Congratulations Shannon!

Yesterday morning my friend Shannon successfully defended her dissertation in the physics department at William and Mary!  Congratulations Shannon!  Shannon, who is the amazingly brilliant goalie of our hockey team, confidently made her case and easily answered the questions of her committee despite the fact that her friends were all in the back of the room giving "moral support".   :)  Even though she says she was nervous, she did beautifully!  I am so happy for her, and it inspires me to try to hurry up and finish so that I can enjoy the relief of being past the scariness of the defense.  The only sad part about it will be the hard part of seeing her leave soon, even though it is cool to know that she has passed her defense!  She will be here for several more weeks, happily, so we will have to opportunity to hang out some more before she leaves the physics department.

That evening, Shannon's advisors had a big party for Shannon to celebrate her graduation, complete with lots of yummy food, drink, and a merrily frosted chocolate cake.  Apparently, some years ago Shannon had told one of her advisors, Brian Holloway of the Department of Applied Science, that when she graduated, she wanted to celebrate with a bottle of a really good wine, because at the party Brian and her primary advisor in the Physics Department, Anne Reilly, presented Shannon with a magnum of a good champagne.  Shannon laughed and was quite excited at this unexpected gift.  It was really cool!  I think that I will have to drop some hints with David and Allison about my defense...  :)

Congratulations Shannon!  Enjoy the champagne!  :D

Comments

[Jason]

Congratulations, Shannon.

[Albert Ma]

Congratulations Shannon! How many year did her degree cost?Long?
J_lab,a good place. I want to be there some day. Would you please send me an email, with pictures and your comments about this place? :)

[nejmeddine]

i'am really interrestand by your searche and really would like to get some advice to be like you?
i'am frome tunisia and i'am a studant at universty of medical technologe.

[Sarah]

Hi Albert,

Shannon is in the class ahead of me, so she defended at the end of her sixth year in graduate school.

Her research delved into the properties of thin films, so she was not working at Jlab, but had her own lab space at William and Mary. In particular, she was looking at stuff to do with giant magnetoresistance in ferromagnetic thin films. You can learn more about it at her group's website:
http://www.physics.wm.edu/~reilly/.

Jlab is a cool place. You can find out more about Jefferson Lab by going to the Jlab website at http://www.jlab.org/ and by looking at some of my previous blog postings, like the one about the Jlab Open House in April.

With Regard,

Sarah K

[Sarah]

Hi nejmeddine,

Advice on how to be a physicist? Study hard and indulge in your curiosity about how things work!

Good luck with your studies!

Best Wishes,

Sarah K