Jun 9 2017
A University of Wyoming Graduate Student, Josh Heiner has been given a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship that is taking him to New Zealand this summer to explore quantum mechanics.
UW Graduate Student Josh Heiner, here with wife Debra Lynne and son Pierre, is in New Zealand this summer as part of a National Science Foundation fellowship studying a new approach to quantum mechanics. (Photo: Josh Heiner)
Josh Heiner is pursuing a Ph.D. in UW’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. He received funding for the research under NSF’s East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, in association with the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Heiner will work with Joshua Bodyfelt, a Research Officer with the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, who earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from UW in 2003.
I was able to make this contact because (Bodyfelt) is an alumnus who has kept in contact with our department at UW. Basically, he has the expertise and skill set needed to help model an innovative way to understand the interaction of subatomic particles, also known as quantum mechanics.
Josh Heiner, Graduate Student, University of Wyoming
Heiner works under UW Physics Professor David Thayer, who was the first to propose the ground-breaking nonlinear dynamic modeling of quantum particles.
Heiner will work under Bodyfelt’s supervision to pursue further insights into the new approach, primary results of which were published last month by Heiner and Thayer in the International Journal of Advanced Research in Physical Science. Heiner will be able to access a supercomputer at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, for the extremely complicated nonlinear computational modeling involved in the research.
Originally from Star Valley, Heiner received his Bachelor’s egree from Brigham Young University, Idaho in 2014, and then came to UW to pursue graduate studies.