At Cornell's Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences, Associate Professor of Engineering Stephen McGuire, center, discusses the function of the lab's reactors (in the background) with, from left, graduate student Jarvis Sulcer, sophomore Charline Wright and senior Seth Fischbein. Charles Harrington/University Photography
When Stephen C. McGuire, Cornell associate professor of nuclear science and engineering, joined a group of distinguished African-American scientists this fall as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Visiting Scientist in Physics and Astronomy at Wayne State University, he anticipated he'd be answering questions mainly about his research specialty.
Like: "What is radiative neutron capture?"
Not: "What kind of grades did you make in school?"
Such is the life of a science ambassador, who as visiting scientist was expected to address not only university scientists and students, but also neighborhood middle-school science classes.
The idea behind the public school appearances was for McGuire to discuss his life and work as a scientist, the future of science in our society and how young minority students can have a significant role in shaping that future.
McGuire admits he is more accustomed to talking about "Physics and Applications of Radiative Neutron Capture," the subject of his public lecture at Wayne State, an institution with a student enrollment of approximately 33,000. In that talk, he described the array of places where neutron absorption occurs, ranging from nucleosynthesis in stars to the production of radioisotopes used in medicine. He followed up with a discussion of radiative neutron capture in his research on silicon-germanium alloys and nickel aluminide thin films.
Of course no meeting of academic physicists would have been complete without comparing notes on research topics, such as the particle detectors used in the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) experiments, expitaxial growth and characterization of magnetic films, and positron and electron scattering cross-section measurements. It was a chance for McGuire to provide input on undergraduate course development at a peer institution as well as summer research opportunities for undergraduates in particle physics at Cornell.
In his research McGuire has used neutron activation extensively to determine the bulk major and minor element content of solid state materials, and he recently began employing neutron depth profiling (NDP) to measure spatial distributions of boron, a dopant in submicron nickel aluminide films. He is the principal investigator in the thin-film research, the objective of which is to describe film properties in terms of element content and microstructure. Funded by the Office of Naval Research and U.S. Department of Commerce and conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the thin-film investigation is part of the thesis work of Jarvis D. Sulcer, a doctoral student in Nuclear Science and Engineering (NS&E).
Besides NS&E, McGuire's interdisciplinary research involves faculty members, students and researchers in the
fields of applied and engineering physics, chemistry, physics, electrical engineering and materials science and engineering. As part of his professorial duties, McGuire has taught mechanics (Physics 112), radiation effects in microelectronics (NS&E 621/EE 633) and undergraduate involvement in research (MS&E 333/334). He is the faculty adviser to the Cornell Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, an adviser to engineering sophomores and a member of the advisory board of the Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences.
Before traveling to Detroit, McGuire consulted with the Ithaca Sciencenter on how to effectively interact with the students. Looking back now, he realizes that the middle school students' questions reflected a broad spectrum of issues -- both professional and personal -- that were important to them:
"Did you always know you would become a scientist?"
"What exactly do you mean by the structure of the thin film?"
"Did you influence your children to go into science?"
"How much money do you make?"
"I found the students to be very curious, bright, energetic and eager to learn more about science," McGuire said. "Once the apprehension of having a stranger in the class was overcome, they were very engaging. The experience left me with a clear sense of the commitment on the part of the school's administration and science teachers toward the education of their students."
His experiences at Wayne State and in the Detroit middle schools were good reminders, McGuire said, "of the ongoing need to create and maintain the continuum of science-educated young people in 'the pipeline' in every part of our society at every level. This is a widely recognized issue, and it is of critical importance to the future of our country."
For the record, McGuire graduated at the head of his class from Andrew J. Bell Jr. High in New Orleans and advised the middle-schoolers that they should view their education as nothing less than "a vital investment in their future."
Then he got a question with an easier answer: "What schools should I attend to become a scientist?"
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