Mentorship Spotlight: Brandon Stone, JT Mills, Axel Quintanar-Pena, and Dr. Jason Fry
For this Mentorship Spotlight, we are highlighting Physics professor Dr. Jason Fry and his research team, consisting of Brandon Stone (pictured), JT Mills, and Axel Quintanar-Pena.
Here is what Dr. Fry has to say about his amazing team and their work together!
"Our research focuses on understanding the fundamental way particles behave. We study how a neutron, the neutral particle inside all atoms, decays into a proton, electron, and anti-neutrino. By studying this decay, we can better understand how quarks, the tiniest particles inside our protons and neutrons, behave. Our work is conducted at Oak Ridge National Lab and Dr. Fry and Brandon Stone recently visited ORNL to perform tests through a grant from Oak Ridge Associated Universities. Our goal is to help characterize sensitive detectors to measure observables of this decay to 1 nano second, one billionth of a second! We do this by characterizing fast detectors here at EKU and then use them to calibrate sensitive detectors at ORNL.
It’s been a pleasure to have Brandon Stone work and learn in our detector lab. He and two other students, JT Mills and Axel Quintanar-Pena, have worked over the summer to help build and characterize these detectors. The group has been able to work and learn from each other and have gained valuable experience in the lab, outside of the classroom. I started working with Brandon after our Advanced Lab class last spring, started working with JT after having him in the introductory major class, and started worked with Axel when he arrived at EKU this summer.
Brandon, JT, and Axel plan to continue on a physics path post-graduation. Brandon will be going to graduate school for physics after graduating from EKU with the goal of working at a research institution such as a national lab. JT plans on going to graduate school in physics and Axel is interested in Astronomy in his graduate work post-graduation. All three students plan to give poster presentations at American Physical Society meetings in late fall."
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Fry and his team!
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Published on August 25, 2021