Elise LePage ’18 earned national recognition as a finalist for the American Physical Society’s 2018 LeRoy Apker Award. The award recognizes undergraduate students for outstanding achievements in physics.
Nominated by the physics department, LePage submitted her thesis, “Quantization of Plane Gravitational Waves in Loop Quantum Gravity,” as part of the application materials. In August, the six finalists presented their research to the award selection committee in a series of 45-minute talks and answered questions posed by the 10 physicists on the committee.
As a finalist, LePage received an honorarium of $2,000, as well as reimbursement for travel to the selection meeting and a certificate recognizing her accomplishment. Hamilton’s physics department also received $1,000 to support undergraduate research.
Established in 1978, the award was named in honor of LeRoy W. Apker, an experimental physicist at the General Electric Research Laboratory.
LePage is currently a graduate student at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario.
