The graduating class of Physics seniors this year have won several accolades and scaled some new heights. Please join us, the faculty, staff and students of the Physics department at UC Merced, in congratulating this exceptional class and wishing them all the best for their future endeavors. Here, we highlight some of the achievements of only a few of them.
Tomas Virgen won the outstanding student award based on his excellence in teaching, research and service. Tomas finished top of his class when it comes 
to academic performance. His graduating GPA was 3.78, he has earned 5 A+s in his time at UC Merced, and was regularly on the Dean’s and Chancellor’s honor lists. He is graduating with magna cum laude with a B.S. in physics with an emphasis in mathematical physics.
Tomas’s research achievements are equally accomplished. Over the last year, he has worked with Prof. Sarah Loebman, a founding faculty member of our Astrophysics program. Tomas conducted novel astrophysics research on galaxy simulations, concluding that infalling satellite galaxies likely triggered star formation in the Milky Way in the distant past. He is co-author on a forthcoming paper in the Astrophysical Journal. Prof. Loebman says about him, "Tomas is an important core member of the Lab. He has participated regularly at graduate-level in journal clubs, group meetings, astrophysics colloquia and speaker meetings. Additionally, during the summer of 2020, Tomas participated in the California Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) Research Program where he worked in applied mathematics to study 3D scattering problems using MATLAB. Tomas presented this research at SACNAS 2020, at SIAM CSE21, and to UC Merced’s Applied Math Department as part of their waves seminar. I feel quite fortunate to have known Tomas during his time at UC Merced!"
On top of all this, Tomas has also been a key member of our student community. Not only has Tomas been an active member of UC Merced’s cross country team for over 3 years, but in 2019, he also co-founded the UC Merced Chess Club. Since then, Tomas has served as co-president of the Chess Club and regularly coordinates chess events and tournaments for the UC Merced community. Finally, Tomas is deeply committed to community outreach and service. Since 2019, Tomas has tutored student athletes within the athletic department on introductory to advanced physics & mathematics. Tomas has also served as an undergraduate instructor with CalTeach for the Bobcat Summer STEM Academy as part of a week-long physics workshop for middle school students within the central valley.
Graduating senior Christina Valletta became the first undergraduate in UC Merced Physics to receive the very prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation! Her research mentor, Prof. Daniel Beller, offers his words of praise: "Christina is an outstanding scholar who has shown tremendous potential as a researcher and has had a very p
ositive impact on the UC Merced physics community. She has attained a truly impressive breadth of research experience as an undergraduate, spanning the three main modes of physics investigation — experiment, theory and computational modeling — in topics as varied as quantum optics, soft materials and biological physics. At the helm of the Women in Physics chapter, she has created an active and broadly inclusive hub of physics undergraduate life and career development events, which have been all the more important during the pandemic. Along with the enormous prestige of winning the NSF fellowship as an undergraduate, Christina's award recognizes her expertise in ‘computationally intensive research,’ an area of nationwide priority. Christina's versatile research skills and scientific curiosity will carry her far in her doctoral studies and beyond.” Christina is using her richly deserved fellowship to support her graduate studies in UC Davis in Physics.
Another graduating senior is going to graduate school. In fact, Ethan Custodio, won a graduate school fellowship from Purdue University! Ethan worked on his thesis research, "Computing ionization rates from periodic orbits in chaotic Rydberg atoms", with Prof. Kevin Mitchell. Prof. Mitchell was very impressed with Ethan's research abilities. He says, "though an undergraduate, Ethan has been working with me continuously as a researcher since Summer 2019. I have essentially treated him as a graduate student in my group, and he has made remarkably fast progress, significantly extending a project from one of my former graduate students. He is perhaps the best undergraduate student researcher I have advised."
The department also held its annual senior thesis presentations recently. This year, they were organized by Prof. Brian Utter, a key new addition to UC Merced Physics's strengths in Soft Matter and Physics Education. The presentations were of such high quality this year, that the faculty decided to award the best presentation award to three students: Matias Lopez, Grace Newman and Tomas Virgen! (Yes, Tomas won this one as well).
Matias Lopez talked about "Abraham-Minkowski: The physics controversy that was solved… until it wasn’t"
Research mentor Prof. Dustin Kleckner says, "Matias is a naturally gifted researcher: he was able to jump into a complex project and take ownership of it almost immediately. His project included building a physical apparatus, computer interfacing of multiple pieces of equipment, and complicated data analysis. Matias was able to master all of these over the course of the year, and start taking the first experimental data for his project -- a remarkable achievement for an undergraduate." For his presentation, Matias used a skilled mix of visuals, scientific language, and humor to bring the audience along on his scientific journey.
Grace Newman was our second awardee for her stellar research presentation! She talked about "Using Labview to locate and log immobilized proteins" on research she performed with Prof. Victor Munoz. Seeing Grace presenting was like seeing our next generation's Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson of science communication. Watching her reasoning process while responding to Beller’s question was impressive; rarely are seasoned graduate students that calm, cool, and collected in a similar situation.
We also want to commend their classmates Sean Deocampo, Robert Gomez, Peter Athey, Ashley Argueta, Ernesto Padilla, Trevor Gammill and Stefan Faaland for being excellent students who also gave great presentations. We congratulate them on their superb successes and wish them the very best for their future careers!
