TAMUC Students Represent University at American Physical Society Meeting

Undergraduate students representing the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University-Commerce recently delivered talks at a virtual meeting of the Texas section of the American Physical Society hosted by the University of Texas at Arlington November 12-14.

Flint Morgan, Rebecca Preston and Amber Stinson presented their research on neutron stars, which was supervised by Dr. William Newton, associate professor of physics and astronomy at A&M-Commerce.

With 160 students competing for undergraduate and graduate awards at the virtual event, Preston's talk, “Bayesian inference of neutron star crust properties using neutron skin constraints,” received the award for outstanding undergraduate presentation.

Morgan presented, “A three component model for pulsar glitches,” and Stinson spoke on “Cracking a neutron star crust.”

Newton said the students' presentations were at higher levels than he and his peers were giving as undergraduates.

“I'm very proud of Rebecca, Amber and Flint, who all gave exceptional, confident talks on very technical subjects,” Newton said.

Newton continued: “Becky's award is all the more impressive given the high standard of student talks throughout the conference. The chair of our session assumed she was a graduate student!”

Dr. Brent Donham, dean of the College of Science and Engineering, also praised the students.

“Congratulations to Amber, Flint and Rebecca for representing the department and the College of Science and Engineering so well,” Donham said.

Learn more about the Department of Physics and Astronomy.