Zasadzinski and Leslie Win 2014 CAURS Awards

John Zasadzinski, professor of physics and the Paul and Suzi Schutt Endowed Chair in Science, and Barrett Leslie (AMAT 5th year) both received awards at the 2014 Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium (CAURS).

Each spring, CAURS brings together hundreds of undergraduates from Chicago-area universities to present their research in poster sessions, oral sessions, and roundtable discussions. This year’s CAURS was held April 5 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown.

Leslie was named the Top Presenter from IIT for “An initial modeling of fractal nets for the Sierpiński gasket.” (See https://sites.google.com/a/hawk.iit.edu/bleslie/research.) His adviser is Greg Fasshauer, professor of applied mathematics. Ph.D. candidate Allen Flavell helped Leslie with coding, and Hemanshu Kaul, associate professor of applied mathematics, helped him with notation.

This is Leslie’s third year in a row winning at CAURS; he won for Overall Presentation in 2013 and Top Physics/Mathematics/Engineering Presenter in 2012.

Zasadzinski won the Faculty Support for Undergraduate Research Award, based on a written nomination by his student Alek Korczakowski (PHYS 3rd year).

Korczakowski wrote that he joined Zasadzinski’s lab expecting to only do supporting work, but “within a month I was working with another undergraduate senior doing Raman spectroscopy....I was able to get published as a secondary author, visit Argonne Lab to take measurements, [and] receive a research stipend to continue working over the summer.” Korczakowski received a College of Science undergraduate summer research stipend in 2013.

Zasadzinski “allowed me to get hands-on experience in research that is adding something new to the current field and has led me to amazing opportunities that are helping me advance my career and education. I believe he is an excellent example of a professor and an adviser.” Korczakowski will do an internship with Duke Energy this summer in radiation protection work.