Student-athlete with a physical past has his eyes on a physics future

Derek Kingrey is a physics major in the College of Arts and Sciences from Thornton, Colo., as much at home in the physics lab as on the football field. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Tom Britton '04

Since coming to the Ithaca campus in 1999, Kingrey has used almost every second of his Cornell career to his advantage. As well as competing for two years in varsity football and two in track and field, Kingrey has conducted research in superconductivity, plasma physics, and particle physics during three successive summers.

"Compared to other REU [Research Experience for Undergraduates] students I have worked with over the last seven summers, Derek was the best," said Hasan Padamsee, adjunct professor and senior research associate in the Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics. REU is a National Science Foundation summer program that allows sophomores and juniors to work with leading researchers.

It was under Padamsee that Kingrey got his first shot at undergraduate research. Through the REU program. Kingrey spent 10 weeks of the summer of 2000 at Cornell experimenting with ways to raise the temperature at which superconductivity can take place. A superconducting material conducts electricity with virtually no resistance. The record superconducting temperature achieved to date is minus164 degrees Fahrenheit.

"I wasn't able to [raise the temperature]," said Kingrey. "But that's part of research; you have to forget about it and start work on the next project."

Since then, Kingrey hasn't looked back for a moment.

The following summer of 2001 was spent at the University of Colorado in another REU program, studying charged particles in low-density plasmas, the state of matter created when atoms break apart into ions and electrons in very high temperatures. In the summer of 2002, Kingrey had an internship in Batavia, Ill, with Enrico Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), home to the Tevatron, the world's most powerful particle accelerator. There he worked with the Collider Detector group studying the fundamental nature of matter in particle collisions at the Tevatron.

Meanwhile, out of the classroom, Kingrey made sacrifices to allow himself time to do research during the semesters, not just between them. After his sophomore year, he quit football, despite being a starting outside linebacker for the Big Red, and assumed a full-time research assistant role under Padamsee.

In the past two years, when Kingrey hasn't been developing an expertise in data acquisition software, he has become one of the more accomplished members of the track and field team. He will leave Cornell holding the university's second place all-time record in the indoor shot put and fourth place all-time in the outdoor discus.

And he isn't even stopping for a breath. On June 1, right after graduation, Kingrey will head to the University of California-Irvine to get a head start on his Ph.D. in physics.

"I'm going to try and do some research this summer," said Kingrey. "But it's a new lab, so I might just be building shelves."

"I knew since high school that I wanted a Ph.D.," Kingrey adds. "When I graduated high school, everybody was all excited. But I just thought, whatever - I have two more of these to go."

With the second of his graduations coming up, Kingrey is one step closer to his goal of working in industrial or government research. If he continues to fill his time as productively as he has done at Cornell, Kingrey will be about as well prepared as one can be when the third graduation comes around.