Alumni

Physics graduates in 2009 displayed the Schrodinger equation on their mortarboards. From left: Zach Smith, Josh Vanderhill, and Jess Vriesma. Click the picture for more photos.

Our alumni have gone on to a great variety of careers in science, technology, and teaching. Several hold prestigious positions at universities, national labs and observatories, and industry. Below are links to some of our alumni; if you would like to see a link to your site here (or the information listed about you is incorrect), just send a message to Deborah Haarsma.

Jump to graduates in last ten years, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s

Graduated in last 10 years:

Philip Ammar ('04) is pursuing a degree in international law at Case Western Reserve University, following two years in Dushanbe, Tajikistan working with the aid organization Shelter for Life and a year in northern Iraq managing the construction of an aquaduct to supply water to a city of 150,000.

Chris Beaumont ('07) is a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Hawaii.

Anthonty Bouvette ('05) works for Intertek, a test-engineering firm based in NY but with labs all over the world. He performs quality, reliability, and performance tests on industry and consumer products in the mechanical, electrical, bio-medical, and acoustic test labs.

Llian Breen ('05) is working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the NOAA commissioned Corps and has just received his first assignment at sea.

Kristen Bush (minor '05) is teaching English (and Physics) at Illiana Christian High School.

Andrew Butler ('07) is a graduate student in astronomy at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia.

Elise Crull ('05) is a graduate student in the History and Philosophy of Science program at Notre Dame.

J. Clark Cully ('03) is a graduate student in the Physics Department at University of Michigan. He visited in Spring 2007 to speak to the department about his research at Fermilab on fundamental particles. In spring 2008, he is doing a short-term graduate fellowship in science public policy with the National Academy of Sciences, which he highly recommends to other grad students. In summer 2008, he moves to the Department of Energy, where he'll be in working on non-proliferation R&D, such as sensors to keep tabs on foreign nuclear programs and monitors to detect nuclear smuggling.

Kristin Datema ('06) teaches high school Physics and Math at Central Valley Christian High School in Visalia, CA.

James Deterding ('07 minor) teaches physics and math at Chapelgate Christian Academy in Maryland.

Jason English ('99) teaches physics at William Fremd High School in Palatine, IL. He earned National Board Certification in 2005 and a Masters Degree in Physics Education from Roosevelt University the same year.

Shannon Fogwell ('05) is a graduate student in physics at Harvard University.

Joshua Gabrielse ('03) is a physics teacher at Dunbar High School in the Baltimore City Public School System. See his websites: physics class, robotics team.

Matt Gritter ('05) is a student at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Jacci Guikema Busch ('01, MDiv, Calvin Seminary 2005) is pastor of McBain Christian Reformed Church in McBain, Michigan (near Cadillac).

Armin Karim ('08) is a graduate student in musicology at Case Western Reserve University.

Mason Klein ('02) is a graduate student in physics at Harvard University. He stopped back for a visit in Spring 2004 and gave a talk on Shaking Sand: Separation, Pattern Formation, and the Gas between the Grains.

Casey Koopmans ('04 minor) teaches high school physics in St. Joseph, MI.

Kristin Kuzera Palacios ('04) is an M.Div student at Calvin Theological Seminary and wrote a 2008 column on young adults and church involvement.

D. Lee Miller ('05) is a graduate student in physics at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jon Niehof ('00) is a graduate student at the Center for Space Physics at Boston University.

Ross Norman ('08) is a process engineer at Electro-Optics Technology in Traverse City, Michigan, which develops Faraday rotators, photodetcectors, and other high-tech optical equipment.

Jeff Olivero ('07) teaches physics at Liberty High School in Colorado Springs.

David Pastoor ('04) is a systems engineer at Raytheon in Denver, designing ground control systems for satellites.

Michael Scholten ('03) is a graduate student in physics at the University of Maryland.

Jessie Taylor ('08) is pursuing a masters in theology at Notre Dame University.

Sam Terfa ('08 minor) teaches high school science and math at Minnehaha Academy in Minnesota.

David Tong ('99) is a graduate student in physics at the University of Connecticut.

Andrew Vache ('05) worked for a few years at Authentix, Inc., a company that makes anti-counterfeit materials for petroleum and pharmaceuticals worldwide, such as unique phosphorecent markers in pharmaceutical packaging. The company valued Andrew's physics training to complement the work of chemists in this new and growing field. Andrew is now the Physics Lab Specialist at University of Maryland Baltimore County, designing student labs, assisting with research projects, and automating their observatory.

Andrew Vanden Heuvel ('04, M.S. U Florida) teaches astronomy at The Prairie School in Racine, Wisconsin. In January 2008, his students recently discovered an asteroid, using data from the Calvin-Rehoboth Observatory (more).

Jake Vander Plas ('03) is a graduate student in the Astronomy Department at the University of Washington.

John Vander Weide ('05) has completed a dual Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the French engineering school Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (ENSAM). He is now a PhD student in engineering at the extension campus of Georgia Tech in Metz, France, studying Ultrasonic Nondestructive Evaluation.

John VanderHeide ('08 astro minor) is teaching high school science in Chicago with Teach for America.

John Van Dyke ('08) is a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, planning to specialize in philosophy of science.

David Van Norstrand ('03) is in the joint MD/PhD graduate program at the Mayo Clinic.

Chris Walker ('05) works for Custom Astronomical Support Services in Missouri, a company that builds small 7.5ft dish radio telescopes with an automated mount that were designed by MIT Haystack Observatory.

Dan Zuidema ('99 minor) teaches physics at East Grand Rapids High School.

Graduated in 1990s:

Michael Dekker ('98, Ph.D. Notre Dame) is a professor in the mathematics department of Ferris State University and studies topology.

Matthew Falk ('97) teaches at Western Michigan Christian High School.

Sarah Bowen Fay ('98) teaches high school physics and math at Chicago Christian School.

Edward Hamilton ('97, Ph.D., theoretical atomic physics, Colorado) completed a post-doc at Northwestern University and is teaching physics at Grand Valley State University in 2007-08.

Christopher Hartemink ('96; Ph.D., Mechanical and Medical Engineering, MIT and Harvard Medical School, 2004) is a research scientist in heart failure at Guidant where he studies biventricular resynchronization therapy. Chris holds a patent for a heart valve prostheses. He completed majors in both physics and engineering at Calvin.

Ben Langdon (minor, Ph.D. Physical Chemistry) is a post-doctoral researcher in the NSF Engineering Research Center for Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Science and Technology at Colorado State University. He studies table-top ultra-high power EUV lasers. Research on lasers is truly interdisciplinary, at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering.

Geoff Lenters ('93, Ph.D.) studies the astrophysics of x-ray burst sources and is a professor in the Grand Valley State University physics department.

Hugh Nymeyer ('94, Ph.D. biophysics U.C. San Diego) does computational studies of protein folding and membrane-protein interactions. He is assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University.

Phil Polstra ('90, M.S., Purdue) is Professor of Aviation at University of Dubuque, in Dubuque, IA.

Lewis Reynolds ('93, Ph.D '02) lives in Denver and works in the area of signal processing, specifically aerial spectroscopy for ground surveys.

David Rupke ('98, Ph.D. Astrophysics, Maryland '04) is a postdoc at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, studying galaxy mergers and their chemical composition.

Harold Schnyders ('91, Ph.D.) studies solid state physics and is a professor in the Grand Valley State University physics department.

Bob Steen ('93) received his Ph.D. from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University. He is now a management consultant at Princeton Consultants in New Jersey.

David Steensma ('92, M.D. University of Chicago) does medical research in the area of hematology (diseases of the blood, such as leukemia) at the Mayo Clinic.

David Streutker ('97, Ph.D. Physics and Astronomy, Rice University) is a project scientist at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in Washington D. C., which geospatial intelligence in support of national security.

Angela Van Woerkom Portenga ('98) teaches physics at Providence Christian High School in Fremont, Michigan.

Dwight You ('96) is a graduate student in physics at DePaul University, and studies biomechanical motors within cells.

Graduated in 1980s:

Marvin Bolt ('84; Ph.D. History and Philosophy of Science, Notre Dame) is a curator at Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago. He recently found two telescopes from the 1600s that had been "lost" in museum storerooms (and gave a seminar at Calvin about it).

Howard Bushouse (`80; Ph.D., Astronomy, U. Illinois) is an Assistant Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD (science headquarters for the Hubble Space Telescope). His time there is split between research and software development in the Space Telescope Science Data Analysis System (STSDAS) group.

David Cole ('85; Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Chicago) is a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on the Spitzer Space Telescope, studying the universe at infrared wavelengths.

Mike Evele ('88) teaches physics at Grandville High School.

Eric Hessels ('84, Ph.D., Physics, Notre Dame) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at York University, doing experimental atomic physics, including studies of anti-hydrogen with Gerry Gabrielse.

Alison Kuipers ('83) is a senior engineer at Goodrich Avionics.

W. Ted Masselink ('81) is a physics professor at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Pam Naber Knox ('80; M.S., Meteorology, University of Wisconsin) is Assistant State Climatologist for the state of Georgia.

Steve Remillard ('88, Ph.D., The College of William and Mary, 1993) is a professor in the Hope College physics department. Steve studies microwave measurement and microwave induced phenomena, such as microwave superconductivity, microwave photonic bandgap structures, and microwave induced discharges in gases. Before his teaching career, he did research at Los Alamos National Lab, the University of Wuppertal (Germany), the Naval Research Lab. He worked in industry for several years doing research and product development, including as Director of Engineering at Illinois Superconductor Corporation.

Jon Seerveld ('83) is an optical engineer, living in Hawaii and working at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

James TenCate ('80; Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 1992) is a geophysicist studying seismo-acoustics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His group models the non-linear elasticity of rocks, a topic which is clearly important for understanding earthquakes, and has broader applications in other materials (such as damaged solids and compressed powdered metals). Jim is also Technical Editor for The Vintage Triumph, the national magazine of the Vintage Triumph Register, the club for Triumph motorcar enthusiasts.

Tom Van Baak ('80, brother of Prof David Van Baak) collects vintage and atomic clocks (see his website leapsecond.com). He recently involved his kids in perhaps the first homemade relativity experiment, reported in a letter to Physics Today and an article in Wired Magazine.

Bill Zeilstra ('82) is the pastor of a CRC church in Pella, Iowa, and an avid amateur astronomer. He wrote astronomy-themed devotionals for the June 2001 issue of Today (download the PDF file).

Graduated in 1970s:

Tom Ackerman ('70; Ph.D.) is Chief Scientist in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program of the Department of Energy, studying global warming and public policy.

David Cok ('75; Ph.D. Harvard) is Chief Technologist at Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories, studying the science & technology of digital imaging.

Martin den Boer ('73, Ph.D.) is a physics professor at the City University of New York - Hunter College, and studies X-ray and photoelectron spectroscopy and surface physics.

Shirley Fleischman ('73, Ph.D) is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Grand Valley State University and was the Carnegie Foundation Michigan Professor of the Year in 1998.

Gerald Gabrielse ('73; Ph.D., Physics, Chicago, 1980) is the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He recently won the George Ledlie Prize for his research on anti-matter and in 2007 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. His high-precision measurement of the electron magnetic moment was named the 2006 AIP Physics Story of the Year. On a lighter note, one of his papers was used in a February 2007 sketch by comedian Conan O'Brien with guest Jim Carrey (watch it here).

Keith Griffioen ('79; Ph.D., Physics, Stanford 1984) does accelerator experiments on elementary particles and serves as Chair and Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary. In 2006, he was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for definitive experimental studies of the spin structure of the proton and neutron, both in the perturbative, deep-inelastic regime, and in the non-perturbative resonance region."

Steve Haan ('73; Ph.D., Physics, Maryland, 1977) studies nuclear fusion as Group Leader at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Labs.

Todd Hoeksema ('78, Ph.D.) is a Senior Scientist in the Solar Observatories Group at Stanford. His team designed the Michelson Doppler Imager instrument on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). He recently was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal for his leadership in crafting a 30-year road map for NASA heliophysics research. Calvin's alumni magazine Spark profiledTodd and his work in the Winter 2006 issue.

Robert Hollebeek ('70, Ph.D.) is an expert in using supercomputers in physics and medicine. He serves as Director of the National Scalable Cluster Project, Chief Architect for the National Digital Mamography Archive, and Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania.

James Huffman ('79, Ph.D. Michigan State) is Director of Sales and Manufacturing at the Lawrence Semiconductor Research Laboratory.

James Katerberg ('75, PhD, Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, '80) works for the Kodak Graphic Communication Group. James has 20 patents in the field of inkjet. James is the intellectual property coordinator for Dayton Ohio based inkjet group.

Harold Reitsema ('72, Ph.D. Astronomy, New Mexico State) leads the Advanced Systems group at Ball Aerospace, which is responsible for developing new mission concepts for NASA, such as Deep Impact and the Kepler mission to discover Earth-like planets around nearby stars. His past work includes building Hubble Space Telescope instruments, the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite, and the GIOTTO mission to Comet Halley.

Lyle Roelofs ('75, Ph.D., Physics, Maryland) is Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Colgate University, after serving as professor of physics at Haverford College for many years. His research area is computational condensed matter physics.

Stuart Rupke ('71, M.D.) is a physician and assistant program director of a medical residency program at Synergy Medical Education Alliance.

Tom Strikwerda ('71, Ph.D) supervises the Mission Concept and Analysis group at the Applied Physics Lab of John Hopkins University, which worked on the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros.

Joe VanAndel ('78, Masters in Computer Science, U.C.Berkeley) works in the Earth Observing Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, writing data acquisition and control software for weather radar systems.

James VanDam ('70, Ph.D.) is professor and director at the Institute for Fusion Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.

Hugh Vander Plas ('72, Ph.D.) develops ink jet printing technologies at Hewlett Packard.

John Zwart ('77, Ph.D. Michigan State) is a physics professor at Dordt College in Sioux Center Iowa.

Graduated in 1960s:

Alvin Compaan ('65; Ph.D., 1971 Chicago) develops technologies for solar power cells as Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Toledo.

Ryan Doezema ('64; Ph.D., Physics, U. Maryland) studies the magneto-electronic properties of semiconductors, as Professor of Physics and Chair of the University of Oklahoma Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Ken Klaasen ('68, M.S. Aerospace Science, University of Michigan) is Supervisor of the Imaging Science Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has been involved in the imaging experiments on many solar system exploration missions including Mariner 10, Viking Orbiter, and the Galileo mission to Jupiter, and most recently coordinated all aspects of scientific mission planning and flight operation for the Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1.

Rick Shoemaker ('66, Ph.D.) is professor and director at the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. He hosted the Astronomy in the Southwest interim class on the day they visited Tucson in January 2009.

Paul Vanden Bout ('61, Ph.D. U. C. Berkeley) recently completed 18 years as Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He won Calvin's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003. He was featured in an article in the Sparc alumni magazine.

Matt Vanderhill ('69; Ph.D., Univ of Wisconsin Madison, 1974) is Staff Scientist at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Terry Van Kalker ('64) teaches at Grand Rapids Christian High School.

John Van Zytveld ('62, Ph.D. Michigan State) serves as a Senior Program Officer at M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington, and is a former Calvin Physics professor.

Graduated in 1950s:

Alex Dragt ('58; Ph.D. Physics U. C. Berkeley) studies mathematical physics, is a Professor of Physics and former department chair at the University of Maryland, and won Calvin's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1985.

The Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers ( '56; Ph.D. U. C. Berkeley) is a United States Congressmen, representing western Michigan, and a former Calvin Physics professor. He won Calvin's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1996.

Henk Van Andel ('59, Ph.D.) is past president of The King's University College in Edmonton Alberta.