Having a Smashing Good Time

For most of us, collisions are what we buy insurance to avoid. For Eric, they may unlock the secrets of the universe. “My project area is in collisions between the nuclei of very heavy atoms. The basic idea is to create a microscopic 'fireball' of extremely high temperatures—a million times hotter than the Sun’s core--and observe what emerges.”

The conditions these collisions will produce are thought to be similar to what was going on in the Universe during the first few microseconds of its existence, when it was very, very small and hot. The hope is that scientists will get to observe a very exotic form of matter called quark-gluon plasma. “Trying to observe new and undiscovered interactions is certainly the most exciting aspect of the job for me.”

Believe it or not, Eric used to be bored by math. “I was just a C student who struggled in and was bored by math before I came to USN in HS. One thing that is great about USN is that teachers have a real love of their subjects, and I was able to see that science, math, history, and literature are interesting and worth pursuing.”  Some of the teachers who touched him most were Dr. Wheeler, Dr. Bibring, and Ms. Davies.

Ms. Davies has been particularly important to Eric, not only as a teacher but also as his mentor when he first started teaching at USN.

“Being a teacher really completed my education. Being a student taught me to love the arts and sciences, but until I taught at USN I didn't quite have the work ethic to push myself to try to excel at them. Trying to do well as a USN teacher was the most difficult challenge that I have faced. Working towards a Ph.D. in physics has been comparatively easy.”