MU Physics Alumni Success Stories
16 August 2007

Portraits of Physics Alumni

 

 

Paul Miller (B.S. in Physics 1963) says that, “Physics and math are your go anywhere fields,” and he has used them to build an unusually productive and varied career.  Today he is veterinarian working for the state of Pennsylvania doing diagnostic work on birds, a job which puts him on the cutting edge of tracking such plagues as West Nile virus and Avian Flue.

 

After graduating from Marquette, Paul attended graduate school at Case Institute of Technology and received a Ph.D. in math in 1968.  He spent the next six years in Oklahoma teaching math at Oklahoma State University and Langston University, a historically black institution.  He then came home to Milwaukee where he joined Burroughs Corporation to help market their new computers.  In the days before computer science, the industry was hiring people with technical backgrounds who could read equations and develop logical arguments.  Of course, it helped if you had As and Bs for grades.  Then in August, 1976, he made a sales call on the math department at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater.  A faculty member had resigned that morning, and Paul found himself teaching math and computer science again.  The university hit budget problems and encouraged faculty members to take courses in new fields so Paul studied biology.  Taking courses with the same students he taught gave him a new perspective on instruction.  In 1981, he returned to Oklahoma for personal reasons where his long-standing interest in birds landed him a job at the zoo. 

 

              In 1982, he found a job teaching math and computer science at Central State University following an ad he saw on papers he was putting paper in bird cages.  In 1988, he left to enter vet school at Oklahoma State.  Paul credits Professor Arpad Elo at Marquette for teaching him how to reach a bedrock understanding of a problem and Professor Frank Karioris for making him learn lab techniques.  He advises physics students to “Learn as much as you can.  Enjoy as much as you can.  It will take you a long way.”

 

Peter Bandettini (B.S. 1989 from Marquette) is Chief of the Section on Functional Imaging Methods at the National Institutes of Health where he also serves as Director of the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility. During his last two years at Marquette , he worked summers at the Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and spent a semester there after graduating from Marquette in December. He considered medical school but decided on a Ph.D. in Biophysics from MCW. He took a post doc at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, became an assistant professor at MCW, and then moved to NIH in 1999. He has received the NIH Scientific Director's Merit Award, and in 2002, he was awarded the Wiley Young Investigator's award at the meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.

Peter uses physics skills and contents on a daily basis because his work is with resonance and electromagnetism. Imaging makes heavy use of much of the mathematics used in basic physics, especially basic Fourier transformation. He points out that a physics major is an excellent base for integrating science with other interests such as medicine.

Peter advises current physics majors to recognize that physics does much more that teach you a trade. It teaches you to approach problems and to think constructively about them.

Sabina Valladares (M.S. 1991 from Marquette ) owns her own business, Advanced Circuit Engineers, in Silicon Valley . The company troubleshoots integrated circuits using a focused ion beam to modify existing circuits or to lay down pads for attaching external probes. Following graduation from Marquette , Sabina earned a M.S. in Materials Science from the University of California at San Diego in 1994 and found jobs in the disc drive industry and the semiconductor industry before starting her new business in 2004.

Sabina says that she uses the problem-solving skills she gained in physics on a daily basis. While the facts gained in courses are not necessarily critical, the approach to problems is very important. She adds, “… a Physics major prepares you for just about anything. One can work as an engineer, a chemist, a physicist, a teacher, a radiologist, do research and development, be an astronaut, etc. People from those fields cannot become physicists. But a physicist can become all those things.”

Physics gave Sabina another advantage. Her Marquette roommate was studying journalism but her visiting cousin was a physics major at SDSU. He and Sabina met and married after Sabina graduated. Today, they have three children, ages 1, 4, and 11 years, and Sabina says that her primary reason for starting her new business was to have a more flexible schedule to be with the children.

Sabina advises current physics majors to seek out internships in industry. It is important to understand how physics actually gets used in a variety of settings in “the real world.”

 

  Gary A. Essman (B.S. 1969 and M.S. 1976 in physics and J.D. 1978 all from Marquette) is currently a partner at the Milwaukee law firm Andrus, Sceales, Starke and Sawall, L.L.P. which specializes in intellectual property law. To practice law before the U.S. Patent Office, lawyers must pass both the regular Bar Exam and the Patent Bar Exam. An undergraduate degree in science or engineering is required before taking the Patent Bar. Gary 's physics degrees were essential stepping stones to his career in patent law.

Gary describes his work as talking to inventors and knowing enough science not to “look like a deer in the headlights” when they present technical ideas. He must then translate these ideas into the legal language needed to obtain a patent. He works cases dealing with electrical devises, hydraulics, light electronics, optics, and “anything mechanical.” He keeps his undergraduate physics texts on a shelf in his office where they don't collect dust, and he lends them to other lawyers in the firm.

After graduating with a bachelors degree, Gary taught high school before returning to Marquette for his masters degree. He had taken business law as a continuing education course at Marquette and realized that law was for him. In 1976 before intellectual property law became a hot field, law schools were skeptical of scientists and their ability to succeed. Marquette accepted Gary , but insisted that he enter their tutorial program for extra help in his first year. By his second year, he was asked to run the program.

Gary advises current physics majors to hone their writing skills. One reason some scientists have difficulty in professions like the law is that they lack the ability to present their ideas clearly and grammatically.

 

George W. Kutner (B.S. 1969 from Marquette) is Associate Professor and former chair of the Finance Department in the College of Business Administration at Marquette . After two years at Indiana University , he earned a M.S. in Physics and then desired to venture away from the academic field of physics. Finance interested him because it used mathematical models, and he obtained an MBA from Indiana . After working as a financial analyst and a corporate planner, he returned to academia and finished a Ph.D. in Finance at Northwestern University in 1983. He taught at Michigan State from 1981 to 1985 before returning to Marquette and his family in Milwaukee .

George points out that the modeling techniques used in financial predictions are very similar to those used in physics. Physics majors are much better equipped to grapple with complex mathematical models now used in finance than are students who have not been required to describe the world around them in terms of math. The difference in the models used in finance and those used in physics is that financial models must start from data without the benefit of the laws that underlie models in physics. Besides, George points out, “People generally think highly of people who have studied physics.”

George advises current physics majors to keep physics and mathematics in perspective and to remember that it is better to keep an eye on the big picture than focus too intently on the details. In other words, when you solve the Schrodinger equation for an oddly behaved potential, you should know why you're doing it. After all, to make big break-throughs, you have to look at big questions.

Mark O. Kaletka (B.S. 1977 from Marquette) is Department Head of the Computing Division Core Support Services at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. After graduating from Marquette , Mark earned a Masters and Ph.D. degree in nuclear physics from Northwestern University . His dissertation work was completed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1983, where he also worked for several years as a staff member.

After a summer there when the only movie theater shut down, he moved to Boston and the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Physics in 1984. In 1989, he came to Fermilab.

As a nuclear physicist, Mark found that he enjoyed working with computers. In fact, he worked as an undergraduate in Marquette 's first computer center that opened when he was a freshman. He uses analytical skills honed in physics on a daily basis because, he says, “Physics gives you a way of thinking about problems that applies broadly.” He also points out that he has always worked in large physics labs and has to deal with physicists on a daily basis. He adds, “Physics is like the Marines. Once you're a physicist, you're always a physicist!”

Mark advises current physics majors to take a business course or two. In large experimental groups, physicists need skills in managing large budgets, team building and managing people. They will be far more apt to succeed if they have some formal training in these areas.

 

 

Michael Cherney (B.S. 1979 from Marquette) is a professor of physics at Creighton University . After leaving Marquette , Mike earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin . His dissertation was in experimental high energy physics, and he worked at both DESY and CERN. After a Post Doc at Berkeley , he moved to industry working for LeCroy. Mike's job at LeCroy was working on integrating the complex systems needed to run the L3 experiment. About 2/3 of his time was dedicated to marketing and sales at which he was successful but he did not enjoy it. When LeCroy offered him the job of sales manager for Switzerland , he decided to take a pay cut and return to academia.

Mike came to Creighton in 1989 and currently enjoys teaching a variety of physics courses. He is currently involved in experiments on high energy collisions of heavy nuclei at Brookhaven National Laboratory using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and he is working with a group that is constructing a dedicated heavy ion detector for use with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Mike reminds current physics majors, “If you want to be happy and successful, you need to be passionate about what you are doing. You'll find that you will be much more successful if you love your work!”