The Elizabeth Feagin Brown and Foy F. Feagin, Jr. Scholarship Fund is given in support of outstanding students majoring in physics or music with an emphasis in performance and stringed instruments.  Awards provided by the fund are intended to provide full or partial payment of tuition for qualifying students, depending upon how much the fund earns for a given award year.

Student Awards/Presentations

Several Physics students have recently gotten King Creativity Awards. In 2007 Pelham Keahey’s project was “Constructing A Low-Cost Solar Water Heater” and Melanie Loop’s project was “Creating a Solar Powered Refrigerator”.

In October 2007 Mariel Kerbacher won a prize for best undergraduate poster at the Fall meeting of the Texas Section of the American Physical Society at Texas A&M.

In March 2008, Sean Smith presented a poster at the Austin Symposium on Molecular Structure in Austin.

Internships and Research Opportunities

We actively encourage our students to do research both here at Southwestern and off campus. Below are some of the places that our students have recently worked:

• Kevin O’Neil did research at Rice University
• Pelham Keahey did research at Stanford University
• Sean Smith did research at the University of Geissen in Germany

Recent Capstone Projects

At Southwestern, each Physics student is required to do a capstone project. Below are some of the projects of our most recent graduates:

• Ms. Melanie Loop - “A Solar Powered Refrigerator”
• Mr. Carl Webber - “Converting Human Power into Electrical Power”
• Mr. Timofey Beliakov - “Is the Solar Constant Really Constant?”
• Ms. Mariel Kerbacher - “An Electricity-Generating Wind Turbine”
• Mr. Rob Savage - “The Answer, My Friend, is Blowing in the Wind”: The Savonius Vertical Axis Wind Turbine”
• Mr. Rick Eiland - “Efficiency of Stellar Spectroscopy”

Student Activities/Organizations

Our club, SU Physics and Engineering Rocks (SUPER), meets several times each semester. Sometimes we listen to a talk about physics, astronomy or engineering; sometimes we just get together and eat some barbeque. Drop by and find out what’s going on.