Joseph Geddes presented a paper entitled "Shaping of electromagnetic pulsed beams by chiral sculptured thin films" at the Asia Pacific Microwave Conference 2004, in New Delhi, India, December 15-18, 2004. The paper was co-authored with University Distinguished Professor Akhlesh Lakhtakia.

Congratulations to ESM doctoral student Joseph Geddes upon completion of The Penn State Course in College Teaching. The course is offered by The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and is available to all Penn State teaching assistants, faculty, and instructors who are interested in developing their skills as teachers.

To learn more about this program visit the website at: http://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/Programs/CCT/

Mr. Fei Wang, ESM Ph.D. candidate, has received the prestigious graduate Alumni Association Dissertation Award. The Award provides funding and recognition to outstanding full-time doctoral students who have passed their comprehensive exams and have received approval of the dissertation. It is considered to be among the most prestigious award available to Penn State graduate students and recognizes outstanding achievement in scholarship and professional accomplishment.

Mr. Wang's research involves investigating the optical responses of slanted chiral sculptured thin films (STFs) to several types of excitation sources, such a plane waves, optical beams and dipoles, and will be useful toward the integration of slanted chiral STFs with semiconductor chips used in the electronics industry.