Skip to Content

Department of Physics and Astronomy

  • Students of the SPS raising a Physics flag.

Society of Physics Students

The USC chapter of SPS exists to help students transform themselves into contributing members of the professional community, as well as aid in students navigating the physics curriculum. Course work develops only one range of skills. Other skills needed to flourish professionally include effective communication and personal interactions, leadership experience, establishing a personal network of contacts, presenting scholarly work in professional meetings and journals, and outreach services to the campus and local communities. We also acknowledge that it is not easy to complete a physics degree. As such, our members who are in their junior and senior years make sure to take time to help newer students both cope with the stress of classes and learn what they should be learning from their courses. Even for members who are not physics majors, this club is a way to participate in physics outreach around Columbia and keep up to date with events going on within the physics community.

Weekly Meetings and Events

Every week SPS hosts Power Hour, where students can come together to work on their physics assignments and get and give help between each other, and Tea Times, where students can take a break from their heavy courseloads and decompress with game nights, movie nights, and physics experiments.
Both meetings (power hour and tea times) are held in the Jones Physical Science Center, Room 409 (Rogers Room).

You can also find us on the Garnet Gate

Fall 2023 meeting times (weekly):

  • Power Hour: Wednesday, 6-8 pm
  • Tea Time: Thursday, 6-8 pm

Society of Physics Students Officers:

Natalie Truman

Sophomore. Physics and Geological Sciences major and Astronomy minor. She is a long-time employee of Roper Mountain.

Martin Salomon

Sophomore. Physics major and Math major. He is a TRIO student that has an interest in theoretical and mathematical physics. He works as a Supplemental Instructor for Calculus 2 here on campus.

Alyssa Bagby

Sophomore. Physics major and Math and Astronomy double minor. She had a summer internship researching specific atmospheric electric field changes that could predetermine an occurrence of lightning at the Savannah River National Laboratory.

Dayton Proffit

Sophomore. Physics major with an interest in nuclear physics and engineering. He volunteers at the Melton Observatory here on campus.

Caleb Fairchild

Senior. Physics Major. Transferred from USC Aiken. He attended an REU during the summer of 2022 at Rutgers University studying Higgs Boson to double b-jet and two Muon decay through the CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

Andrew Boldy

Senior. Physics, math, and psychology major minoring in neuroscience. Found a passion for particle and nuclear physics and is writing his senior thesis on the theoretical framework of gauge theories as they relate to nuclear and particle physics under the direction of Dr. Matthias Schindler.

 

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

©