{"id":9767,"date":"2023-06-29T09:05:27","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T14:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=9767"},"modified":"2023-06-29T09:05:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T14:05:27","slug":"uw-eau-claire-receives-large-grant-to-support-faculty-student-research-in-growing-field-of-astrophysics","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-eau-claire-receives-large-grant-to-support-faculty-student-research-in-growing-field-of-astrophysics\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Eau Claire receives large grant to support faculty-student research in growing field of astrophysics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Sophomore Alexis Rustin and Dr. William Wolf, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, have been collaborating on computational astrophysics research. This summer, Rustin will be one of three Blugolds who will work with Wolf on research supported by a newly awarded National Science Foundation $526,813 CAREER grant. (Photo by Shane Opatz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. William Wolf<\/a>, assistant professor of\u00a0physics and astronomy<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, received a five-year, $526,813 CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to work with undergraduate students on research.<\/p>\n

The prestigious NSF CAREER grant supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.<\/p>\n

Beginning this summer, Wolf and three student researchers will use the NSF funds to study accreting white dwarf stars, a growing field of astrophysics research. Accreting white dwarfs are what most stars become after they\u2019ve burned off the hydrogen that fuels them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe common thread in all aspects of our work is using MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics),\u201d Wolf says. \u201cMESA is an open-source project that allows researchers, teachers, students and amateurs to build computer models of stars. It can run on laptops or supercomputers.\u201d<\/p>\n

MESA is \u201ca powerful tool for doing research-grade stellar modeling,\u201d Wolf says. Using MESA in their research will help students regardless of their path after college, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis research experience will help students in their future careers inside or outside academia,\u201d Wolf says. \u201cStudents will build transferable technical skills and practice professional communication through writing papers and giving presentations. Being able to demonstrate these skills will give them a leg up when they apply to graduate school or for jobs in STEM fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolf worked with MESA as a graduate student and later joined its developer team. He continues to help maintain the infrastructure for MESA, so he understands \u201cwhat it can do and what is needed to keep development humming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NSF CAREER award requires recipients to integrate research and teaching, something Wolf already has done for the MESA summer school program. He will create something similar at UW-Eau Claire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll develop online exercises that will take new researchers from zero exposure to competency in using MESA for research-grade work,\u201d Wolf says. \u201cI\u2019ll also create exercises that professors can use in undergraduate astrophysics courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Developing lab exercises for learning and using MESA that provide a \u201cmore streamlined onboarding process\u201d to MESA will benefit Wolf\u2019s students but also other researchers at UW-Eau Claire and elsewhere, says\u00a0Dr. Erik Hendrickson<\/a>, professor of physics and chair of the physics and astronomy department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe educational impact of these modules will go far beyond our UW-Eau Claire classrooms,\u201d Hendrickson says. \u201cDr. Wolf will provide tested MESA exercises to instructors around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

UW-Eau Claire\u2019s physics and astronomy department has long valued the integration of research and teaching, so Wolf\u2019s project is a great fit, Hendrickson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Wolf\u2019s research proposal dovetails perfectly with this component of our degrees by providing opportunities for a rotating group of three students to gain research experience while training them to conduct numerical experiments with a modern high-performance computing facility,\u201d Hendrickson says.<\/p>\n

Alexis Rustin, a sophomore\u00a0chemistry<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0physics<\/a>\u00a0major from New Ulm, Minnesota, already is working on computational astrophysics research with Wolf. She\u2019s excited to continue her work as a member of Wolf\u2019s summer research team.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing involved in research is really important to me,\u201d Rustin says. \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve been interested in for a while, and hopefully something I will continue after college. This summer, I hope to learn a lot about astrophysics and get experience with the application of what I\u2019m learning in my classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rustin\u2019s future goals include earning a master\u2019s degree in physics and then working in the field of research and development. She\u2019s confident her research with Wolf will help her achieve those goals.<\/p>\n

For their NSF-supported research, Wolf\u2019s research team will use UW-Eau Claire\u2019s BOSE supercomputing cluster, a tool that enhances learning, research and discovery by delivering large amounts of information through fast-paced, high-performance computing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith MESA available on our computing cluster and the exercises Dr. Wolf is developing, students in our upper-division astrophysics classes will gain experience working with a research-grade software instrument, effectively bringing research into the classroom,\u201d Hendrickson says.<\/p>\n

These kinds of learning experiences will benefit students during and after college, Hendrickson says.<\/p>\n

Sam Hearden, a junior who recently began working on research with Wolf, agrees, saying he\u2019s especially interested in learning how to use MESA this summer.<\/p>\n

A physics major and\u00a0mathematics<\/a>\u00a0minor from Dubuque, Iowa, Hearden says having an undergraduate research experience and an understanding of MESA will give him an edge when applying to physics graduate programs. It also will give him \u201ca true understanding\u201d of what research might look like in his future career, he says.<\/p>\n

Wolf also developed and now teaches the university\u2019s computational physics course, which encourages computer-minded students to pursue this newer area of research.<\/p>\n

Elaina Plonis, a freshman who has majors in\u00a0applied physics<\/a>\u00a0and computer science,\u00a0software engineering<\/a>, and a minor in mathematics, is one of those computer minded Blugolds. Plonis, who also will be part of Wolf\u2019s summer research team, hopes her research experiences will help her stand out when applying to astrophysics graduate programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis research will help me apply and connect what I’m learning in my physics classes to my knowledge of computer science,\u201d says Plonis, a native of Macomb, Michigan. \u201cI also hope doing undergraduate research will help me get into an excellent graduate school, and that it will prepare me for research during and after college.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Judy Berthiaume<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwec.edu\/news\/news\/uw-eau-claire-receives-large-grant-to-support-faculty-student-research-in-growing-field-of-astrophysics-5725\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. William Wolf, assistant professor of\u00a0physics and astronomy\u00a0at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, received a five-year, $526,813 CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to work with undergraduate students on research. The prestigious NSF CAREER grant supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[96],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-9767","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-eau-claire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/9767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=9767"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=9767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}