Kyle Crowley and his thesis committee, from top left to right: Alp Sehirlioglu, Xuan Gao, Jesse Berezovsky, and Walter Lambrecht.
In late March, Kyle Crowley became the first student in the history of the Case Western Reserve University Department of Physics to defend a doctoral dissertation remotely. The following day, Jagjit Singh Sidhu became the second. Aided by Zoom technology and keeping with the university mandate that all activities be conducted remotely whenever possible, the Department of Physics decided to allow the dissertation defense process to continue as scheduled.
“All essential functions of the dissertation, including the public presentation of the thesis results, the review of the dissertation and the examination of the candidate can be accomplished without actually being there physically in person,” said Corbin Covault, co-chair and professor in the Department of Physics.
Crowley’s dissertation, “Electrical Characterization, Transport & Doping Effects in 2-D Transition Metal Oxides,” represented his successful efforts to isolate ultra-thin layers of 2D oxides and study their electrical properties. He plans to pursue a career in industry, putting his education and skills to use in condensed matter/materials science.
“I’m simply thrilled that this defense could happen [remotely],” said his adviser, Professor Xuan Gao. “I know Kyle worked hard over the past few years on his projects. It would [have been] a real pity if we had to cancel or postpone.”
Sidhu presented “Probing Macroscopic Dark Matter Parameter Space.” According to his adviser, Glenn Starkman, co-chair and professor of physics and astronomy, Sidhu has studied a remarkable diversity of systems—from people to neutron stars—to search for what would be extremely rare, but very energetic, interactions of dark matter with observable systems.
“Hopefully, this work will one day result in an exciting announcement of the discovery of dark matter,” Starkman said.
Sidhu, who enjoys working on calculations by hand and computationally, is considering his next steps and determining if he’d prefer to work in industry versus academics.