Graduate student receives opportunity to meet with Nobel laureates

Craig Tyler, a doctoral student in astronomy & astrophysics, will be among 30 graduate students the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science will send to the 50th anniversary meeting of Nobel laureates in Lindau, Germany, June 25 to 30.

Each year since 1951, Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine have met in Lindau to discuss major issues of importance to their fields. For the 50th anniversary meeting, 400 students will attend lectures by the laureates and meet with them informally in small groups to discuss a wide range of issues about their research and other activities.

Now finishing his second year at Chicago, Tyler already is an author of a paper on ultra-high energy cosmic-ray detectors and particle physics that has been submitted to a scholarly journal. His co-authors are Angela Olinto, Assistant Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and Gunter Sigl, Research Scientist in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“In my 10 years at the University, I have rarely witnessed a second-year graduate student learn and contribute to a new and complex field this quickly,” Olinto said.

During his first year, Tyler worked on the Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment, a gamma-ray telescope in New Mexico operated under the direction of Rene Ong, Associate Professor in Physics.

Tyler graduated summa cum laude in mechanical engineering and management from the University of Pennsylvania, then worked for AlliedSignal Aerospace before coming to Chicago.