UWindsor physics students successfully competed against their counterparts at the 2022 Canadian Association of Physicists annual congress, held at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, from June 6 to 10.

Master’s student Emma Blanchette (BSc 2021) placed second in the category Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, Canada oral presentation for her talk, “Rapid Detection of Bacterial Pathogens in Water and Clinical Specimens Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy.” Blanchette is supervised by physics department head Steven Rehse.

Fourth-year undergraduate Griffin Howson beat out many graduate students to place third in the Division of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics oral presentation category for his talk, “Electrical Control of Magnetism in Kitaev Materials.” Howson is supervised by Jeffrey Rau, an assistant professor of physics.

According to Dr. Rehse, all of the faculty in attendance were impressed by the high-level of research presented by the student competitors.

“For two UWindsor physics students to be recognized publicly for both the sophistication of their research and also the clarity and conciseness of their presentations is really quite an accomplishment and reflects highly on the exceptional work being done every day by University of Windsor science students,” he said.

At least seven UWindsor faculty and 13 current students and recently grads participated in the congress. There were approximately 200 student competitors overall.