About MeWelcome to my website. My name is Liam Carls and here, I provide living highlights of some of my most impactful course work, extracurricular activities and associated reflections from my time as a student in college.
I’m a graduating senior studying physics and meteorology at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI. My passion is understanding how things work and my interests span the field of clean energy generation and storage. In seeking out my interests, my undergraduate path has led me to participating in NASA funded internships, Zero-G parabolic flights, a solar energy company internship, and a Carthage campus sustainability internship. I value building strong connections with the people around me and I would not be where I am today without the support of those people in my life. After graduating from Carthage with a B.A. in physics, and a concentration in meteorology and climatology, I will be pursuing a master's degree in applied physics to further develop my skills before seeking a career that aligns with the fields of clean energy or battery storage technology. |
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My Skills Inventory
Click a skill category to open a drop-down
Leadership, Communication, and Teamwork
- Carthage Men's Volleyball Libero and Defensive Player, August 2019 - September 2020
- I've played volleyball since 5th grade, through 4 high school seasons and 4 club seasons, and into my freshman year at Carthage. Communication between all 6 players on the court is an essential element to cohesive offensive and defensive plays.
- President of local Society of Physics Students (SPS) chapter at Carthage College, June 2022 - present
- Manage the SPS Email list and club Discord server
- Work with the executive board to organize bi-weekly meetings and give slideshow presentations about internship opportunities and upcoming events
- Plan events such as group trips to career fairs, group trips to conferences, guest speaker visits and virtual meetings
- Organize and host planetarium shows in the Carthage planetarium
- Host moonrise viewings on campus and provide a telescope
- Manage our Instagram account (www.instagram.com/sps.carthage/)
- Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC) research fellow, June 2020 - present
- Work with a team of undergraduate physics or computer science students to design, build, test, and integrate multiple systems, mechanical, electrical, data acquisition, flow loop, and software for a payload whose function is to gather experimental data
- As an electrical and mechanical team lead and project manager over multiple space science projects, I've been responsible for planning task requirements, setting up check-in meetings, and providing help to younger students who did not know how to complete tasks
- For the payload experiments that I've been a contributing team member, I have participated in parabolic flight campaigns where my job has been to ensure the data collection process is properly executed in consistency with a concept of operations
- Carthage Sustainability Intern, September 2021 - present
- Manage the process of recycling and repurposing campus electronic waste
- Worked with other sustainability interns to initiate the Carthage Reuse House
- Event Planner of the inaugural Carthage-UW Parkside Sustainability Summit of 2022
- Solar installation company production team member, June - August 2022
- Work with site survey, installation, repair, and electrical teams to complete solar array installations at residential locations
Research and Investigation
- Ability to create an experimental procedure and collect relevant data
- In courses such as Experimental Physics, engineering Materials, Introduction to Electronics, and as a space science researcher I've constructed experiments and worked with lab equipment to obtain relevant data
- Experience with the following lab equipment:
- Caliper, voltage generator, multimeter, oscilloscope, soldering gun, Wilson hardness machine, Pasco tensile and flexural testing apparatus, annealing furnace, laboratory saw, test sample injection molding apparatus, Uchida TG-13
Technical
- Programming
- Python (Jupyter notebook): Plotting, data analysis, curve fit, computational modeling of systems (described by linear, ordinary differential, and partial differential equations)
- VPython: Constructing and visualizing classical physics systems
- C/C++: Digital microcontroller
- Mathematica: 3-dimensional plotting, multivariable calculus computations, linear algebra computations
- Microsoft Excel: Plotting, budgeting, various computations
- LaTeX
- Experience writing contextual lab reports, case studies, and research papers throughout courses such as Modern Physics, Thermodynamics, Linear Algebra and Engineering Materials
Portfolio |
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Capstone Reflection
I would not be satisfied with myself if I did not seek out the human understanding of the universe. Somewhere along the challenge of trying to develop the statements of laws that govern our environment, we must break down at a fundamental level what is happening. Physics is that understanding process. Math then, is just an abbreviated language that conveys such understandings. I love that process, and I love having the ability to analyze a situation and parse it into its fundamentals. I have this mindset now, but when I was younger, I had no sense of what I really wanted to do with my life...