Principle Investigator
Kevin Aptowicz
Kevin joined the faculty at West Chester University in the Fall 2005 after completing his PhD in applied physics at Yale University, his master's in electrical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, and his BS in electrical engineering at Columbia University. He is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and a Visiting Scientist at Lawerence Livermore National Laboratory.
Current Group Members
Murph Pyankov
(Fall 2022 - Present)
Murph is a BS Physics major. They are exploring the diffusion of particles in confinement using video microscopy and optical tweezers.
Nicholas Gray
(Spring 2023 - Spring 2024)
Nick is a BS Physics major. He is working on quantifying the many sources of systematic error in the e/m apparatus used in our intermediate lab course.
Michael Manfre
(Fall 2023 - Present)
Michael is a BS Physics/Engineering major. His work focuses on simulating light scattering from nonspherical particles to better characterize particle emission from surfaces experiencing shock waves.
Travis Derouanna
(Fall 2023 - Present)
Travis is a BS Physics/Engineering major. He is exploring using the Amsterdam Discrete Dipole Approximate (ADDA) to calculate light scattering from highly nonspherical particles.
Spencer Darcangelo
(Fall 2023 - Present)
Spencer is a BS Physics/Engineering major. His work focuses on simulating light scattering from spheres with inclusions.
Gwen Zecchinelli
(Spring 2024 - Present)
Gwen is a BS Physics/Engineering major. Gwen is exploring dense colloidal packings in confined geometries.
Kaitlyn Hand
(Spring 2024 - Present)
Kaitlyn Hand is a BS Physics major. Kaitlyn is exploring dense colloidal packings in confined geometries.
Past Group Members
Kayla Griffin
(Fall 2023)
Kayla's work focuses on sample preparation of wedge chambers and in situ characterization of the thickness of chambers when viewing a sample on a microscope.
Kayla is currently pursuing a Business Analytics Degree at West Chester University.
Adelaide Miller
(Fall 2023)
Addie focused on simulating the light scattering from spheroidal shaped aerosol particles.
Addie is currently pursuing a biology degree at West Chester University.
Kyndred Wright
(Fall 2022 - Spring 2023)
Kyndred worked on an experiment exploring diffusion in confined geometries. He also played a critical role in getting the experiment started.
Kyndred is pursuing a civil engineering degree at the University of Maryland.
Tanisha Rutledge
(Summer 2022)
Tanisha experimented on creating wedge chambers. In addition, she helped to incorporate optical laser tweezers into the microscope.
Tanisha is currently at Jefferson University completing a Mechanical Engineering Degree as part of the 3-2 program.
Isaiah Watkins
(Fall 2021 - Spring 2022)
Isaiah did some preliminary experiments on colloidal sedimentation and played a critical role in moving research lab to the new building.
Isaiah is pursuing an applied mathematics degree at Shippensburg University.
Paulo Castro
(Summer 2019 - Spring 2020)
Paulo earned a BS Physics degree from West Chester University. He helped to create a Matlab app that analyzed the spectrum of light being reflected from a sample and determined thickness of the sample while it is being viewed on a microscope.
Paulo is currently attending medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Sequoyah Walters
(Summer 2017 - Spring 2019)
Sequoyah earned a BS Physics degree from West Chester University. His research explored the light scattering from aerosol particles. In particular, Sequoyah ran Fortran simulations to calculate the scattering from clusters of spheres. He went onto earn a master's in mechanical engineering from the Univeristy of Wisconsin Madison.
Sequoyah is currently a robotics software engineering at Applied Research Associates.
Gabriel Seymour
(Summer 2017 - Spring 2019)
Gabe earned a BS Physics degree from West Chester University and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University as part of our 3-2 program. Gabe played a critical role in parallelizing Fortran code to calculate light scattering from aerosol particles.
Gabe is currently pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Benjamin Jordan
(Spring 2016 - Spring 2017)
Ben earned a BS Physics degree from West Chester University. Ben was critical in designing and implementing an optical system to capture the Fourier plane of a sample viewed on our high-powered microscope. He went on to earn a master's in Data Analytics from Western Governors University.
Ben is now a data engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Jason Zallie
(Summer 2014 - Summer 2016)
Jason did some of the initial research exploring the role of absorption on the speckle pattern generated from light scattering. He earned a BS physics and geoscience from West Chester University.
Jason is now a research engineer at CertainTeed.
Richard Janowski
(Summer 2015)
Rich experimented with using a spatial light modulator to generate a predefined light pattern.
Rich is currently science faculty at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School.
Michael Ryan
(Summer 2013 - Spring 2015)
Michael explored hydrodynamic damping of collective motion in dense colloidal crystals. He used digital video-microscopy to study the phonon dynamics and extracted friction coefficients along high symmetry directions in q-space. He earned a BS in physics from West Chester University and a BS in mechanical engineering from Philadelphia University as part of the 3-2 program.
Michael is currently a systems engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Philadelphia.
Daniel Landgraf
(Summer 2014 - Spring 2015)
Dan studied the evolution of the aerosol phase function as particle morphology shifted away from a perfect sphere. He earned a BS in physics from West Chester University and a BS in electrical engineering from Penn State University as part of the 3-2 program.
Dan is currently a systems engineering at Northrop Grumman.
Jacqueline Sugar
(Spring 2013 - Spring 2014)
Jacqueline analyzed the light scattering patterns from individual atmospheric aerosol particles and characterized their sphericity based on the ring structure in the scattering patterns.
Eric Lechner
(Spring 2013 - Summer 2013)
Eric calibrated the optical Fourier image captured from a microscope. This was critical in interpreting the Fourier images and extracted information for them. Eric earned a BS physics degree from West Chester University and went on to earn a PhD in physics from Temple University.
Eric is now a staff scientist at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
Julia Mayer
(Summer 2013)
Julia explored the interaction potential between thermosensitive gel particles and a temperature gradient. She estimated the thermodiffusion coefficient of the particles. She earned a BS in physics from West Chester University and a BS in mechanical engineering from Philadelphia University as part of the 3-2 program.
Julia is currently a senior development engineer at Flexicon Corporation.
Sean Martin
(Summer 2011 - Spring 2013)
Sean played a crucial role in helping the research group learn how to use NASA Tmatrix Fortran code. With that code, we could calculate the scattering patterns from spheriodal particles. Sean earned a BS physics degree from West Chester University and went onto earn a master's degree in transformative education and social change also from West Chester University.
Sean currently teaches physics at Central High School in Philadelphia and helps coach the robotics team there.
Matthew Colagreco
(Summer 2010 - Summer 2011)
Matt explored the point response of a two-dimensional colloidal glass. In particular, he developed the particle tracking code and analyzed the collected data. Matt earned a BS physics degree from West Chester University.
Matt is now a senior actuarial analyst with Chubb.
Ryan Margolis
(Summer 2010)
Ryan devised the optical system to measure the temperature field of a sample being viewed on a microscope. His approach was to use thermo-fluorescent dyes and fluorescence microscopy. Ryan earned a BS in physics and mathematics from West Chester University. He went onto earn a master's in biomedical engineering from Drexel University and a PhD in biomedical engineering form the University of Texas at Dallas.
Ryan is currently doing a postdoc at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Sean Gossin
(Summer 2008 - Spring 2010)
Sean designed and built a holographic optical tweezers system that is coupled to a microscope. He earned a BS in physics from West Chester University.
Sean is now an opto-mechanical assembly engineer at Avo Photonics.
Jared Campbell
(Spring 2008 - Spring 2010)
Jared analyzed the light scattering patterns from ambient aerosol particles. In particular, he compared their phase functions to the widely-used Henyey-Greenstein model.
Max Henderson
(Spring 2008 - Spring 2010)
Max analyzed individual scattering patterns of aerosols to determine the average asymmetry parameter. The asymmetry parameter is commonly used in atmospheric science models. Max went onto earn a PhD in Physics at Drexel University.
Max is now the Chief Data Officer at DataStream Cyber Insurance, a company he cofounded.
Shayna Wright
(Spring 2009)
Shayna setup a spatial light modulator that can tune the phase of a coherent light beam. After earning her BS in physics education from West Chester University, she earned a master's in secondary education from Holy Family University.
Shayna currently teaches at the Hatboro-Horsham High School.
Jonathan Kanatous
(Summer 2008)
Jonathan performed some initial experiment of dense colloidal systems and helped the group learn video-microscopy techniques and particle tracking analysis.
Jonathan is now the Medical Dosimetry Program Director at Thomas Jefferson University.