In 1990, a seminar was initiated for QMC (formerly CNAM/CSR) graduate students in order to present their research to the other students, postdocs, and faculty in the Center. In addition to fostering a rich, collaborative environment in which students learn about the breadth and scope of research being done in QMC, the idea of this series is to teach several crucial skills to our students:
1) How to present their research in a clear and time-efficient way to an audience that was not expert in their area of research;
2) How to best answer questions during their presentations;
3) How to ask good questions when in an audience (or interview), in particular about research beyond their own narrow PhD topic.
In this seminar, students submit formalized feedback to each weekly presenter, providing informative information about presentation style, research content and tips for improvement.
Best Speaker Awards
At the end of each term, a cash prize award is given for the best student and postdoc presentations based on class feedback scores. Previous winners are listed here:
2023 (fall) Jared Erb (student), Peter Czajka (postdoc)
2022 (fall) Sungha Baek (student), Keenan Avers (postdoc)
2020 (fall) Shukai Ma
2019 (spring) Rui Zhang (student), Tarapada Sarkar (postdoc)
2018 (fall) Chris Eckberg (student), Jen-Hao Yeh (postdoc)
2015 Paul Syers, Jasper Drisko
2014 Sean Fackler, Paul Syers,
2013 Kevin Kirshenbaum, Kirsten Burson
2012 Baladitya Suri, Kristen Burson
2011 (fall) Sergii Pershoguba, Ted Thorbeck
2011 (spring) Anirban Gangopadhyay, Baladitya Suri
2010 (fall) Christian J. Long, Tomasz M. Kott
2010 (spring) Tomasz M. Kott, Kevin Kirshenbaum
2009 (fall) Arun Luykx, Jen-Hao Yeh
Dr. Tomek Kott is a senior scientist in the Condensed Matter Physics Section in the Computational and Experimental Physics Group at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. He has led several interdisciplinary teams in projects varying from liquid metal antennas and power generation on Venus to the prediction of qubit system properties and free space optical communication. Most recently, he has switched to data science. He just finished serving as the Secretary for the Mid-Atlantic Section of the American Physical Society. He graduated from Bucknell University in 2006 with a B.S. in Physics, and from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2012 with a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics. He joined APL as a post-doc and has been there for 8 years. He has been previously been a supervisor of 9 staff members and has recently moved to Lancaster, PA, where he is working remotely full time. As a University Affiliated Research Center, APL is a nonprofit organization that conducts essential research, development, and systems engineering to support national security needs free from conflicts of interest or competition with commercial industry.