Melissa Cirtain

Montana State University Room 264 EPS Bozeman, MT  59717

Office:  (406) 994-6160 Home:  (406) 586-8851

mcirtain@physics.montana.edu

 


About Me        Education        My Schedule        Food for Thought        Miscellaneous

 

About Me

I am a first year graduate student at Montana State University - Bozeman, and I'm working toward a Ph.D. in physics.  I moved here at the end of June from Memphis, TN where I was born and raised.  The weather in Montana is great, the sky is amazing, and the animals are out in force every evening at dusk.  I miss barbeque and okra and my family, but that's about all.  My husband, Jonathan, is in the physics program here as well.  It's great to have a live-in study partner!

 


 

Education

I graduated from the University of Memphis in May, 2001, with a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics.  I am pleased to be a part of the Solar Physics Group in the Physics Department here in Bozeman, and I am so far very impressed with the faculty, staff, and student body here.

I am at the beginning of my research career and have been given the opportunity to work with a group of scientists and students in  the MOSES Group.  MOSES is an acronym that stands for Multi-Order Solar EUV Spectrograph, and the fruit of our labor will be the payload of a rocket which is scheduled for launch in January, 2004.  My current role is instrumentation, and I am working on shutter designs.  After launch and data acquisition I hope to find my thesis material in the interpretation thereof.

We recently acquired a large amount of vacuum equipment, and we are beginning to disassemble and rebuild some of the components. 

 


My Schedule

 


 

Food for Thought

 


 

Miscellaneous

My present endeavors include mechanics, math physics, and teaching and research seminars.  I'm learning UNIX (because bugs come in through open windows), IDL, SolidWorks (drawing software), and the names of all the servers in the area. 

I am hoping to have some pictures that I can add to this page soon. 

I recently had an exciting new experience, however.  Find out what I saw...

Drop me a line sometime!  My (simplest) address is mcirtain@physics.montana.edu