Summer 2009

• Drew Doescher worked at Luther College studying period evolution in eclipsing binary stars in the field of open cluster M23.
• Alex Sperry worked at Luther College developing statistical techniques for examining the luminosity stability of stars in the field of open cluster M23 over a five-year time period.
• Kirsten Strandjord worked at Luther searching for rare stellar flare events and developing techniques for identifying flares in stars.
• Braulio Dumba traveled to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) just outside of London, England for eight weeks to continue his research in atomic force microscope (AFM) tip reconstruction algorithms. During his collaboration work with research scientists and students at NPL, Braulio learned to run commercial tip reconstruction software programs for a comparison of those programs to our own tip reconstruction algorithms.
• Jared Wilkins continued his research in implementing AFM calibration techniques in Luther’s nanotribology lab, developing a new organizational scheme for quickly and efficiently calculating spring constants for AFM cantilevers. Jared also implemented a new friction vs. load technique on the AFM using open-architecture software.
• Brian Nowosatka improved techniques for attaching microspheres to AFM cantilevers during his summer in Luther’s nanotribology lab. Brian also investigated the effects of scan rate, scan speed, and scan size on the height and friction variation produced as these so-called colloidal probes are scanned in the AFM.

Summer 2008

• Drew Doescher worked at Luther College developing techniques for detecting flares in stars and searching for evidence of stellar flare activity in the field of open cluster M23.
• Andrea Schiefelbein worked at Luther College studying periods of two Delta Scuti variable stars field of open star cluster NGC2286.
• Kirsten Strandjord worked at Luther simulating the detection of stellar flares using short-duration unfiltered images acquired with small equipment at a deep atmosphere site.
• Jason Smoliak worked at Luther College studying various decays of the J/psi meson (charmonium) that involve final states of a baryon-antibaryon pairs and associated meson(s).  
• Andrew Webber worked at Luther College investigated the decay rates of J/psi and Psi(2S) mesons to baryon-antibaryon pairs. Calculations of their ratios serve as important benchmarks for theoretical calculations.
• Jared Wilkins set up new instrumentation and developed methodology for the Luther College's nanotribology research lab. During the summer, Jared designed and constructed a Plexiglas atomic force microscope (AFM) environmental enclosure, implemented AFM force calibration techniques, and attached of microscopic spheres to AFM levers.
• Braulio Dumba implemented modifications to atomic force microscope (AFM) tip reconstruction algorithms while at Luther College this summer. Braulio wrote new MatLab code aimed at minimizing the influence of AFM image noise in tip reconstruction.
• Krista Morris worked on a computer program at Luther College that will be used to investigate the details of  the break up of very large molecules when the molecules collide with highly charged particles.

Summer 2007

• Ujjwal Joshi worked at Luther College monitoring period evolution in short-period eclipsing binary stars discovered in the field of open cluster M23.
• Andrea Schiefelbein worked at Luther College searching for new variable stars in the field of open star cluster NGC2286.
• Kris Klein worked at Luther College continuing his study of Summer 2006, with the goal of observing two important, but as yet unobserved states in the bottomonium system. Observation of either of these states would fill an important void in the understanding of quark-antiquark interactions.
• Andrew Webber worked at Luther College, studying the decays of bottomonium and charmonium states to a proton-antiproton pair. His work ultimately will result in a comparison between the decay rates in the two systems, which will yield information about the strong nuclear interaction. 
• Isaac White worked at Luther College developing MatLab-based algorithms for the determination of atomic force microscope (AFM) tip shape as extracted from AFM images. He spent time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison learning AFM and transmission electron microscope imaging techniques, in order to compare MatLab tip reconstructions with electron microscope images of AFM tips.
• Josh Bruflodt worked at Luther College installing and testing a Linux-based operating system called ROCKS on the 8-node (15 processor) Beowolf parallel computing cluster maintained by the Physics Department.  He modified existing atomic collision simulation code used to run on the Beowolf cluster.

Summer 2006

• Ujjwal Joshi worked at Luther College searching for evidence of period evolution in eclipsing binary stars with periods less than a day located in the field of open cluster M23.
• Nathan Rengstorf worked at Luther College conducting a survey of rotating variable stars in the young open cluster NGC7380.
• Andrea Schiefelbein studied the effects of observing conditions on photometric resolution at the Luther College observing site.
• John Xavier worked at Luther College studying hadronic transitions in the Bottomonium system that involve the emission of an eta meson. His work is aimed at observing two previously unseen transitions, and possibly discovering one of several previously unobserved states of the bottomonium system.
• Kris Klein worked at Luther College searching for transitions in the Bottomonium system involving two pi mesons, and which may yield the observation of a previously unobserved state in the bottomonium system.
• Dan Gonzalez worked at Luther College modifying and testing a computer simulation being developed to study the interaction of carbon-60 molecules (Buckminster Fullerenes) with a variety of charged particles.