Physics

Interested students who are able and motivated are often invited to work with faculty in the summer — sometimes as early as their first year. Recent projects include:

• Simulations of Hall thrusters (plasma physics)
• Computational models for nuclear scattered potentials (nuclear physics)
• Designing, characterizing and measuring the coupling of electronic oscillators (electronics and statistical mechanics)
• Building and testing experimental apparatus for advanced laboratories (experimental physics)

Students work on all the projects Eckerd Physics professors undertake. These fall into four categories:

• Atomic Cluster Studies
• Theoretical Nuclear Physics
• Plasma Engines
• Theoretical General Relativity

Not all research takes place on campus. One student spent a summer doing computational biophysics research at the University of South Florida. Another interned with the American Physical Society in Maryland, where she wrote up current events in physics for web publication

Every year, Physics majors volunteer at the St. Petersburg Science Festival. Many also teach computer aided design (CAD) to middle school students through the first-year Physics course “Engineering a STEM Exhibit.”

In the last three years, physics majors have spent semesters abroad in Australia, Chile and Denmark. Others have spent the three-week Winter Term in Morocco, Spain, Cuba, Martinque, Nepal and France.