Six students from Western Kentucky University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy attended the 16th annual Argonne National Laboratory Symposium in Argonne, Ill.

Argonne National Laboratory is the nation’s first laboratory and is the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest research center. The symposium provides the opportunity for undergraduate students in science, engineering and mathematics to present their latest research projects. This year, Argonne had more than 350 students from across the nation attend the Nov. 4-5 meeting.

Western Kentucky University’s Society of Physics Students co-sponsored the trip along with the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Dr. Phillip Womble, director of the Applied Physics Institute, accompanied the students on the trip.

Student presenters and project titles are as follows:

• Johnathan Craft of Paducah, "Investigation of Ranges for Proton Recoil Reaction Products in Gas Mixtures of Position Sensitive Neutron Detectors".
• Sarah McMurray of Bowling Green, "Design and Construction of the WKU Ion Beam Materials Analysis Laboratory".
• Ryan Moore of Morgantown, "Threat Level Determination through Elemental Analysis".
• Ian Rice of Fort Campbell, "Harmonic Prime Mover Development for Thermo-Acoustic Agglomeration".
• Shelly Smith of Princeton, "Revealing Pulsations of WR123 Using MOST".
• Richard Walters of Lexington, "Structure Function Analysis of Blazar PKS 0716+714".