Acadia Physics Department

Acadia University student Dan Webber has won the Best Talk category of the 2011 Atlantic Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy Conference (AUPAC) recently held in Antigonish, Nova Scotia with a presentation on how he improved the use of a scanning electron microscope.

“Out of the 25 or so talks given at this year’s conference I did not expect mine to place, let alone come first,” said Webber, who is in his fourth-year of study in honours Physics. “It felt great to bring the prestige to Acadia and to our Physic’s Department.”

Webber’s presentation, “Development and Characterization of a Near-IR Cathodoluminescence Detector” saw him design, construct, and test a detector for use on Acadia University’s Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).

The Chester Basin, NS native says his decision to attend Acadia was an easy one. “Acadia consistently ranks in the top three in the undergraduate category in Maclean’s magazine rankings issue. Coupled with the rural location and close proximity to my hometown; it was a no-brainer.”

He says he is thankful for the personal attention he has received at Acadia.

“Unlike other schools, where the classes are so large the student becomes a number, in the Acadia Physics Department they treat you as an eager-to-learn student with a name,” he says.

Two other Acadia students received honourable mentions at the conference: Matthew LeBlanc, A New Strategy for the Measurement of the Top Quark Pair Production Cross-Section in the ATLAS Detector and Graham Reid, Equations for Phase Shift Ring Down Spectroscopy.