On April 30, a paper presented by Bethel University Physics major Jack Houlton at the 2011 National Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) in Anaheim, CA was awarded the national first prize for “Outstanding Presentation of Undergraduate Research.” The paper, Lithium atomic beam spectroscopy and phase sensitive detection using a diode laser, follows from work in Bethel’s AMO (atomic,  molecular, optical physics) laboratory as directed by Dr. Chad Hoyt, Associate Professor of Physics at Bethel. In addition to Hoyt, other co-authors of the paper included Bethel students Brandon Pepinski, Lauren Otto, Daniel Klemme and Professor of Physics, Dr. Thomas Greenlee. Another Bethel physics faculty member, Dr. Keith Stein, collaborated on the results presented at the conference. This work with undergraduate majors in physics and applied physics has been supported by continuing funding from the Minnesota NASA Space Grant Consortium and CID, Inc. Jack Houlton’s travel to the conference was funded by a national award from Society of Physics Students, the Future of Physics Days (FPD) Travel Award.

Related work was presented almost simultaneously on 30 April by Brandon Peplinski at the 2011 Spring Meeting of the Minnesota Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers at Saint Mary's University in Winona, MN for which it was awarded the award for Best Student Talk.

Jack Houlton graduated with a B.S. in Physics from Bethel University in May, 2011. He will pursue a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.