The annual fall meetings include briefings from Department Chair, Professor Paul Miceli, Director of Graduate Students Professor Suchi Guha, and Director of Undergraduate Studies Professor Silvia Bompadre and student updates. College of Arts and Science Dean Cooper Drury drops by to talk about A&S topics and answer questions. The department selects up to four undergraduate and four graduate students to make 15-minute research presentations. The leaders award first, second, and sometimes third place monetary prizes to selected student presenters. A Friday evening social event includes student, faculty, and alumni awards.

The 2023 meeting was held October 10-11. Additional Friday briefings were given by some of our students. Julianna Bayless talked about Society of Physics Students activities and Vicki Kuhn summarized PAGSA (Physics & Astronomy Graduate Student Association) news.

Paul Miceli, with Ronald Boain, presented the Boain Dissertation Award for best doctoral dissertation to Dr. Katherine Schaefer.

Alumnus and Physics Leader Dr. James Seeser was selected as the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award. As Jim was not able to attend, Paul Miceli presented the award via Zoom.

A founding and long-time member of Physics Leaders, Dr. Seeser was recognized not only for his career and leader/department contributions, but also for his work as a volunteer and philanthropist for numerous organizations including the Central Institute for the Deaf, the Washington University Program in Audiology and Communications Sciences program, FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, and Jennings High School.

The Friday evening dinner and awards presentation was held at the Holiday Inn Convention Center

Paul Miceli and Physics Leaders President John Shumway presented 2023 Physics Leader’s Awards for the Friday afternoon student presentations. Outstanding Undergraduate Presentation 1st place was presented to both Ellie Gates and Julianna Bayless. Outstanding Graduate Student Presentation Awards went to 1st place - Dallar Babaian, 2nd place - Dylan Chiaro, 3rd place – Randy Burns. Paul Miceli presented Faculty Recognition Awards to Silvia Bompadre, Haojing Yan, Suchi Guha, and Ioan Kosztin.

The 2024 Physics Leaders meeting was held October 11-12. In addition to the annual “state of the department” briefings, PAGSA President Dallar Babaian talked about graduate student activities over the past year and SPS President Julianna Bayless updated the leaders on undergraduate activities. Chair Paul Miceli and Ron Boain presented the Boain Dissertation Awards to Randy Burns (1st place) and to Ryan Smith (2nd place) over Zoom as they could not attend in person.

Faculty, students and alumni again enjoyed an evening dinner at the Holiday Inn Executive Center.

Paul Miceli and Physics Leaders Chair Vann Priest presented the Outstanding Student Presentation Awards to undergraduates Evan Restuccia and Donovan Flagg, who tied for 1st place, and to graduate students Tapesh Gautam, 1st place; Arash Ghobadi, 2nd place; Jenna Bologa, 3rd place.

Chair Paul Miceli presented Faculty Enhancement Awards to Gavin King, Aigen Li, Deepak Singh, Carlos Wexler, and Ping Yu.

The special award of the event was the Physics Distinguished Alumni Award, presented to Ronald Boain. Ron was recognized for his long and varied successful career in aerospace at TRW, Martin Marietta Aerospace, and JPL on many projects, such as optimizing trajectory designs for spacecraft, and working in critical programs such as CloudSat, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal.  Ron and his wife Catherine have also invested in our students through the Ronald J. Boain and Catherine J. Rangel Boain Endowment fund, the annual Boain PhD Dissertation Award in Physics, and the Boain PhD Student Travel Fund.