Meet Jordan Hanson, professor of physics and astronomy, and senior Natasha Waldorf (Physics and Integrated Computer Science)
How does your role as a mentor come alive in your classes, labs and research, Professor Hanson?
My mentorship incorporates five pathways for students:
• Through our brand new Educational Partnership Agreement with the U.S. Navy, and specifically the NAVSEA facility NSWC Corona, in Corona, CA. This partnership makes new internship opportunities available for our students in the areas of business administration, engineering, and computer
science. I also help students apply for the U.S. Navy’s SMART* scholarship program and NREIP** internships, through which Natasha earned an internship with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL).”
* Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation
** Naval Research Enterprise Internship
• Through Whittier College research fellowships. I mentor Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellows and Ondrasik-Groce Fellows, completing summer research projects in physics and computer science with them. My students and I have published peer-reviewed journal articles in Electronics Journal and Physical Review D.
• Through my grants and fellowships. When I have grant funding from the U.S. Navy (Dept. of Defense) or the National Science Foundation, I use the funding to sponsor student researchers throughout the year and during the Summer.
• Through my courses. This involves connecting my current research and internship opportunities with course content. For example, I draw connections between my engineering research with the U.S. Navy to content within my courses Computer Logic and Digital Circuit Design, and Electromagnetic Theory.
• Through offering course credit for completion of research projects during the semesters. Recently, my students and I have begun computational physics projects related to ultra-high energy neutrino science.
Natasha, how has Professor Hanson influenced you as a Whittier student?
Dr. Hanson has been a mentor for me throughout my Whittier College
experience. He was my freshman writing seminar professor as well as my professor for multiple physics courses and is one of my faculty advisors. This semester, I am doing research with him where we are using original mathematical models to develop algorithms to reconstruct neutrino properties in IceCube Gen2.* Dr. Hanson has helped me find internships and was who first told me about the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Scholars Program which got me started in the aerospace and defense industry.
*A collaboration of higher education institutions across North America, Europe, and Latin America seeking to upgrade and enhance the world’s largest high energy particle detector designed to detect neutrinos from deep space.
Tell us more about your internships in aerospace and the defense industry.
My first internship in STEM was the summer after my sophomore year through the AFRL Scholars Program, where I worked at the AFRL in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As an AFRL Scholar, I wrote code to model the communication capabilities of satellite constellations. I also got tours of laboratories, attended educational seminars, and got to present at the Small Satellite Conference in Utah the following summer about my research at the AFRL. I ended up also spending the fall semester of my junior year continuing my internship at the AFRL so I could continue developing
my project.
The summer after my junior year, I was an algorithm development intern at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Orlando, Florida. As an intern, I created programs for analyzing performance of infrared search and track systems. I also got to attend lectures on guidance, navigation, and control engineering for aircraft.
This past October, I got to present at the Small Satellite Education Conference at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on how a liberal arts education is beneficial for success in careers in the aerospace industry. Thanks to help from Professor Serkan Zorba (Physics and Astronomy), Whittier College was able to sponsor me for my trip to the conference.
Starting in fall of my senior year, I joined a start-up company called Proteus Space in Los Angeles as a part-time software developer. I have been working on automation of satellite design and systems engineering for satellites. After I graduate this spring, I will be starting as a full-time Satellite Engineer.
Why does a liberal arts education matter for STEM students, Professor Hanson?
Natasha and another one of my former advisees, Raymond Hartig, are classic examples of why a liberal arts education shapes a quality outcome in the STEM space. Raymond, now a graduate student in physics at Cal State Fullerton, helped me write a mathematical physics paper that was published in Physical Review D. He double-majored in physics and mathematics, but attended Whittier College with the help of music scholarships. Raymond participated in music programs here, and the mathematical structure of music often enhances our intuition for mathematical patterns in physics analysis. A liberal arts education helps us draw connections between seemingly unrelated fields to achieve new and interesting results.
Another example is my recent publication in Electronics Journal, in which I found a connection between photonics and RF phased array design. Natasha helped with writing computer code. She is now helping with another computational physics project related to IceCube Gen2, even though her main focus is programming for small satellite systems. Liberal arts students are able to draw connections and make progress on multiple fronts.
Natasha, why should a prospective student consider Whittier College?
There are so many opportunities to work directly with professors. By getting to know my professors, I have gotten to do research with them, get good recommendations for internships, and received advice on how to best pursue my career goals. I was so surprised about how small the classes are here…this semester, my largest class has six students! It has been so great for my learning to be able to interact with the professor and other students during lectures.
