Starr

Equipped with 3-D printers, water-jet and laser cutters, computer-operated milling machines, and high-tech drills, saws, and workstations, Wesleyan's new IDEAS Lab is on the "cutting edge" of digital fabrication. This fall, the College of Integrative Sciences opened the adjoined classroom and makerspace in Room 40 of Exley Science Center. While it is currently used by students in the IDEAS (Integrated Design, Engineering & Applied Science) program, by spring 2020 the space should be open to the entire Wesleyan community. "The space is the heart of our efforts to provide students with a facility to explore their ideas and create new…

Francis Starr, professor of physics, was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in October. This honor is bestowed upon only 0.5 percent of physicists nation wide. The criterion for election is "exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise including outstanding physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education. Starr received the APS fellowship for his simulation studies elucidating fundamental aspects of glass formation in bulk and ultra-thin film polymer materials. At Wesleyan, the Starr group focuses on soft matter physics and biophysics. Starr and his graduate and undergraduate students combine computational and theoretical…

Wesleyan's Molecular Biophysics Program hosted its 18th annual retreat Sept. 28 at Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown. Wesleyan affiliated speakers included: Colin Smith, assistant professor of chemistry, on "An Atomistic View of Protein Dynamics and Allostery;" Meng-Ju Renee Sher, assistant professor of physics, on "Tracking Electron Motions Using Terahertz Spectroscopy;" Kelly Knee, PhD '07, principle scientist for Pfizer's Rare Disease Research Unit, on "Protein Folding Chaperones: Molecular Machines for Tricky Problems;" and Francis Starr, professor of physics, director of the College of Integrative Sciences, on "DNA Four-Way Junction Dynamics and Thermodynamics: Lessons from Combining Simulations and Experiments." Arthur Palmer, the Robert…

Amid rising student interest, Wesleyan has announced a new interdisciplinary minor in Integrated Design, Engineering, and Applied Sciences (IDEAS), beginning in 2017-18. It will be hosted within the College of Integrative Sciences (CIS). The IDEAS minor will introduce foundational skills in engineering and design, and bring together existing arts, design, and applied science courses to create a more formal structure to guide students interested in these fields. According to Professor of Physics Francis Starr, a co-proposer of the minor and director of the CIS, “The new minor plays into Wesleyan’s unique capabilities and dovetails with Wesleyan’s commitment to prepare students…

Wesleyan is one of only 12 institutions awarded a prestigious Beckman Scholars Program this year, according to Francis Starr, director of the College of Integrative Sciences and professor of physics, who directs Wesleyan’s Beckman program. The Beckman Scholars Program provides intensive research experiences and career mentoring to help Wesleyan undergraduates develop as leaders in the sciences. Up to two Wesleyan students will receive this award annually, which carries a total stipend of $18,200 plus funds to support supplies and travel. Awards are normally made to sophomores to support research during the summer through the summer following junior year. (more…)

Professor Francis Starr, graduate student Hamad Emamy and collaborators from the Brookhaven National Lab have co-authored a paper titled "Diamond Family of Nanoparticle Superlattices" published in the prestigious journal Science on Feb. 5. Starr is professor of physics and director of the College of Integrative Sciences. Their work proposed a solution to a decades-long challenge to self-assemble a diamond-structured lattice at will from nanoscale particles. "Such a diamond-lattice structure has long been sought after due to its potential applications as a light controlling device, including optical transistors, color-changing materials, and optical — as opposed to electronic — computing," Starr said. To solve this challenge,…

Francis Starr, director of the College of Integrative Sciences, professor of physics, received a $282,000 grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in September. The grant will support “Heterogeneous Dynamics and Assembly Processes in Soft and Biological Materials," a collaborative research project between Wesleyan and NIST. NIST is expected to fund the project through 2018 with a total amount of $1.66M. Soft and biological materials are commonly composed of synthetic or biopolymers, or are formed as a result of the supramolecular assembly of small molecule, nanoparticle, or protein molecules into dynamic organized structures. These materials are central to developing…

For their efforts enhancing undergraduate science education and supporting teaching innovations, two Wesleyan faculty members were named National Academies Education Fellows in the Sciences for 2015-2016. Francis Starr, professor of physics and director of the College of Integrative Sciences, and Ishita Mukerji, the Fisk Professor of Natural Science, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received the fellowships while participating in the 2015 National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education, held June 14-19 at Princeton University. The Summer Institute, a five-day program of discussions, demonstrations and workshops, brought college and university faculty together to develop teaching skills. Co-sponsored by the National Academies and the Howard…

Francis Starr, professor of physics, and Paul Hanakata ’14 are the co-authors of a new article published in the journal Nature Communications on June 16. The article, titled "Interfacial Mobility Scale Determines the Scale of Collective Motion and Relaxation Rate in Polymer Films,” is based off Hanakata’s senior thesis research at Wesleyan. Thin polymer films are ubiquitous in manufacturing and medical applications. Their chemical and mechanical properties make them suitable as artificial soft biological tissue and there has been intense interest in how film thickness and substrate interactions influence film dynamics. The nature of polymer rearrangements within these films determines their potential applications. However, up to now, there has been no way to readily…

While technology at Wesleyan is growing by leaps and bounds, the computational capacity is growing by gigaFLOPS and now, teraFLOPS. Not to be confused with the prehistoric pterodactyl's beach footwear, a teraFLOP is a term used in high-performance computing to quantify the rate at which computer systems can perform arithmetic operations. TeraFLOPs can perform one trillion operations per second (S), and for scientists at Wesleyan, this means calculations can be done up to 50 times faster with the new computing cluster, installed during the summer 2013. "The new cluster has been revolutionary in my own work," said Francis Starr, professor…

Francis Starr, associate professor of physics, received a $100,000 grant from the American Chemical Petroleum Fund for his work examining the properties of extremely thin polymer films. These systems have important applications ranging from nano-electronics to artificial tissues. The work will be supported through August 2014.

The Wesleyan McNair Program assists students from underrepresented groups in preparing for, entering, and progressing successfully through post-graduate education. The program provides guidance, research opportunities, and academic and financial support to students planning to go on to Ph.Ds. All fields of research leading to a Ph.D. are eligible. In efforts to prepare undergraduates from diverse backgrounds for graduate studies, the McNair Program hosts a series of research talks. These talks are designed for interested, non-expert, students. They are free and open to all students. The next McNair Research Talk will take place from noon to 1 p.m., Friday, April 15…

New IDEAS Lab Offers State-of-the-Art Digital Fabrication Tools

Starr Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society

Speakers, Poster Sessions at Annual Molecular Biophysics Program Retreat

New Minor in Design, Engineering and Applied Sciences Announced

Wesleyan 1 of 12 Institutions Awarded Beckman Scholars Program

Starr’s Nanoparticle Research Published in Science

NIST Grant Supports Research on Biological Materials, Assembly Processes

Starr, Mukerji Explore Ways to Better Engage Students, Faculty in the Sciences

Starr, Hanakata ’14 Co-Author Paper on Polymer Films, Published in Nature Communications

Wesleyan’s New Computing Cluster Can Process Computations 50X Faster

Starr’s Polymer Study Supported by American Chemical Society

McNair Program Offers Faculty, Student Research Talks