{"id":91741,"date":"2021-06-02T13:31:27","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T17:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/?p=91741"},"modified":"2021-06-02T14:34:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T18:34:41","slug":"umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"UMW Physics, Math Major Wins Preeminent Goldwater Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p>William &ldquo;Henry&rdquo; Mills was in his late 20s when he arrived at UMW. After community college and a lackluster job, he&rsquo;d begun to get serious about making the most of his life. This wasn&rsquo;t the time, Mills thought, for playing it safe.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_91745\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91745\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"91745\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\/henry\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-scaled.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1707,2560\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta='{\"aperture\":\"2.4\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"SM-N960U\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"1614965828\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"4.3\",\"iso\":\"50\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0.00429184549356\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"1\"}' data-image-title=\"Henry\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;UMW physics and math double-major William &amp;#8220;Henry&amp;#8221; Mills received the highly prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for his work using lasers to make movies that chronicle the movement of molecules.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-200x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-683x1024.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-91745 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-200x300.jpg\" alt='UMW physics and math double-major William \"Henry\" Mills received the highly prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for his work using lasers to make movies that chronicle the movement of molecules.' width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-200x300.jpg 200w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-683x1024.jpg 683w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-768x1152.jpg 768w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-1366x2048.jpg 1366w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-760x1140.jpg 760w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-400x600.jpg 400w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Henry-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-91745\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UMW physics and math double-major William &ldquo;Henry&rdquo; Mills received the highly prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for his work using lasers to make movies that chronicle the movement of molecules.<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d always been interested in physics,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I just never thought I was cool enough to study it.&rdquo;<\/p><p>Oh, but he was.<\/p><p>For his work making movies of molecules in motion in a field called &ldquo;ultrafast physics&rdquo; &ndash; how cool is that? &ndash; he has received the Goldwater Scholarship, among the most prestigious undergraduate awards, with winners this year from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Brown. His research &ndash; a complex equation of quantum mechanics, high-level math and computer programming &ndash; explores the ways in which molecules rotate, shedding light on processes like vision and photosynthesis.<\/p><p>With guidance from his advisor, Assistant Professor Varun Makhija, and other faculty members in UMW&rsquo;s recently merged departments of Chemistry and Physics, Mills&rsquo; research chronicles the movement of frenetic molecules by making movies of them using lasers.<\/p><p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t realize until recently how much I love talking about what I do,&rdquo; Mills, a junior physics and math double major who plans to pursue a Ph.D. and become a college professor, said in his Goldwater Scholarship application. &ldquo;I find the experience of explaining the physics that people cannot see, which is often non-intuitive and fantastical, to be thrilling.&rdquo;<\/p><p>He shows off his penchant for making his mind-boggling work understandable in a YouTube video, &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OmW7OmAlVmk\">Field-Free 2D Alignment of Molecules Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses<\/a>,&rdquo; which won second place for best presentation in UMW&rsquo;s Summer Science Institute last year. And, with the scientists with whom he&rsquo;s collaborating from Stanford and Stony Brook universities, and the National Research Council of Canada, Mills co-wrote &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.aps.org\/pra\/abstract\/10.1103\/PhysRevA.103.043120\">Strong Field Molecular Ionization of Water<\/a>,&rdquo; published this spring in the journal&nbsp;<em>Physical Review A.<\/em><\/p><p>He helped explain experiments by the Stanford and Stony Brook groups, which created a state of ionization in which molecules align and stay still for their close-ups, but not for long. A laser light flash that is faster &ndash; much faster &ndash; than the blink of an eye is needed to capture the images. &ldquo;It turns out that the burst needs to be at most a millionth, of a millionth, of a hundredth of a second long,&rdquo; said Makhija, who added that Mills helped build a laser at UMW&rsquo;s Jepson Science Center to carry out similar experiments.<\/p><div class=\"tiled-gallery type-rectangular tiled-gallery-unresized\" data-original-width=\"1100\" data-carousel-extra='{\"blog_id\":7,\"permalink\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.umw.edu\\\/news\\\/2021\\\/06\\\/02\\\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\\\/\",\"likes_blog_id\":230672515}' itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageGallery\"> <div class=\"gallery-row\" style=\"width: 1100px; height: 300px;\" data-original-width=\"1100\" data-original-height=\"300\"> <div class=\"gallery-group images-1\" style=\"width: 544px; height: 300px;\" data-original-width=\"544\" data-original-height=\"300\"> <div class=\"tiled-gallery-item tiled-gallery-item-large\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\/screen-shot-2021-06-02-at-12-46-34-pm\/\" border=\"0\" itemprop=\"url\"> <meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"540\"> <meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"296\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" data-attachment-id=\"91746\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM.png\" data-orig-size=\"1232,674\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta='{\"aperture\":\"0\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"0\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"0\",\"iso\":\"0\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"0\"}' data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-300x164.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-1024x560.png\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM.png?w=540&amp;h=296&amp;ssl=1\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM.png 1232w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-300x164.png 300w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-1024x560.png 1024w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-768x420.png 768w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-1140x624.png 1140w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.46.34-PM-600x328.png 600w\" width=\"540\" height=\"296\" loading=\"lazy\" data-original-width=\"540\" data-original-height=\"296\" itemprop=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/image\" title=\"\" alt=\"Stills from Mills' YouTube video, 'Field-Free 2D Alignment of Molecules Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses.'\" style=\"width: 540px; height: 296px;\"> <\/a> <div class=\"tiled-gallery-caption\" itemprop=\"caption description\"> Stills from Mills&rsquo; YouTube video, &lsquo;Field-Free 2D Alignment of Molecules Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses.&rsquo; <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <!-- close group --> <div class=\"gallery-group images-1\" style=\"width: 556px; height: 300px;\" data-original-width=\"556\" data-original-height=\"300\"> <div class=\"tiled-gallery-item tiled-gallery-item-large\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\/screen-shot-2021-06-02-at-12-45-46-pm\/\" border=\"0\" itemprop=\"url\"> <meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"552\"> <meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"296\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" data-attachment-id=\"91747\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM.png\" data-orig-size=\"1210,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta='{\"aperture\":\"0\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"0\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"0\",\"iso\":\"0\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"0\"}' data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-300x161.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-1024x548.png\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM.png?w=552&amp;h=296&amp;ssl=1\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM.png 1210w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-300x161.png 300w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-1024x548.png 1024w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-768x411.png 768w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-1140x611.png 1140w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-02-at-12.45.46-PM-600x321.png 600w\" width=\"552\" height=\"296\" loading=\"lazy\" data-original-width=\"552\" data-original-height=\"296\" itemprop=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/image\" title=\"\" alt=\"Stills from Mills' YouTube video, 'Field-Free 2D Alignment of Molecules Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses.'\" style=\"width: 552px; height: 296px;\"> <\/a> <div class=\"tiled-gallery-caption\" itemprop=\"caption description\"> Stills from Mills&rsquo; YouTube video, &lsquo;Field-Free 2D Alignment of Molecules Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses.&rsquo; <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <!-- close group --> <\/div> <!-- close row --> <\/div><p>The work is elusive, relying on possibilities and percentages, but Mills and his team have nailed down a formula for catching the photos they need. &ldquo;We at UMW are probably one of four or five groups in the world who are doing these calculations,&rdquo; he said.<\/p><p>Earlier projects &ndash; think potato cannons and the tricking out of an old-fashioned X-Box &ndash; have morphed into some serious scholarship for Mills, who&rsquo;s vice president of UMW&rsquo;s chapter of the Society of Physics Students. He also works in the Think Lab, where he uses 3-D printers and laser cutters to create his own intricate projects and help fellow students with theirs. Plus, he&rsquo;s a physics tutor.<\/p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the things I learned at Mary Washington,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The faculty&rsquo;s blend between doing their own research and doing research with students, and getting them excited about it, is awesome.&rdquo;<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_91744\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91744\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"91744\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\/sign2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-scaled.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2560,1244\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta='{\"aperture\":\"2.4\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"SM-N960U\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"1575643877\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"4.3\",\"iso\":\"200\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0.0169491525424\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"1\"}' data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Mills refers to the Think Lab, where he works, as the Narnia of UMW. There, he creates intricate projects like this twist-handle sign that transforms the word &ldquo;Think&rdquo; to the word &ldquo;Lab&rdquo; when you spin it.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-300x146.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-1024x498.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-91744 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-300x146.jpg\" alt=\"Mills refers to the Think Lab, where he works, as the Narnia of UMW. There, he creates intricate projects like this twist-handle sign that transforms the word &ldquo;Think&rdquo; to the word &ldquo;Lab&rdquo; when you spin it.\" width=\"300\" height=\"146\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-300x146.jpg 300w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-1024x498.jpg 1024w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-768x373.jpg 768w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-1536x747.jpg 1536w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-2048x996.jpg 2048w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-1140x554.jpg 1140w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Sign2-600x292.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-91744\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mills refers to the Think Lab, where he works, as the Narnia of UMW. There, he creates intricate projects like this twist-handle sign that transforms the word &ldquo;Think&rdquo; to the word &ldquo;Lab&rdquo; when you spin it.<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Among the nation&rsquo;s most prestigious collegiate awards, the Goldwater Scholarship was created in honor of late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, who had an interest in science and technology. About 400 scholarships &ndash; which come with monetary awards of as much as $7,500 each &ndash; were bestowed this year on students who wish to pursue careers in math, science, engineering or medical research.<\/p><p>&ldquo;Henry is a passionate, curious and mature scholar,&rdquo; said Kelli Slunt, who along with fellow Professor of Chemistry Leanna Giancarlo, shepherded him through the application process. &ldquo;His ability to adapt his research and desire to inform others about physics, especially this year in a virtual environment, are exemplary.&rdquo;<\/p><p>After participating in a summer program at the Newport News Jefferson Lab, home to Virginia&rsquo;s only particle accelerator, Mills will continue his current research, begin work on a project with UVA and start applying to grad school.<\/p><p>Pretty cool, huh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William &ldquo;Henry&rdquo; Mills was in his late 20s when he arrived at UMW. After community college and a lackluster job, he&rsquo;d begun to get serious about making the most of his life. This wasn&rsquo;t the time, Mills thought, for playing it safe.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d always been interested in physics,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I just never thought I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":91742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[704],"tags":[14924,10665,820,14958,14957,14616,14956],"topics":[5148],"class_list":{"0":"post-91741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-department-of-chemistry-and-physics","9":"tag-kslunt","10":"tag-lgiancar","11":"tag-molecular-movement","12":"tag-molecules","13":"tag-vmakhija","14":"tag-william-henry-mills","15":"topic-learning-impact","16":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UMW Physics, Math Major Wins Preeminent Goldwater Scholarship - News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/umw-physics-math-major-wins-preeminent-goldwater-scholarship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UMW Physics, Math Major Wins Preeminent Goldwater Scholarship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"William &ldquo;Henry&rdquo; Mills was in his late 20s when he arrived at UMW. After community college and a lackluster job, he&rsquo;d begun to get serious about making the most of his life. 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