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Biology | Biology Education
The biology program at BHSU is designed to give you a broad background and hands-on training in biology with cutting-edge laboratory facilities. This program prepares you through a rigorous curriculum for advanced study in graduate or professional programs, or for a career in science or science education.
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Chemistry | Chemistry Education
Hold the keys to understanding the world at its most principal scale with a degree in Chemistry. Study matter at the molecular level gain a comprehensive understanding of General, Organic, Analytic, and Instrument Chemistry and Biochemistry.
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Environmental Physical Science
Major in Environmental Physical Science deals with the identification, study, and treatment of a variety of environmental problems including ground and surface water quality and management, waste treatment, land-use planning, soil testing, contaminant chemistry and monitoring, hazardous waste disposal, land reclamation, and energy management and production.
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Physics
The Physics program at BHSU prepares you through an action-based and discussion-oriented teaching approach based on recent advances in physics education research.
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Pre-Professional Programs
Getting accepted into a professional degree program requires academic rigor and quality instruction. BHSU will help you as you begin your journey to your professional career. With innovative research based education experiences and close faculty mentoring, BHSU students are well-equipped to go on to professional programs.
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Master Of Science In Integrative Genomics (MISG)
Integrative Genomics is an interdisciplinary graduate program that combines genomics, ecology, evolution, and physiology to better understand the evolutionary forces that have shaped the mechanisms that are important to species interactions in the wild. Gain the necessary skills and concepts to work cooperatively with others in a research area that takes a systems-wide approach and incorporates an organism’s history and natural environment to understand the organization and expression of its many genes.
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Society of Physics Students
Come join our Society of Physics Students (SPS) chapter at BHSU and meet other students interested in physics! This club meets monthly for different activities including pizza paries, movie nights, and outreach events such as Surf's Neutrino Day.
For more information, please contact SPS President Katie Pedneau (Katie.Pendneau@YellowJackets.BHSU.edu) or SPS Faculty Mentor Brianna Mount (Brianna.Mount@BHSU.edu)
Women in STEM
Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (WiSTEM) is an organization to help better an celebrate women in STEM-related careers or academia.
Work With Daculty During The Semeter
Students are always encouraged to contact faculty members if they are interested in research at BHSU! Funded opportunities as well as opportunities to conduct research for course are available.
Summer Opportunities
REU
Want to participate in research a mile underground?!
Black Hills State University will host a 10-week REU program centered on underground science at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) each summer. A cohort of students will participate in exciting underground research projects as well as professional development, social, and outreach activities.
Learn more about this opportunity here!
GEMADARC
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Collaboration with Universtiy of Michigan
BHSU is collaborating with the University of Michigan to support BHSU students at Ann Arbor for a ten week program each summer for students to become involved in LZ data analysis.
Learn more about this opportunity here!
Presenting Your Results!
APS Career Information
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List of Careers
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Particle Physics
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Medical Physics
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Optoelectronics
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Nuclear Power
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Financial Market Modelling
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Astronomy and Space
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Quatum Technologies
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Science Education
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Patent Law
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Software Engineering
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Science Communication
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Excellent preparation for graduate school, medical school, and other pre-professional programs.
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Careers of the Future in which the boundaries between traditional boundaries become blurred.
BHSU has an impressive track record of student acceptance into graduate schools.
Student Spotlights
Madison Jilek
Madison is currently pursuiing her PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder and is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. At BHSU, Madison participated in both chemistry and physics research.
Ayla Rodriguez
Ayla is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Michigan and was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Ayla transferred to BHSU from Oglala Lakota College. At BHSU, she worked on projects with the BHSU Underground Campus and the LZ direct dark matter experiment.
*Student Testimonial Video TBA*
The BHSU Underground Campus (BHUC)
The BHUC is a unique, multidisciplinary research facility located at the Ross Campus of the 4850' level of SURF with ~4300 meter water equivalent shielding from cosmic rays (See Figure 1).
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Figure 1: Left: 4850', 7400' levels of SURF, Right: BHUC Campus Cavern
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The facility is comprised of two separate cleanroom spaces and an outside staging area for research and development activities (See Figure 1). The 200 sq. ft. class 10,000 cleanroom houses lab benches and the 60 sq. ft. class 1,000 cleanroom space is partially occupied with low background counters.
The BHUC has available standard power outlets within the cleanroom and the work area, access to a 'star' ground within the cleanroom, standard internet connections (ethernet and wifi), N, gas distribution and an automated liquid nitrogen (LN) system. Figure 2 shows a proposed configuration of the counting cleanroom. Currently, only about half of this cleanroom is utilized.
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Figure 2: BHUC Counting Clean Room
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Four 180 L dewars outside the cleanroom supply each counting station with liquid nitrogren via vacuum-jacketed piping that runs along three walls of the cleanroom and out into the work area. These liquid nitrogen dewars also supply gaseous nitrogen via their boil-off which in turn is supplied to each counting station as radon purge gas by stainless steel tubing running along the walls.
There are currently three single-crystal low background counting stations in the BHUC: Morgan, Maeve, and Mordred (See Figure 4). BHSU manages these detectors on behalf of LBNL. Each of these current counting stations are HPGe detectors surrounded by lead and copper shielding and purged with low activity N, gas.
Spectroscopy Lab
The Physics department at BHSU has created a state-of-the-art spectroscopy laboratory for ongoing research in association with the Sanford Underground Lab. The spectroscopy lab is building a custom Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy system for detecting very low levels of chemical impurities in Argon gas. This gas will be employed as the detection medium in future dark matter experiments in Lead, SD at the Sanford Underground Reserach Facility (SURF).
BHSU Above-Ground Campus
There is 1100 sq. ft. of dedicated lab space available for SURF projects in the newly-renovated Jonas Science Building at BHSU. THis space houses a 12'x12' cleanroom (class 1,000) room as well as a sample prep area for ICP-MS. It also includes fume hoods and access to a Nanopure deionized water system.
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Figure 3: Left: BHSU dedicated lab for SURF-focused research (including the ICP-MS lab)
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Additionally, this lab houses a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector, SOLO. SOLO will be used as a pre-screener for the BHUC detectors and as a training ground for undergraduate students. |
Learn more about the ICP-MS with cleanroom here!