Orange Earns Florida Tech Graduate Student Award in Physics-Space Sciences

MELBOURNE, FLA.—At Florida Institute of Technology’s annual Honors Convocation held recently, Brice Orange, who earned a master’s degree in space sciences at Florida Tech in May 2010 and is working on a doctoral degree in astrophysics, received the John E. Miller Award. The award is for excellence in graduate student teaching and outstanding academic excellence.

Orange works in the introductory physics laboratory under the supervision of James Gering, director of undergraduate physics laboratories. Referring to Orange’s teaching style, Gering said, “Brice presents himself in a very competent but laid-back manner, which students appreciate,” He understands how to hold students to high standards while keeping them motivated.”

Orange conducts his doctoral research with Hakeem Oluseyi, assistant professor of physics and space sciences. He earned a Florida Space Grant Consortium award for research on structures in the Sun’s atmosphere which occur in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) portion of the spectrum, as well as for understanding what generates them. Orange’s doctoral thesis work will be on the development of software that automatically detects, analyzes, classifies, and catalogues these EUV structuresin the Sun’s atmosphere.

From Oakley, S.C., Orange graduated from Berkeley High School in 2001 and earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from College of Charleston in 2005. An avid surfer, he was a surf instructor 2006-2007 in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The Miller Award was established in 1995 in memory of a former physics professor and the university’s longtime vice president for academic affairs. Dr. Miller also briefly was university president between the terms of Jerome Keuper, founding president, and Dr. Lynn Edward Weaver.