St. John’s University
Chapter of Sigma Pi Sigma Induction Ceremony -
4/16/10
Presiding over the event was Associate Professor
and Chair of Physics, Dr. Mostafa Sadoqi. The two guest speakers
were: Dr. V. Parameswaran Nair, Professor and Chair of Physics of
the City College of New York, and Mr. Shaun McGrath, an alumnus of
St. John’s Physics Department currently working as a Field Engineer
at the World Trade Center in New York City. Dr. Huizhong
Xu, Assistant Professor and Advisor of St. John’s SPS
Chapter, presented the mission, history, and service of Sigma
Pi Sigma.
With the 10 new inductees, St. John’s Sigma Pi sigma
Chapter has a total of 25 current and historical members since its
founding in 1973.
The event’s plenary speaker, Dr. V. Parameswaran
Nair, Professor and Chair of Physics of the City College of New
York, presentation was entitled “Particles, Fields &
Enchantment of Physics”.
Dr. Nair is a renowned high energy physicist and is
best known for his work on twistors in gauge theories, which later
led to Witten's twistor string theory, and for his work on a
nonperturbative analysis of three-dimensional Yang-Mills
theories.
Dr. Nair started by talking about the concept of
atoms which was first proposed by philosophers in the ancient
times. After sketching a brief history of modern physics, he then
introduced the Standard Model to the audience and talked about all
the great theoretical and experimental work that led to this
beautiful theory, including those conducted at the nearby
Brookhaven National Laboratory.
He mentioned fundamental questions that yet to be
answered in the coming centuries such as the reasons behind color
confinement and encourage our students to explore these challenges.
He concluded his talk by pointing out the tremendous potential of
modern technological breakthroughs such as the Large Hadron
Collider in helping answer many of the most fundamental questions
in physics like the Higgs Mechanism and Supersymmetry.
Mr. McGrath’s presentation,“From the Classroom to
the Job Site: SJU Physics & Large-Scale Construction”, covered
his many years of professional experience in civil infrastructure,
structural design and project engineering working on projects from
MGM’s $8 billion Project City Center in Las Vegas to the new
Downtown Transportation Hub at the World Trade Center in New York
City.
He gave vivid examples of how his training in
physics helped him quickly adapt himself to his positions in the
engineering fields, and strongly encouraged our physics graduates
to obtain a solid training in physics even if they want to pursuer
a career in applied fields such as engineering.
This event provided an excellent opportunity for
our students to network with local physicists and our physics
alumni.