Physics Spring 20 newsletter

Spring 2020 │ 3 OSU Physics Newsletter We would like to welcome Razvan and Ramona Gaza as our newest mentors to the Oklahoma State Physics Department. Their knowledge and expertise will be extremely beneficial to our de- partment. The Gazas earned their doctorate degrees in 2004 under Dr. Stephen McKeever, Regents Professor Emeritus. Dr. Razvan Gaza is a member of the Lockheed Martin Orion team and the technical lead of the LM Radiation Group. In 2011, he be- gan characterizing and helping mitigate ionizing radiation effects on the spacecraft’s electronic components. He installed the capsule’s radiation area monitors, prepared by his wife which allow for real-time measurement of ra- diation levels. Dr. Ramona Gaza is the Ionizing Radiation and Non-Ionizing Radia- tion Subject Matter Expert for the NASA/JSC Human Health & Per- formance contract. Dr. Gaza has been the Lead for the passive ra- diation flight hardware and associ- ated radiation dosimetry, support- ing several NASA programs in- cluding the Space Shuttle, the In- ternational Space Station, the NASA Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, and the Commercial Crew pro- grams. For our current students, you may remember the colloquium they gave last year titled: The Ionizing Radiation Environment for Human Space Flight: Risks and Mitiga- tions. They brought with them a contribution to the walls of our department– an Oklahoma State flag, which flew on the Orion spaceshuttle. We look forward to working with the Gazas as our de- partment moves into the future. ALUMNI NEWS Razvan and Ramona Gaza join mentors Portions of this article taken from STATE Magazine, Spring 2015 Dr. Sandip Kaledhonkar Joins a Premium Research Institute in India as a Faculty Member Becoming a faculty member in a premium research institute is a dream for many graduate stu- dents. Recently such a dream be- came true for Dr. Sandip Kaledhonkar, an OSU Physics PhD in the field of biophysics. Dr. Kaledhonkar did his postdoc- toral research at Columbia Univer- sity in the Laboratory of Professor Joachim Frank, a 2017 Nobel Lau- reate in Chemistry (for developing CryoEM Technology). After com- pleting his PhD study in time- resolved infrared structural biology in the Bio- physics Research Group of Professor Aihua Xie, Dr. Kaledhonkar was hired by Profes- sor Frank to develop the cutting- edge technology of time-resolved Cryo-electron microscopy (CryoEM). This year (2019), Dr. Kaledhonkar published a first authored paper in Nature and a co-authored paper in Nature Communications , both using time-resolved CryoEM . Such outstanding accomplish- ments led him to receive an offer for a faculty position as an assis- tant professor at the Indian Insti- tute of Technology (the renowned IIT) in Bombay, which is one of the best universities in India. Dr. Kaledhonkar is preparing to establish a structural biology lab with the cryo-EM facility (for mul- tiple research institutes around Mumbai). In addition, he will teach students pursuing under- graduate and graduate degrees in sciences and engineering. While at OSU, Dr. Kaledhonkar was honored as an outstanding Teaching Assistant in 2011, and outstanding Research Assistant in 2012. His PhD research on “Structural Dynamics of Photoac- tive Yellow Protein” made signifi- cant contributions to the field of photoactive yellow protein for bio- logical signaling, to the classic Hofmeister series, on protein structure and dynamics, and on the emerging technology of time- resolved infrared structural biology. Dr. Kaledhonkar with his lab-mates and PhD advisor Professor Aihua Xie at Oklahoma State University. Dr.,Kaledhonkar with his post- doctoral advisor Professor Joachim Frank at Columbia.