After Lewis & Clark

This is a work in progress.  Below you will find bios and pictures of former physics students who have gone on to do some pretty exciting things after leaving Lewis & Clark.  In their own words……
(If you are an LC grad and want to post your story, contact the department.)

Adam Johnston

I graduated from Lewis & Clark in 1994 and headed off to graduate school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City the following fall.  Having grown up in Oregon, I thought spending a few years in a rocky mountain state with powdery snow and blue skies in the middle of the winter would be a fun change.  And, the programs offered at the U in medical and solid state physics gave me a lot of exciting choices.  I’d worked with Michael Broide in biological physics and John Abele in solid state and these seemed like great choices to have available.  I had a funny turn, though.  I always knew I wanted to have a professional emphasis in teaching physics, but once I was a graduate student, a teaching assistant actually having the duties of teaching, I had a big shift in my research interest and I found a way to earn my MS in physics and a PhD in science education.  I had advisors from across the university to do this, earning degrees from two different sides of the campus.  A couple years into this hybrid program, I got a temporary teaching gig at Weber State University, a public university with a focus on undergraduates in Ogden, 35 miles north of Salt Lake City.  I ended up doing my dissertation research on a course and some science students at Weber and, as luck would have it,  the physics department happened to have a tenure-track faculty opening in physics education at the same time I was working there.  I ended up applying for and getting this position at the same time that I was finishing my doctoral work in 2000.  Now, I’m a professor in the physics department at Weber State — so much for a “temporary” move to Utah — where I get to teach physics and science education courses.  I do research in science learning and have built up a program of outreach to local schools and teachers.  I’ve also done a few fun extra things like co-creating a conference in science education a few years ago (see sciedxroads.org) and a program where my students and I go to public parks to “play” with kids by bringing science activities to them during the summer.  My favorite activity, though, is still teaching physics.

Robert Bristol

After finishing his degree at LC (‘95), Robert retraced the footsteps of several of the LC faculty and found himself at UC Berkeley as a graduate student in physics.  Armed with years of tutelage under Professor John Abele in the Solid State Lab, Robert was able to quickly begin contributing in experimental Extreme UV astrophysics at Cal.  He then went on to obtain a PhD in physics in 2000 in the field of fluid dynamics, researching instabilities in certain classes of vortex flows.  But it was his astrophysics work that landed him a job at Intel Corp., working on assignment at the Sandia National Laboratory on light sources for emerging technology of EUV lithography.  Soon after, he found himself back in Oregon, working across town from LC at Intel’s research chip fabrication facility in Hillsboro.  He now spends his time in an applied research laboratory testing novel lithography materials received from collaborators around the world.  He lives with his wife Aliyih Bristol (ne’ Aliyih Conway ‘95, LC Music) and two young boys near one of his favorite LC haunts, Forest Park.

Scott Henderson

Since graduating from LC, I’ve found an easy transition into the field of geophysics. Immediately after graduating I found a great job in the Portland area at the Cascades Volcano Observatory where I studied debris-flows. The work inspired me to pursue and advanced degree in geophysics and I’m currently going into my second year in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. My plan is to figure out certain physical conditions and mechanisms that govern volcanic eruptions, and in the meantime get a PhD. I recently received a grant from NASA to support my research at a site in SW Bolivia. I’m very excited about this opportunity and I know that it wouldn’t be possible without the excellent preparation in undergraduate research while at LC. You really can’t go wrong with a physics degree, if you’re considering it, go for it!

Andrew Dittmore

I continued with research at Lewis & Clark and used my physics education to study gecko adhesion. Through a self-assembly process, nature achieves a material that is hierarchal in structure and capable of directional and reversible bonding. I discovered that adhesion in gecko toes is directly related to the shear force applied while climbing, so that geckos are able to modulate the strength of attachment and release their toes with minimal effort. The beauty of this system inspired me to pursue graduate work in biophysics and continue learning from nature. In preparation for graduate school, I decided to supplement my physics education with engineering courses, which soon led to my next job as an engineering instructor at Portland Community College. This initial experience, combined with teaching physics lab sections at Lewis & Clark, made me want to become a professor. I am currently a 3rd year graduate student in the materials department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I study biological systems at the single-molecule level. Specifically, I use force to probe mechanical and chemical transitions in single proteins by directly manipulating each molecule with “magnetic tweezers.”

Katie Clarkson 

Katie Clarkson joined the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Portland Regional Office in June of 2005 after an internship in FERC’s New York Regional Office.  Prior experience includes participating in a research trip to Honduras to study water quality, traveling to Thailand with the group Engineers Without Borders to work on a village water supply system, and two years of national service as an AmeriCorps Volunteer working at the City of Portland Water Bureau and a Portland-based non-profit.  Katie earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Columbia University and B.A. in Physics from Lewis and Clark College.

Owen Kenton

My name is Owen Kenton and I am a 2008 graduate of Lewis & Clark College with a degree in physics.  After leaving college I have had several small jobs before leaving for my current one.  I am now a volunteer with the United States Peace Corps in the country of Tanzania.  For the next two years I will be teaching physics, mathematics, English and any other subject required of me to Tanzanian secondary school children.  After finishing my service in the Peace Corps, I hope to return to the states and study physics in graduate school.  I have not decided on an area of emphasis yet.

Brenna Gillman McDonald

After graduating from LC in 2003, I started a graduate PhD program in Physics at the University of Utah.  While there, I continued with course work, and was able to work as a teaching assistant until I decided what to do for a PhD project.  After finding the right research advisor and group, I started working on a project studying possible synchronization of miniature hermoacoustic engines.  I successfully found a way to couple the thermoacoustic engines so that there was maximal acoustic signal and power output that when used in conjunction with an acoustic transducer, allowing for effective conversion of sources of heat to acoustic energy, and finally into electrical signal.  After completing a Masters degree in 2007, and a Doctoral degree in 2009 from the University of Utah, I was offered a faculty position at Western Governors University in secondary science teacher education, where I am currently working in distance learning and helping to educate and inspire the next generation of Physics teachers.  My time at LC taught me not only the fundamental principles of Physics that I use everyday in teaching, but it taught me how to think critically and how to solve problems.

Devesh Khanal

After Lewis & Clark I directly entered the Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.  As of Fall 2009, I am in my fifth year at Berkeley doing experimental and theoretical research on semiconductor nanowires and hope to graduate by summer of 2010.  Post-graduation plans include jobs in industry and technology-focused venture capital firms.

Kjell Schroder

I landed a job right after graduation that started the summer of 2008.  I worked for a small intellectual property law firm, Alleman, Hall, McCoy, Russell and Tuttle, and I helped all different types of companies and individuals obtain patents.  The school to work transition was not the easiest, but I used my degree every day doing analytical thinking, drafting legal correspondence and mining my physics knowledge to try and understand how stuff works. 

In fall of 2010, I began a Ph.D. program, and I am a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Texas at Austin in the field of Materials Science and Engineering.