Eastern Illinois University Physics Department

05/09/2026

Graduation Day!!! Congrats to our 4 newest graduates!!! Peter Abdo, EE , Kevin Perry, EE, Krishna Raju, EE, and Anthony Aya, Physics.

05/04/2026

We also want to recognize two scholarship recipients who won Liberal Arts and Sciences College level awards. Pratyu Tata was awarded the G. B. Dudley Scholarship and Bo Hilbert was awarded the Murray & Sallie Walters Scholarship. See previous post for photos of the winners. The winners of these scholarships were selected from across several departments within the College. Congratulations Pratyu and Bo!!!

05/01/2026

On April 11 the Physics Awards Banquet was held. Congratulations to all of the Scholarship winners. Thanks to Dr. Robert Strausbaugh who was the emcee for the event. Sigma Pi Sigma honorary Physics society had two new inductees. And Seniors were also honored.

05/01/2026

We hosted Oak Forest High School Physics students for a Physics Day this week. The students got to do a variety of Physics Labs, eat pizza, and hear a little about college and EIU. EIU Alumnus, Stephen Hogan, was the teacher that coordinated this and drove them here and home. It was fun to do the experiments with these motivated students.

04/23/2026

We will have an inflatable planetarium setup for Spring Fest in the Black Box in Doudna. We will be running shows every hour starting around 1pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (although Saturday is advertised as more of a "little kids day"). Feel free to stop by for a show. There are shows ranging from the solar system through to cosmology.

04/14/2026

Congratulations to Dr Lim and Kevin Perry for being honored at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award Day. Dr Lim won the Lida G Wall Faculty Mentor Award and Kevin earned a SURE Award.

04/03/2026

Dr. Brandt (inspired by a Math version) created this fidget spinner. It has triangular gears but spins in a circle. He made it with EIU colors on a 3D Printer.

03/30/2026

Don Grayson, 93 year old 1954 Graduate joined us at the Alumni Day on March 28.
With a solid foundation in science from Eastern he had a thirty year career as an engineering manager for the US Navy. He coordinated specialists in several disciplines at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Indianapolis. We were honored to have him share his time and wisdom with us on Saturday.

03/30/2026

We had a very successful Alumni Day on March 28. Alumni from many different eras came to visit and share their stories with other Physics and Engineering alumni and current students. Three even gave us talks about the twists and turns of their careers. Thanks to Ed Blade, Dustin Miller, and Craig Nelson for sharing their careers with us.
Dinner was fun and filled with stories from today and yesterday. Plenty of wisdom shared. And some good food too.

Darla Combs gets credit for putting it together and she did a great job!

01/23/2026

Have you ever wondered about a curveball in baseball? Is it real or just illusion? EIU alumnus, Kasey Wagoner, has done a video to answer the question. He goes further to explain just how the curveball works.

When thrown, baseballs follow a curved path rather than a straight path. Kasey Wagoner, assistant teaching professor of physics at NC State's College of Scie...

12/12/2025

Yesterday we had our end of semester Research Talks. They included some work done over the summer too. Speakers were George-Frank Archibong (research under Dr. Zou), Aden Parmenter (research under Dr. Lim), and Kevin Perry (research under Dr. Lim).