Recent Grants

The Gustavus Physics department has been successful at obtaining both internal and external funding to enhance and support faculty-student research opportunities, as well as upgrading the departmental infrastructure and instructional laboratories. 

Faculty/Student Research

  • National Science Foundation - Research at Undergraduate Institutions: Detection of Ultrasound Waves in Water and Air using a Laser Interferometer, $200,000 (Huber)
  • National Science Foundation - Collaborative Research: Enabling Non-contact Structural Dynamic Identification with Focused Ultrasound Radiation Force, $500,000 Total, with $198,800 to Gustavus (Huber, and Mechanical Engineering collaborators at University of Massachusetts-Lowell)
  • Gustavus Richard Fuller Scholar Endowment, Chemical Reaction Studies of Co-Trapped Molecular Ions, $4,000 (Petricka, M. Algren GAC '17)
  • Gustavus Sigma Xi Chapter Grant - Ultra-Low Light Photography, $500. (Petricka, W. Doebler GAC '15)
  • National Science Foundation - Research at Undergraduate Institutions: Excitation of Macro and Micro Cantilevers Using Ultrasound Radiation Force, $219,943 with $25,000 college match (Huber)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration: Production and Trapping of Molecular Ions via Laser Ablation, $5,950 (Petricka, D. McDougall GAC '11)
  • Gustavus Richard Fuller Scholar Endowment, Solving Heisenberg's Anisotropic Closed Spin Chain, $4,000 (Murgan, Q. Ebner GAC '11)
  • National Science Foundation - Research at Undergraduate Institutions: Modal Testing Using Ultrasound Radiation Force Excitation, $149,947 with $16,000 college match (Huber)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration: Study of Optical Imaging by Reflection through Random Media, $6,000 (Mellema, C. Yang GAC '10)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration: Energy Storage as a Partner to Wind Energy Production, $7,500 (Niederriter, J. Sieling GAC '08)
  • National Science Foundation - Research at Undergraduate Institutions: Time-Resolved Photon Correlation Spectroscopy: A New Approach in the Study of Particle Dynamics, $118,618 (Saulnier)
  • American Chemical Society-Petroleum Research Fund - Application of Time-Resolved Photon Correlation Spectroscopy to Fundamental Systems, $50,000. (Saulnier)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration: Study of Optical Imaging by Reflection through Random Media, $7,440 (Mellema, S. Jaffe GAC '06)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration: Faculty/Student Research In Acoustics, $7,500 (Huber, J. Purdham GAC '05)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration. - Enhanced Acoustical Imaging by Low-Coherence Reflectometry, $7,490 (Niederriter, A. Konicek GAC '04)
  • Gustavus Sigma Xi Chapter Grant - Investigations in Time-Resolved Photon Correlation Spectroscopy, $3,750. (Saulnier, R. Mark GAC '03)
  • Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Research Collaboration - Development of Time-resolved Photon Correlation Spectroscopy, $7,500 (Saulnier, J. Skovholt GAC '01)

Departmental Infrastructure

  • National Science Foundation Academic Research Infrastructure Grant: Laboratory and Ancillary Space Upgrade to Support Undergraduate Faculty-Student Research in Physics, $253,150 (Huber, Mellema, Niederriter, Petricka, Saulnier)
  • National Science Foundation Major Research Infrastructure Grant: Acquisition of a Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer System, $310,000 with $65,000 college match (Huber)
  • National Science Foundation Major Research Infrastructure Grant: Acquisition of an Ultrafast Laser and Detection System for Optical Scattering Studies, $198,435 (Saulnier)
  • National Science Foundation Major Research Infrastructure Grant, Acquisition of Equipment for Acoustical, Optical, and Computational Scattering Studies, $101,939 with $43,689 college match (Huber, Mellema, Niederriter, Saulnier)

Instructional Laboratories

  • National Science Foundation – Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement program: Integrating Sustainability Across and Within the Science Curriculum, $154,000 (Niederriter, Dontje, Jacks, Jeremiason)
  • Sun SPOT Classroom Curriculum Program: Robotics Workshop using SunSPOT Processors,
    $6,050 (Huber, Hvidsten)
  • Elba Corporation: ZX24a Processor Upgrades, $600 (Students wrote application notes in exchange for these upgrades)
  • National Science Foundation – Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement program: Observational Laboratory Exercises for Introductory and Advanced Astronomy Courses, $28,860 with $28,860 college match (Niederriter)