Munster High School Science Teacher, Larry Hautzinger, has received special recognition for being a lead teacher for the QuarkNet Education and Outreach Program in High Energy Physics during the summer of 2014 at Purdue University, Calumet.
This recognition comes from Dr. Neeti Parashar, Professor of Physics and leader of the High Energy Physics program in the Department of Chemistry at Purdue University, Calumet. Dr. Parashar is a part of the team that discovered the Higgs boson, aka, “The God Particle” in 2012 at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics was given to two theorists who predicted the existence of the Higgs boson.
Purdue University, Calumet became a new QuarkNet center in 2014 under the direction of Dr. Parashar, who serves as the faculty member for the program. She was able to hire two high school physics/science teachers as lead teachers. Physics Teacher, Larry Hautzinger, served as a lead teacher for this 8 week project. “It was incredible working with actual particle physicists. We actually hand tested pieces of the forward pixel detector that were flown to CERN right after we okayed them,” said Hautzinger.
Dr. Parashar stated that, “Mr. Hautzinger attended and actively participated for a 2 week Introduction to Particle Physics and conducting experiments on a Cosmic Ray Detector. This portion of the training was conducted at Purdue University Calumet, followed by 6 weeks of working on the state-of-art silicon detector pixel technology at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. Mr. Hautzinger is a very intelligent, responsible and utterly work conscientious individual with a very pleasant demeanor. He carried out his tasks very diligently and with great reliability. He possesses a very high level of professionalism and maturity, which is a rather rare commodity in recent times. He is very hard working and has demonstrated that he is undoubtedly the best choice that I have made. The international scientists and engineers on the CMS Collaboration were very thrilled to have Mr. Hautzinger engaged in the research activities in the lab.”
Dr. Parashar goes on to say the she will depend on Mr. Hautzinger during the summer of 2015 to train other teachers in high energy physics. Earlier this month she also worked together with him to host a CMS data analysis workshop called Masterclass with Munster High School students. Some students are applying for summer internships to Fermilab as a result of their experience. Masterclass was a great opportunity for students to work and interact with actual particle physicist and then report their results in a video conference with Mexico City and Colorado students. They were amazed how much computer programming is done by the physicists.