Grad Phi Leadership

Grad Phi Coordinators

Savannah Lehrman

She/Her/Hers

Grad Phi Coordinator

Hello! My name is Savannah, and I am a third year physics PhD student studying the coolest particles, neutrinos! When I am not in my PAN office, I love to be outside! I try to bring this to Grad Phi by planning events where students can get away from campus and get outside :)

Evan Skinner

He/Him/His

Grad Phi Coordinator

I am a third year graduate student studying the plasma environment of Jupiter's auroras with Ali Sulaiman. In my free time, I enjoy rock climbing, hiking, reading books (and buying them), and playing the occasional video game.

Learn what Grad Phi coordinators do!

The Grad Phi Coordinator is a Grad Phi Officer responsible for organizing the Grad Phi Officers’ programs with the department, and acts as a liaison between faculty and students as possible. They are the main point of contact for the group, and are more heavily involved in the running of regular events and recruitment.

The Coordinator is not a directly elected position, rather the Coordinator is appointed by the other 5 officers.

Typical time commitment is ~10 hrs/week, consisting of organization and set up of events, meeting with faculty and staff, speaking with prospective students (Open House), and volunteer recruitment.

Grad Phi Officers

Elliott Tanner

He/Him/His

Grad Phi Officer

I'm Elliott Tanner, currently a fourth-year graduate student working on the SuperCDMS project. My work is focused on machine learning applications to extract information from our detectors that is difficult to reverse-engineer with pure physics.

Kairos Wong

He/Him/His

Grad Phi Officer

Hi! I'm a second year grad student interested in condensed matter experiment. I'm from Malaysia but spent some time in Hong Kong and Kenya growing up. I enjoy mild hikes and short bike rides when it's warm out. When it's colder out you'll catch me indoors playing ping pong. I also like playing the piano!

Alex Clarke

He/Him/His

Grad Phi Officer

I am a second year PhD student going into their third year, studying High Energy Theory. I work with Maxim Pospelov in the area of dark matter phenomenology, constraining dark matter parameters by comparing expected signals from various dark matter detection channels to experimental data. Outside of physics, I like to play video games, with my favorite game of all time being Sekiro. I also like to bask in the glorious presence of the perfect specimen that is my cat Milly.

Davide Mazzucco

He/Him/His

Grad Phi Officer

I am a second-year graduate student interested in high-energy experimental astrophysics. Specifically, I study gamma rays detected from active galactic nuclei like blazars with Dr Lucy Fortson in the VERITAS collaboration. I am from Trento, Italy, and I moved to the US at the start of my undergrad. I enjoy playing soccer (my favorite pro team is Inter Milan) and watching movies.

James McDaniel

He/Him/His

Grad Phi Officer

I am a second year graduate student working under Dr. Yan Liu on the SuperCDMS project studying dark matter. Specifically, I am interested in the hardware side of the detector systems. Currently I am focused on setting up the groups new dilution refrigerator for use in the R&D of new detectors. Outside of physics I like to play a variety of video games ranging from R6 to single player indie titles.

Learn what Grad Phi officers do!

Grad Phi Officers organize and run social/outreach events throughout the year. Typically this is broken down into one primary event and one secondary event per officer per semester, which in the past have been one-offs like the Halloween parties, or monthly events such as Game Night. Grad Phi Officers also typically assist with and attend events they do not plan, and tend to act as points of contact in the grad student body for initiating new programs.

There are 6 positions available, including the Coordinator.

Typical time commitment is ~1.5 hrs/week, rising to ~4 hrs/week for planning and running events.

Elected Student Representatives

Colloquium Committee

Gautam Hedge

Colloquium Committee Representative

Hi, I am Gautam Hegde, a fourth year grad student at the Dept. of Physics at UMN. I work in Condensed Matter Theory with Prof. Fiona Burnell. My hobbies include fantasy novels, video games and singing.

Manos Kokkinis

Colloquium Committee Representative

Hi, my name is Manos, and I’m a fourth-year student from Greece working in Condensed Matter Theory, with a focus on unconventional superconductors.

Learn more about what the Colloquium Education Committee representatives do!

Colloquium Committee Representatives have two responsibilities. The primary one is to organize and host the lunches with the Colloquium speakers every week. This includes advertising each Lunch to all SPA graduate students, communicating weekly with Jenny Allan (and occasionally Shelley Frankel) as to how many students will be present for that particular Lunch. Jenny orders the pizza and Shelley organizes the speaker schedules. This role also includes setting up and cleaning up the room before and after the Lunches, respectively.

The secondary responsibility of the Representatives is to provide input to the School’s Physics and Astronomy Colloquium Committee composed of a few faculty members from each major group. The Representatives are also free to provide input on any of the other speakers chosen by the rest of the Colloquium Committee. Additionally, graduate students select one Colloquium speaker of our choice each academic year, although the selected speaker may or may not be available to accept our invitation. This choice is communicated to the rest of the Colloquium Committee by the Representatives.

There are 2 positions available for this committee.

Typical time commitment is ~4 hrs/week, consisting of meetings and running lunches with speakers.

Graduate Education Committee

Tiago Sereno

Graduate Education Committee Representative

Batu Bayindirli

Graduate Education Committee Representative

Learn more about what the Graduate Education Committee representative do!

Graduate Education Committee Representatives attend faculty meetings and present their opinions on issues related to the education requirements and programs available to our graduate program to help improve/streamline the student experience in our department.

There are 2 positions for this committee.

Typical time commitment is ~2 hrs/week, consisting of meetings and email correspondence.

Career Education Committee

Vivasvaan Raj

Graduate Career Education Committee Representative

Learn more about what the Career Education Committee representatives do!

Graduate Career Education Committee Representatives attend meetings with other members of the Career Education Committee, and present their opinions on issues related to enhancing students professional development, career path exposure, and job hunting. Career exposure and job hunting encompass all possible paths including industry, government, and academia. Subsequent duties may be decided by the committee chair.

There are 2 positions for this committee.

Typical time commitment is expected ~1 hr/week, consisting of meetings (every 3 weeks), email correspondence, and occasional help with event organization.

Council Of Graduate Students

Empty Position

COGS Representative

If you are interested in filling this role, please email spa-gradphi@umn.edu!

Learn what the COGS representative does!

The COGS Representative represents physics graduate students in four General Assemblies of the Council of Graduate Students (COGS) every semester. This role offers the opportunity to take part in the decision-making process of COGS policies and activities. Representatives have the option of joining the COGS leadership team as well. The representative also acts as a liaison between COGS and Grad Phi, to help coordinate joint events and avoid potential event conflicts.

There is one position available.

Typical time commitment is ~16 hrs/semester, consisting of meetings, email correspondence, and attending special events.

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