I hope to offer a glimpse into the real life of researchers in physics and materials science through photography. My fellow scientists often comment about Hollywood and the news offering a distorted image of how scientists look like in their daily life in the lab. We are not always dressed elegantly with pressed shirts and ties, it would be difficult to be so while crawling under an optical table. In any photo taken in a "real lab" there's poor lighting and one or two cables invariably sticking out of people's heads because cables are EVERYWHERE. A research lab is a photographer's nightmare. Ask any professional; they'll tell you to take out about half of "your stuff" before they'll start shooting.  And then , there's the invariable critique: "there's too many things going on in this picture". As physicists, we like finding correlations and interactions between "things going on at the same time".

I started photographing my fellow colleagues and our students on their daily activities and professional events. For the most part these are photos taken with wide aperture lenses, no additional lighting and minimal post processing. (The photoshop learning curve is not steep).

 

First light experiment in the Helix Magnet quasimonochromatic light from an Oriel lamp and spectrometer system is incident on the sample mounted in the Helix Magnet as part of the first 25 Tesla magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) experiment. This photograph was  NHMFL's choice for their showcase poster at the APS booth the year the magnet was commissioned.

"Fruiticity" UVM Materials Science PhD student Owen Myers teaches kids how to turn on a light bulb using ...raspberries!!.  during one of the physics dept NanoDays event at the Echo Center in Burlington, VT. Take that MacGyver!

Baby, it's cold outside I shot this through my office window in Cook Hall on a typical Vermont winter afternoon. Those guys having fun in the snow better not be my grad students! I left them working in the lab 5 min ago!

Sunbathed Isabel Kloumann, a former UVM Physics major, now grad student at Cornell, is enjoying precious, rare winter sun rays while doing homework at the students' favorite study place on the 5th floor of the Cook Building.

"Through the Microscope Glass". Ishviene Cour, a former Materials Science PhD graduate student of my colleague Randall Headrick (presently Dr. Cour with Intel) is getting ready to observe crystalline grain structure in an organic semiconductor thin film through a polarized microscope.

"Spectroscopy Entourage" In the Summer of 2009 we decided we wanted to look like the poster for the HBO "Entourage" series. Well, .. you be the judge of how that turned out. L-R: Naveen Rawat (Materials Science PhD student), Chris Libby (UVM  Physics major at that time), yours truly, Eli Kinigstein (UVM Physics major now at Columbia Univ.) and Zhenwen Pan (former Materials Science PhD student now at CGVeritas)

"Spectroscopy Real Entourage" In everyday life things are somewhat less... graceful in Cook Hall.

"It starts with a crane" The first thing you need to do if you want to be a spectroscopist is... get yourself a crane! The local rigging company, Demag, is bringing one of the laser lab optical tables into the building.

"Graceful under fire" The Furis group just finished the first 25T Magnetic Circular Dichroism at NHMFL, a premiere for the national lab. The ravishingly good looking people in this photo are (Top) Stephen McGill, the head of the optics program at NHMFL-Tallahassee, (Bottom L-R), yours truly, Cody Lamarche (UVM Physics Major enrolled in an REU program at NHMFL at that time, now grad student at Cornell) and Zhenwen Pan (former UVM Materials Science PhD student now at CGVeritas) Oh, I almost forgot there's also a prison-issue washing machine on the right hand side with a long stick coming out of it. Picture would really look better without it because it's distracting. Oh, and Steve does not really have gas lines coming out of his ears.

"Astronomical Dames" Two of my favorite ladies: Isabel Kloumann, former Physics major here at UVM, now grad student at Cornell and her UVM mentor Prof. Joanna Rankin at Isabel's send-off party. Isabel and Joanna worked together on a pulsar-related research project that often took them to Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Much nicer than Tallahassee, I'll tell you that.

"Graduation Day" does not always mean "Grown-ups Day". This photo is like one of those picture puzzles: in this particular case your task is to identify the teenager in it.

"Open Heart Surgery" MS Physics student Ben Knight is changing samples in our 5T Oxford Superconducting magnet while the magnet is in superconducting state at 4.5K. (Yes, this procedure does involve opening the sample chamber under nitrogen flow while magnet remains superconducting at 0T )  Ben was working with my biophysicist colleague, Kelvin Chu, on magnetic circular dichroism experiments of myoglobin, a protein in our blood that binds oxygen to an Fe ion located in the center of a porphyrin ring.

"Showing off" Naveen Rawat (Materials Science PhD student) is imparting the secrets of cryogenics to lab newbies Alice Perrin (REU Physics major, College of William and Mary), Kim Hua (UVM Materials Science PhD student) and Victoria Aisnworth (UVM Physics major). Apparently, he forgot the cryogens...

"Physics is fun" What happens in the laser lab stays in the laser lab...

"Light Guiding" Alice, Kim, and Victoria learn how a laser beam is guided to the sample in a backscattering photoluminescence microscopy experiment. I was explaining the importance of telescoping the beam in order to obtain a tighter focus on the sample.

"Theoretical Dissent" Professors Del Maestro (standing) and Kotov argue important theoretical concepts. When one's passionate about one's ideas, that can become "physical".

Setting the Stage PhD Grad Student, Naveen Rawat, setting up the time-resolved photoluminescence experiment in the HELIX magnet at NHMFL Tallahassee where he spent the Spring2014 semester during my sabbatical.

"On the Red Carpet" The group photo of our astronomers at the annual Student research conference that takes place at the end of the Spring semester in the Davis Center. (L-R) Isabel Kloumann, prof. Joanna Rakin, Stephanie Young and Meghan Force. All students in this photo are currently pursuing graduate degrees in top tier universities.