Departmental Honors in Physics
Administered by the UNCW Honors Scholars Program, Departmental Honors provides the opportunity for superior students to engage in an advanced individual scholarly project under the supervision of a physics faculty member. Honors students must earn a total of 6 credit hours of PHY 499 over 2-3 semesters for project work. The results are summarized in a paper and presented orally before an examining committee. Students with at least 74 semester hours credit and a GPA of 3.20 or better, and who are recommended by the Physics Department Chair are eligible for Departmental Honors. For more information and enrollment procedures, consult the Departmental Honors home page.
Physics majors are encouraged to do undergraduate research and Departmental Honors is a rewarding way to do this. We would encourage students to plan on the three semester route, though that is not necessary. Seek out a faculty advisor during the first semester of the junior year and sign up for honors in the second semester to select a topic and begin work.
By the beginning of the last semester students should have completed most of their research and be prepared to write their paper. This is the most misjudged part of the project. Students do not know how much work goes into the writing and how fast the Honors Program deadlines creep up. Make sure you check the Departmental Honors home page for details, such as the formatting requirements.
Recent Honors Work in Physics
| Name | Title | Talk |
| Iain Joseph | Improved Modeling of Wave Transformation from Deep to Shallow Water in a Large-scale Coastline Change Model | April 2011 |
| Nick Corak | Designing a PER-Based Introductory Physics Lab | Dec 2010 |
| Chelsea Hopkins | Predicting Shoreline Evolution Using a Genetic Algorithm (paper) | April 2010 |
| Erik Minges | Numerical Simulation of Air Pollution Dynamics due to Point Source Emissions from an Industrial Stack (paper) | April 2010 |
| Zachary Williams | Localized Generation of Low Frequency Swash Motion Through Chaotic Swash Front Interactions (paper) | April 2010 |
| Thomas Shafer | Collapse and Revival in the Jaynes-Cummings-Paul Model (link) | April 2009 |
| Tristan Swartz | Development of software for visualization correlations between proton-deuteron scattering parameters (link) | Nov 2008 |
Past Honors Work in Physics
Honors papers in physics are listed in the Randall Library Catalog.
| TITLE | AUTHOR | ADVISOR | DATE |
| A feasibility study of a current generator by photoelectrons | Gonzalez-del Valle, Antolin Julianes | Wang Lau | Summer 1969 |
| Analysis of rainfall variance over Brunswick County, N.C | Canady, Arnold Jackson | Hernandez | Spring 1972 |
| A theoretical and experimental investigation of the He-Ne laser | Howard, Harry Stephen | Clator | Spring 1972 |
| Construction of a helium-neon laser | Schneider, George Otto | Clator | Spring 1974 |
| A study of the ruby laser | Webb, Melvin Monroe | Hernandez | Spring 1975 |
| Construction of an argon laser | Whittington, Jinks Kenneth | Clator | Spring 1975 |
| Conductivity in thin, discontinuous metal films | Roddy, Christopher James | Haywood | Spring 1980 |
| An exposition on inflationary cosmology | Watson, Gary Scott | Herman, Olszewski | Spring 2000 |
| Quantum transitions in two-state systems | Hodge, William Benjamin | Moyer | Spring 2001 |
| Development of Software for Visualization Correlations Between Proton-Deuteron Scattering Parameters | Swartz, Tristan | Black | Fall 2008 |
| Collapse and Revival in the Jaynes-Cummings-Paul Model | Shafer, Thomas | Alexanian | Spring 2009 |
| Predicting Shoreline Evolution Using a Genetic Algorithm | Chelsea Hopkins | McNamara | Spring 2010 |
| Numerical Simulation of Air Pollution Dynamics due to Point Source Emissions from an Industrial Stack | Erik Minges | Herman | Spring 2010 |
| Localized Generation of Low Frequency Swash Motion Through Chaotic Swash Front Interactions | Zachary Williams | McNamara | Spring 2010 |
| Designing a PER-Based Introductory Physics Lab | Nicholas Corak | Herman | Fall 2010 |
| Improved Modeling of Wave Transformation from Deep to Shallow Water in a Large-scale Coastline Change Model | Iain Joseph | McNamara | Spring 2011 |
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