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David Miller, a recent graduate of the Physics Department, is the 2005 winner of the LeRoy Apker Award, sponsored annually by the American Physical Society and given to recognize outstanding achievements in physics by undergraduates.
David was a member of Juan Collar's group during his undergraduate research experience. He looked for high-energy axion or axion-like emissions from our Sun using a low-background calorimeter within the CAST (CERN Axion Solar Telescope) experiment at CERN. Such particles might be produced with a small probability in certain nuclear transitions in the Sun. David participated in all aspects of this project from its inception: selection of low-background detector materials, development of pulse-shape discrimination techniques, construction, installation and running of the detector, and data analysis leading to an experimental sensitivity that improves on astrophysical constraints on this mechanism of stellar energy loss.
The prestigious Apker Award includes an honorarium to be presented at a Society meeting. David is presently working with the ATLAS collaboration at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. He will be attending graduate school at Stanford University in 2006.
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