Nearly 100 middle and high school students joined members of the California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) campus community for a festive gathering on Sept. 27 to unveil the university’s new mobile fabrication laboratory (mobile fab lab), the first in a fleet of four that are now part of the Fab Foundation network of nearly 900 such labs around the globe. The fabs labs are designed to expand K-12 students’ skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, and provide teachers and CSUDH credential students with additional tools and teaching techniques to engage and excite students into STEM. The first labs will begin touring schools in the Los Angeles ... Read More
Physics
University Breaks Ground on Cutting-Edge Science and Innovation Building
Dirt was shoveled, a massive banner was unveiled, and confetti shot into the air around a gathering of university partners, civic leaders, and a diverse mix of the campus community. It was official. On Sept. 28, California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) broke ground in dramatic style on its long-anticipated $82 million Science and Innovation building. Strikingly illustrated by a 20- by 70-foot banner hanging on the east side of the University Library to announce it, the 91,000-square-foot building is tentatively scheduled to begin construction in late fall 2017. The festivities took place where the three-story, ultra-modern instructional and research facility will be built, ... Read More
Ximena Cid Stands on ‘Path of Totality’ After Teaching STEM 0 Students about Total Solar Eclipses
On Aug. 21, Ximena Cid was standing with family and friends in Idaho on the “path of totality,” watching the bright morning sky dim to a twilight hue and feeling the air temperature steadily drop while the moon gradually blocked the sun’s light from reaching Earth. Cid, an assistant professor of physics at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), was far from alone during her observation of the “Great American Total Solar Eclipse.” She joined millions of awe-struck Americans on the path’s 70-mile wide swath of land stretching from Oregon to South Carolina from which the total eclipse of the sun was visible. “We tried to go to Oregon, but all along the path the hotels ... Read More
In Search of Diversity in the World of Physics
While Ximena Cid was growing up, her family marched alongside Cesar Chavez and farm workers advocating for Chicano civil rights. “My parents raised us in a very social-activist family,” says Cid, whose mother is Chicana and Native-American Yaqui, and her father was born in Mexico. When Cid embarked on an education in the sciences, she was keenly aware of her ethnic difference; there were not many people of color pursuing physics, and there were certainly very few women of color in her classes. She was the first person of Latin-American or Native-American decent to graduate with a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas, Arlington. In the decade since, Cid, an assistant professor ... Read More
Physics Professor John Price Receives Fourth DOE Grant to Continue Proton Research
John Price, professor of physics at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) has received a three-year, $235,000 grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) for his ongoing experimental nuclear physics program in proton research: “Photo- and Electroproduction of Multiply-Strange Hyperons at CLAS.” This is the fourth grant Price has been awarded from the DOE for the program since 2007. The funding covers Price’s and his students’ research costs, including travel to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, VA, where the research has been carried out since 2006. “This is a significant sized grant for us. It enables us to do the research while ... Read More
