Once a dance major, naysayers nearly crushed his dream. But Ruben Medina, now a senior majoring in physics at California State University, Dominguez Hills, leapt from the clutches of confusion and self-doubt to have it all. In evidence, the Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) and Minority Access to Research Careers-Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research (MARC-USTAR) student has participated in opposite ends of the spectrum at the university’s Student Research Day. He went from winning first place in physics in the 2011 competition with his presentation “Improving KAON Identification with CLAS” to this year ... Read More
Physics
Professor Ganezer Goes to Washington
Discovery. That, in large part, is what drives the human race forward. It’s also what drives California State University, Dominguez Hills physics professor and cutting-edge researcher Kenneth Ganezer. Ganezer is also driven by the need to engage more students in science along with their faculty mentors, and as an officer of the California/Nevada section of the American Physical Society (APS), he traveled to Washington, D.C. and Greenbelt, Md. last semester to lobby for better funding for science as well as physics research and education to make that possible. Ganezer along with four other physicists from Sonoma State University, University of California, Davis, UC Santa Barbara, ... Read More
Federal Minority Biomedical Research Support Program at CSUDH Renewed
Kumar Tiger, a 21-year-old senior microbiology major, aspires to be biomedical scientist because he “saw the health disparities among people like me and my family and I was not satisfied with the solutions being provided.” He wants to play a part in finding solutions and proactively preventing sickness, and he says the experiences he has had through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) program at California State University, Dominguez Hills will help him achieve his career goals. “MBRS RISE has taught me more than just laboratory techniques,” said Tiger who has worked on projects ... Read More
Rosemary Diaz: Alumna Encourages Female Scientists to Reach for the Stars
Although the female student population is the majority at California State University, Dominguez Hills—at approximately 70 percent—when Rosemary Diaz (Class of ’00, B.S., physics) was an undergraduate, she was the only female physics major at the university. When she entered graduate school at UCLA, she was sometimes the only woman in the class. “It was a little nerve wracking not only because I was the only woman in the room, but also because I was one of the few Americans in the classroom and in the electrical engineering department,” Diaz recalls. “But over the last 11 years, I have seen the number of women in science steadily rising. In addition, there are also now a few female ... Read More
In Memoriam: James Susumu Imai (1939-2011)
Emeritus professor of physics James Susumu Imai died on July 8 of heart failure. He joined the physics faculty at California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1970 and taught classes in physical science, physics within clinical science lab applications, and solid state physics until retiring in 2005. Imai’s students remember him best as a humorous, but thorough instructor. Daniel Gutierrez (Class of ’86, B.A., physics/mathematics), a senior project engineer at The Aerospace Corporation, says that his former professor used acronyms like “FLT” – which meant, “from last time” – long before text messages were invented, to recap lecture notes from the previous class. “I remember one ... Read More
