Society of Physics Students

Welcome to the Saint Joseph's University Chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS)!

Our chapter is a professional association designed for undergraduate students and is open to any Saint Joseph's University student interested in Physics. SJU SPS is nationally recognized for its award-winning physics outreach in surrounding K-12 schools and has received the Outstanding Chapter Award for eight consecutive years. Our members are highly active in research and regularly present talks and poster presentations at local, regional, and national physics conferences. Come be part of SJU SPS!

SPS President -Jack Schavio

SPS Vice President - Matthew McGrath

SPS Treasurer - Tess Talbot

SPS Secretary - Marcus Ridley

SPS Public Relations - Molly Sowers

SPS Faculty Advisor - Roberto Ramos, Ph.D.

SJU SPS Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/sju.sps/

Deryk and Shayna at APS Mid-Atlantic Section Conference

Students present at APS Mid-Atlantic Section Conference at the University of Delaware

In November Deryk McGarry '25 and Shayna Sit '25 presented their work at a regional conference. Deryk presented a poster on the Physics Wonder Girls Summer Camp. The title of his presentation was "Ten Years of Physics Wonder Girls Camp". The camp was organized by Dr. Roberto Ramos and took place over the summer.

Shayna presented a poster on "Promoting Women in Physics Through Storytelling Poster Sessions," and this was about the impact from Women in Physics' first event that was held during the last two weeks of March. One of the main reasons for this event was to inform others about the names and stories of women physicists. Dr. Roberto Ramos was the mentor and helped with the event. Students from Dr. Ramos' Introductory Physics, Modern Physics, and Statistical Mechanics courses contributed in making the posters.

Congratulations to our students for receiving the following awards and scholarships:

SPS & APS Awards Chapter Reporter Award, $600

SPS Future Faces, $500 - Joseph Popp

SPS Marsh White, $500 - Kayla Dickert, coordinated by Calvin Huisentruit

SPS Sigma Pi Sigma Chapter Project, $500 - Julia Oseka

APS Women in Physics Group Grant, $1000 - Shayna Sit

SPS Leadership Scholarship - Joseph Popp

SPS Google Scholarship - Shayna Sit

Five of us, Dan Ashley Fauni (Physics '24), Kayla Dickert (Physics '25), Nathaniel O (Physics '24), Julia Oseka (Physics '25) and Joseph Popp (Physics '24) along with Dr. Roberto Ramos (SPS Chapter Advisor and SPS national council member), attended PhysCon 2022 on Oct 6-8, 2022 in Washington DC. With over 1200 participants, it was historically the largest conference for physics majors.

The conference featured plenary talks by two Physics Nobel Laureates (Eric Cornell - 2001 Nobel Laureate for Bose-Einstein Condensation and Jim Mather - 2006 Nobel Laureate - for discoveries supporting Big Bang Theory) and other physics luminaries (including Jim Gates - supersymmetry/National Medal of Science recipient), physics career workshops, tours of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology), the University of Maryland and the Greenbank Radio Observatory, graduate school and job fair, numerous workshops, SPS chapter showcase and a dance party. It was historically the most successful PhysCon organized.

Four of us gave the following poster presentations at the conference:
Kayla Dickert "Physics Wonder Girls Summer Camp: Inspiring Passion for Physics through Exploration and Research"
Dan Fauni "Construction of Detection Electronics to Measure Superconducting-to-Normal Switching Events in a Josephson Junction"
Julia Oseka "The Physics of Protein Interactions Preventing Antibiotic Resistance in M.Smegmatis"
Joseph Popp "Determining the Micro-rheology of Colloidal Suspensions"

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