Notre Dame physics graduate student Catherine Rastovski has been selected to attend the 62nd annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, an opportunity for young researchers and Nobel laureates to inform and inspire each other.
The annual meetings are held on the island town of Lindau, on Lake Constance in southeastern Germany. They focus alternately on chemistry, physics, and physiology, and began in 1951 with a meeting of seven laureates and around 400 physicians. This year's weeklong meeting will focus on physics. Its attendees include 550 young researchers and 32 laureates from years ranging from 1973 to 2011. Laureates are invited to lecture and lead discussions on topics of their choosing, with themes ranging from the retrospective to the speculative.
Rastovski is a member of Morten Ring Eskildsen's condensed matter physics group, where her research examines the superconducting state of unconventional superconductors using Small Angle Neutron Scattering. Before joining Notre Dame in 2008, she was the Science Education Coordinator and a lecturer at Purdue University Calumet.
“The best thing about being a grad student is the research,” said Rastovski of the opportunity. “Being the first person on earth to see some new physical phenomenon is a spectacular feeling. At Lindau, I’m going to have the opportunity to meet people who have made the most influential discoveries in physics. It’s pretty humbling—but also very exciting.”
Originally published by at physics.nd.edu on March 21, 2012.