to storing hydrogen. Four poster presentations resulted from this research. During summer 2006 Sydney participated in a research internship at the Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the Friedrich Schiller Universtät in Germany. Her work on this project was directed at the design and construction of a device to model human brain capillaries during imaging tests in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) device. In the summer of 2007, Sydney performed undergraduate research at the NASA Lunar and Planetary Institute (Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX). These studies, performed under the direction of Dr. Roy Christoffersen, involved investigations of the amorphization of lunar dust grains by solar wind ion radiation. Sydney’s efforts focused on enhancing an existing Monte Carlo simulation and designing a method to simulate the sputtering of a solid under bombardment from energetic ions. Five presentations and two published abstracts resulted from this research. One of the presentations, at the Four Corners Section meeting of the American Physical Society (Oct. 2007), was awarded the Best Undergraduate Research Presentation for the meeting. Following up on this experience, as a member of the USU Microgravity Research Team, Sydney led several undergraduates in an independent research project directed at the design of a microgravity experiment to measure the net charging effect of lunar simulant silicone dioxide grains due to photoelectron emission. Since 2007, Sydney has performed research under the direction of Professor Charles Torre (Department of Physics) and Professor Ian Anderson (Department of Mathematics & Statistics). This research is focused on the development of computational tools for general relativity. In support of her undergraduate research, Sydney has been the recipient of an Eccles Undergraduate Research Fellowship and has received funding from the German Exchange Organization and NASA.