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"I decided to apply to St. Mary's just from the great press it gets in U.S. News & World Report annual college guide. After taking a tour and seeing the campus, it was a done deal. I liked the small classes I had in high school and wanted that experience in college."
And what he's gotten as a result of those small classes and the personalized curriculum allowed by the St. Mary's Project is an education deep in academics and broad in the liberal arts. Though initially undecided on a major, Ethan ultimately chose physics.
Ethan's interest in physics expanded with a summer research opportunity at Patuxent River Naval Air Station (NAVAIR), made possible through the Weitzel Scholars Fund, which supports undergraduate summer research in the sciences. The Weitzel Scholars research experience gives students the opportunity to conduct research at a pace that is impossible during the academic year, allowing them to experience the life of a scientist and test their commitment to their chosen field. Ethan worked at NAVAIR that summer alongside physics professor Charles Adler, cooling and trapping atoms for use in an atom interferometer for a research project directed by Dr. Frank Narducci of NAVAIR. Adler, who describes Ethan as "one of the most highly motivated students I've worked with," continued to mentor Ethan after the summer at NAVAIR, when Ethan turned this work into the basis of his St. Mary's Project (SMP).
His SMP studies one component of the atom interferometer: phase-locked lasers. "My SMP uses commercial diode lasers. The problem is that all diode lasers experience some frequency and phase drift. My experiment is designed to overcome the limitations caused by frequency and phase drift by using electronic feedback to lock the frequency of the lasers to some constant source provided by atomic transitions. I then take a sample of this light and "beat" it together to form a beatnote. Once the beatnote has been made, more electronics are used to make sure that if the phase of one laser wanders, the other laser follows. The final application of these lasers is part of a much larger Naval research project to create an atom interferometer for use in a super-accurate gyroscope. In the interferometer, the two lasers will act as atom beam splitters and take a sample of atoms and coherently prepare a superposition of their excited and ground states. It is the interference of these atom samples after they have traveled a given distance which the gyroscope uses to measure rotations."
While physics professor Katsunori Mita describes Ethan as "one of the most tenacious students I've ever had," this Dean's List scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa isn't just about physics. He's the embodiment of the liberal arts. When he's not in the lab smashing atoms, he's pounding his friends on the rugby team or singing with the men's chorus, the SMC-men. "I've played rugby since I was a freshman and have led or tied for the most tries (touchdowns) each season since I was a sophomore," he says. "I've acted in a few theater productions, too, since they are flexible with my schedule." The chance to do these non-curricular activities are important to Ethan, who rates St. Mary's higher for providing the chance to try things out of the rigor of the curriculum. "I can easily and honestly praise this school for combining the in-depth research I'm able to do in my major with the chance to participate in other activities which have nothing to do with my major but nonetheless interest me greatly."
After graduating from St. Mary's, Ethan plans to work for the Navy in applied physics for a year as preparation for graduate school.
"Independent study and research reinforces the foundations of a liberal arts education. I donated to St. Mary's because I wanted to provide students with opportunites that allow them to mature from student to researcher."
Harry John Weitzel
Trustee Emeritus
