Despite having earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Cal Tech as a young man and having enjoyed a successful career in the aerospace industry, Philip Johnson was retired and in his 50s when he began attending California State University, Dominguez Hills in the late 1970s. By all accounts, Johnson was an enthusiastic participant in academic pursuits within the CSUDH physics department, where he dedicated himself to both learning everything he could and sharing his own considerable knowledge with others. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physics in 1980. “Phil was what you might call a renaissance man, well-versed in many fields: literature, philosophy and history,” wrote Keith ... Read More
Physics
Going Underground to Understand the Universe
By Laurie McLaughlin A half-mile underground, an enormous steel tank is filled with 50,000 tons of water surrounded by light-detecting devices. It serves partly as a giant target for cosmic particles—like protons, electrons, and neutrons—raining down on Earth from the sky. One type of particle, the neutrino, has been somewhat of a mystery to physicists until recent decades, but its activity helps explain how the sun and stars continue to shine. “We don’t realize it, but trillions of neutrinos travel through our bodies every second,” said California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) professor of physics James Hill, who has been studying this very tiny phenomenon for more ... Read More
Ruben Medina: Dancing his Way Through a Degree in Physics
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
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
