Counting neutrinos: an interview with Dr. Sally Hicks
Patty Morkert
Issue date: 1/27/09 Section: News
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PM: Where are you from originally?
Dr. H: I was born in Ohio, very near Cincinnati, and I grew up on a dairy farm.
PM: Did you live there your whole life until you went to college?
Dr. H: Yes, I lived on the same place, and the farm was in the family for 150 years. And you can still see the walls were made of three layers of brick.
PM: How did you become interested in physics?
Dr. H: As I went through college, I was a math major, and there was a physics requirement. After that class, I decided to be a double major in math and physics, and I grew to like physics more and more. I liked working in the lab especially. With physics, you can explain the physical phenomena, and you learn to explain what you can see and sometimes what you can't see.
PM: How did you come to the University of Dallas?
Dr. H: Well, my husband finished his Ph.D. in nuclear physics a year ahead of me, and he decided to try and find work in Dallas. I was trying to find a teaching position, and UD just happened to be looking for a teacher at the same time, and since then, I've been here for 20 years.
PM: What was your favorite experiment you've ever done?
Dr. H: My favorite experiment was probably the most interesting one I did. I was helping solve the solar neutrino problem. The problem about neutrinos was that there were problems with predictions and observations of how many neutrinos were coming to earth. There were fewer neutrinos being seen on earth than were coming from the sun. My job was to measure and then predict how many neutrinos come from the sun. It was a really cool experiment because there were a lot of people paying attention to it, and I met a lot of people. One person who was interested was a scientist named Ray Davis, who won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in neutrinos. My team and I got to have lunch with him and it was really cool to talk about our work with him.
PM: Do you have any advice for students currently in UD?
Dr.H: While they're at UD, I would tell students to take the time to enjoy what's here. The Core really prepares our students, and they do well when they graduate. I would also encourage students to go for what they're interested in rather than in what's popular.
There you have it, folks! An interesting professor to start an interesting semester!
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