Morin-Baxter, Waldrop Named 2019-20 Rossing Physics Scholars

March 29, 2019
Rossing Scholars

For the second straight year, two Augustana University students have been selected as Rossing Physics Scholars. These annual scholarships are made possible through gifts from Dr. Thomas D. Rossing, who created the fund through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Foundation designed to recognize exemplary students in physics. Augustana is one of 26 ELCA colleges and universities whose students are eligible to earn the award. The 2019-20 honorees are:

  • Junior Trey Waldrop, a physics major from Sioux Falls, will receive a $10,000 Rossing Physics Scholarship, the second Rossing scholarship Trey has earned in as many years.
  • Sophomore Joshua Morin-Baxter, a physics major from Rapid City, will receive a $5,000 Rossing Physics Scholarship.

These Augustana award winners collaborated on the same innovative research project in the summer of 2018 entitled, “A New Statistical Technique in the Search for Dark Matter.” This project leverages liquid argon and a new statistical technique called contrastive principal component analysis. The detector technology may have applications in medicine among other areas.

Their research mentor/advisor was Dr. Drew Alton, Associate Professor, who had this to say about the accomplishment: “We’re extremely proud to have two highly talented Augustana students receive this award two years in a row. I would like to congratulate Trey and Joshua on their exceptional academic achievements, and their outstanding work will continue to push the limits and our understanding of key principles in physics,” said Alton.

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