Valeri Petkov (Image courtesy Argonne National Laboratory)

Professor of Physics Valeri Petkov didn’t know what he wanted to be while he was growing up.

“I don’t really remember when I got interested in this field,” Petkov said. “I was a kid curious in science.”

In 1983, Petkov earned his master’s of physics degree at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria. He later earned his Ph.D. for physics from Sofia in 1991.

It all began at the school, where Petkov taught classes from 1993-98. From there he joined the Michigan State University staff from 1999-02, where he later accepted his current position today at Central Michigan University in 2002.

“I am stuck in college and (I’m) still here after 30 years,” Petkov said.

One of the things Petkov said stood out to him was how CMU faculty always try to help each other and be courteous.

“The CMU faculty is very much knowledgeable,” Petkov said. “Masters, undergrads and college professors work with the students here.”

Bradley Fahlman, a professor of chemistry and director of the Science of Advanced Materials Ph.D. Program, also joined CMU the same year Petkov did.

“I have been at CMU since the fall of 2002 and have worked with Valeri on and off for the last seven to eight years on a variety of projects,” Fahlman said.

Recently, they have started work on what is considered the “holy grail” in the field of battery research. Petkov’s work was published in the November issue of the Journal of Physics.

“He is a world-renowned expert in the field of X-ray crystallization,” Fahlman said. “He is helping us understand exactly where the (lithium) is going when we charge our cells.”

The focus of their research is the synthesis and electrochemical characterization of nanographenes for lithium-ion battery applications.

In order to improve the range of Li- Ion batteries, they have to improve the amount of lithium that electrodes (cathode and anode) will store, Fahlman said.

“We are working on the anode compartment that is now graphite in commercial batteries,” Fahlman said. “By using nanoscale carbons, we can increase the surface area, thereby increasing the amount of lithium that can be intercalated within its structure.”

In other words, people are fighting to store more room in batteries.

Petkov said he, along with others within the field, worked on the battery pack for General Motors’ green-favorite Chevy Volt at CMU.

Petkov said while CMU provides a high-quality education, the research is top-notch, too. Instructors are not only expected to provide students with information, but create their own as well.

“(General Motors) could have gone to other institutions like U-M or MSU,” Petkov said. “But they came here instead.”

Petkov said the U.S. depends heavily on foreign oil, so people are eager to produce energy with wind and nuclear power. That is why everybody is looking into electrical cars.

Whether it is his students or his research, Petkov said he cares about what he does.

Petkov tells his students knowledge is not constant, and it’s changing all the time. But he said he has seen a growing problem within the field of physics.

“We have a shortage of kids who like math and science,” Petkov said.

I told the committee how proud I am of the work done by my faculty colleagues and our students in the Department of Physics. PHY faculty members are campus leaders in scholarship and they showed it clearly this past year, publishing more journal articles than ever, and attracting a record amount of grant money to support their research. It was also a great year for PHY students. One of our students was honored with the Provost’s Award for outstanding research by an undergraduate, and two of our M.S. graduates were recognized by the Outstanding Thesis Award of the College of Graduate Studies. We are indeed working very diligently to make CMU a better place. I know the same can be said for faculty and students all across campus.

I also told the committee that I am concerned about the toll the lack of an FA contract is taking on our work. All of CMU’s regular faculty members have profound interests at stake in the negotiations and the fact that we are working without a contract is a serious distraction. (I also recognized that the difficult negotiations take their toll on members of the administration as well.) You understood that, but I worry that you misunderstood the ultimate point I was making. I did not imply, as you suggest, that we can and should put thoughts of the negotiations aside and focus on our work. I do not believe that is possible, and that is exactly why I felt the need to speak to the Liaison Committee. I wanted to make Board members aware of some of the less visible, but critically important, things that are at stake in these protracted negotiations.

Why is it impossible for faculty members to simply put the negotiations out of our minds and focus only on teaching and scholarship? As Faculty Association members, we all have to work together to get a fair contract. Only a few of us can actually sit at the table and negotiate with the administration. The rest of us must attend meetings, engage in informational picketing, etc., in order to make it clear that we strongly support our bargaining. We are all in this together, and we have to continue to work together until the contract is settled.

I know that my faculty colleagues in PHY and across campus continue to devote themselves to their students and to their scholarly work as best they can, stalled negotiations or not. But we are raising our sights at CMU to aim for new standards of excellence. We want to compete at the highest levels in all that we do, and we want to help our students do so, too. To be successful, we need to focus all of our energy, and our hearts, as well as our minds, on our academic work. That cannot happen in the current climate. That was my message to the Board. I wanted Board Members to recognize and appreciate all that is at stake in the negotiations.

You have the ultimate power to end the impasse. Please help resolve the crisis by directing the administration to bargain seriously and in good faith to find mutually beneficial solutions to the remaining issues, and to offer and accept creative and reasonable compromises to do so. Please do this now and help create the brightest future for CMU.

Koblar Alan Jackson
Professor and Chairman
Department of Physics

Current died in his home Dec. 30 of natural causes, said Sherm Rowley of Helms Funeral Home. He was scheduled to teach his normal classload, said Physics Department Chairman Koblar Jackson, but the classes are still being offered.

“The members of the physics department have been very willing to help out to ensure that Professor Current’s courses can be offered,” Jackson said.

The classes he was scheduled to teach were PHY 578A: Experimental Physics from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9:50 p.m. Wednesdays, and PHS 151: Introductory Physical Science I scheduled 10 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, according to the CMU spring schedule of classes catalog.

College of Science and Technology Interim Dean Jane Matty said depending on other teachers’ class loads, they may hire another person to fill the open position.

“We are following university procedures to request that Dr. Current’s position be filled by a new faculty member,” Jackson said.

Devoted

Current had taught at Central Michigan University since he was hired in 1966 and was one of the longest serving professors, said Bob Martin, associate vice provost of Faculty Personnel Services.

Assistant professor of physics Chris Tycner, a friend and colleague, said he remembers Current as someone always there to help out in the department — however that might have been.

Whenever a question of policy or departmental strategy came up, Tycner said Current always provided a very “thoughtful” response based on experience at CMU that was unmatched by anyone else.

“As a friend, he also devoted the time to get to know me and he helped me whenever I asked for help,” Tycner said. “The university has lost a great professor and I have lost a friend.”

Tycner said Current had an admirable commitment to students.

“He always placed students first and never complained about spending an extra hour or two, or even longer explaining concepts to students,” Tycner said. “I specifically remember how his schedule appeared to be almost infinitely flexible when students requested make-up labs. He would meet with the students countless of times, at almost any time that was convenient for his students, to make up labs that they missed.”

Jackson, who knew Current well, said he was an individual who cared deeply about the physics department and its students. Jackson said Current had his own approach for teaching and interacting with students.

“He was decidedly and sometimes stubbornly old-school,” Jackson said. “He was known for his high academic standards and his high expectations for student performance.”

At the same time, Current was dedicated to his students’ success and gave freely of his time to any student who came to him for help, Jackson said.

“I have interviewed many former students as a part of my job as department chair, asking them for feedback about our program,” he said. “Those students all remember Dr. Current’s courses as having been challenging, but many also say that they learned more in those courses than in any other they took at CMU.”

Matty said Current would be missed.

“He was most certainly a dedicated teacher and was at CMU for a very long time,” she said.

David Harlan Current  died in his Mount Pleasant home Wednesday. The cause of death was unavailable Tuesday. He was 68.

Current was one of CMU’s longest-serving professors, having instructed physics at the university since 1966.

“Dr. Current was known among students for his high standards and his commitment to helping students master the material presented in his courses,” Physics Chairman Koblar Alan Jackson said in an e-mail to Central Michigan Life.

Jane Matty, interim dean of the School of Science and Technology, said Current will be missed.

“He is most certainly a dedicated teacher and was at CMU for a very long time,” she said.

Jackson will be handling the rescheduling of Current’s spring class load, Matty said.

“There are a variety of reasons the department chair may have to shift class assignments to other professors in the department,” she said.

Other teachers’ class loads may also be a factor, Matty said, so it could mean hiring an additional instructor. But she said, this has not been determined by the physics department.

Check cm-life.com for further updates.

The assistant physics professor is an amateur photographer and finished his second all-sky panorama in August. The photo, which took 22 months and two trips to South Africa, shows the entire night sky and allows viewers to see connections between night sky elements.

“It’s only my hobby,” he said. “During the daytime, I do polymer physics.”

In order to complete his all-sky image, Mellinger needed to photograph from the northern and southern hemispheres. He traveled to Texas and northern Michigan to take the photos for the northern hemisphere.

“What’s unique about Dr. Mellinger’s work is that it stretches and you can see how everything fits together,” said David Batch, director of Abrams Planetarium in East Lansing.

Comprehensive photo

Most astronomy photographs are of a very specific part of the sky, Batch said. Mellinger’s work allow viewers to see how objects are related.

Another unique part of Mellinger’s work is the color and exposure. He took each photo with red, green and blue filters, and used three exposure times in order to have proper dynamics. For clarity, he repeated the entire process five times to average the effects.

“I divided the sky in a grid of 70 fields, starting at the North Celestial Pole,” Mellinger said. “It takes about an hour and 40 minutes to complete each field.”

The photos show lanes of dust and any organic, metallic or silicate microscopic material, across the sky, said physics professor Glen Williams. It obscures light and causes distant stars to have a red tint.

“I was stunned when I saw his picture, and you see these dust lanes more clearly than I’ve ever seen before,” he said.

Serious hobby

Photography has been a serious hobby of Mellinger’s since he was a child. In 1998, he put together images of the Milky Way, which his friends said resembled a painting of the sky. Mellinger finished his first full-sky panorama in the late 1990s with a chemical film camera to replicate the painting. As a physicist, he had the skills to do the image processing.

“It was something that not a lot of other people were doing,” Mellinger said.

The new panorama was taken by a digital camera, offering instant feedback and allowing Mellinger to avoid photographing airplanes.

It’s actually quite a big problem if you do wide field astrophotography, he said.

Mellinger hopes his image will be placed in planetariums world-wide, and Williams agrees with its potential as an educational tool.

“It shows students and even professors in a very clear way what the galaxy looks like,” Williams said.