Lauren Swiger makes presentation at prestigious physics conference

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Lauren Swiger

LOCK HAVEN, PA (03/29/2012)(readMedia)-- Lock Haven University had a major presence when the world's leading physicists assembled in Boston, Massachusetts, February 27 - March 2, for the 2012 March meeting of the American Physical Society (APS).  One of the presenters was Lauren Swiger, a junior and Biology major at Lock Haven University.

The APS March meeting is the largest physics meeting in the world. Each year since 2009, LHU nanotechnology students have been presenting their research at the APS conference. The record began in 2009 with a single LHU student presenter with Dr. Senevirathne. This year, there were 16 LHU student presenters. Dr. Marian Tzolov, associate professor of Physics, and Dr. Indrajith Senevirathne, assistant professor, directed the trip to Boston.

As her presentation at the APS 2012 March meeting, Ms. Swiger gave a poster presentation on her research titled "Surface adhesion and confinement variation of Bacillus subtilis on SAM surfaces" which focuses on research on model bacterial system Bacillus subtilis adhesion on monolayers. She conducted her research in the nanotechnology program under Dr. Indrajith Senevirathne, assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Physics. Dr Joseph Calabrese, professor in the Department of Biology, guided microbial aspects of her study.

Dr. Senevirathne explained, "Bacillus has many strains of pathogenic bacteria. By engineering the surfaces, focus is to move towards applied biosensing via confinement and detection of these pathogenic strains"

Ms. Swiger is a resident of San Antonio, Texas, and she is the daughter of Jennifer and Eric Swiger.

Attendance at the APS March meeting typically includes more than 12,000 of the top scientists in physics and chemistry research throughout the world. Attended Nobel laureates included William Phillips (1997 Nobel Prize in Physics) at NIST and Robert Laughlin (1998 Nobel Prize in Physics) at Stanford University.

The presentation of Lauren Swiger and her colleagues is based on experimental results which the students acquired using the state-of-the-art equipment at Lock Haven University guided by the experienced faculty in the Nanotechnology program.

Lock Haven University is a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), the largest provider of higher education in the commonwealth. Its 14 universities offer more than 250 degree and certificate programs in more than 120 areas of study. Nearly 405,000 system alumni live and work in Pennsylvania.