Over 80 students, faculty, and alumni attended the 2017 Fall Retreat at the Haw River State Park, NC this past weekend. This year’s topic was “Achieving Excellence in Academics, Communication, Community.” Keynote remarks were delivered by Jeff Polish of The Monti, highlighting the importance of storytelling in scientific presentation, as well as Dr. Robert Beichner (Education), Dr. Zbigniew Kabala (Communication), and Paul James (Community). The retreat started off on Friday (9/8) with team-building activities and an alumni panel where Steve Bach (MS 2014), Titania Juang (PhD 2015), Michael Trager (MS 2017), and James Spencer (MS 2017), graciously shared their experiences. Attendees also had the opportunity to learn basic survival skills and orienteering directly from the Haw River State Park instructors. In addition, some of our students, faculties, and alumni showcased their talents through the annual medical physics talent show. Performers include: The Ultrasound Acapella Group (Jeff Fenoli, Taylor Smith, Ryan Pappafotis, James Spencer, Bria Moore, James Jensen, Jonathan Cuthbertson), Ruiqi Geng and James Spencer (Solo Pianists), the Background Noise band (Paul Yoon, James Spencer, and Dr. Samei), X-Ray Spectrum Dance Group (Yingxuan Chen, Sydney Shen, Xiaoning Liu, Yixin Ma, Xiaoyu Duan), and Sagarika Jain (Solo Vocalist).
