---
title: "Notre Dame QuarkNet Center"
chunk: 3/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_Dame_QuarkNet_Center"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:16:56.689192+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Siemens Competition ===
In 2006, junior students Mengwen Zhang (Penn High School) and Kristen Anderson (Bremen High School) were selected as finalists for the Siemens Competition for scientific research held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The students had presented their QuarkNet summer research project named "Performance of Scintillating and Waveshifting Fibers for Particle Detectors". The research was related to the particle accelerator at CERN. Both students were introduced to the QuarkNet program by their high school science teachers. Anderson and Zhang performed their research project under the direction of QuarkNet staff members Dan Karmgard and Mark Vigneault. Anderson obtained a bachelor's degree from MIT and now works in the aerospace industry. Zhang was the Penn High School co-valedictorian and later obtained her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Santa Barbara and works as a patent engineer.

=== CRiL ===
In 2007, Marian High School junior Tony Coiro and LaLumier High School junior Caleb Phillps worked at the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center under the direction of Dan Karmgard, Jeff Chorny, Danielle McDermott, then an Arkansas high school physics teacher, research technician Mike McKenna, and physicist Barry Baumbaugh of Notre Dame. Their project was to build a table-top cosmic ray detector to be installed as a demo at the CERN visitor center. The device, termed the CRiL, consisted of pairs of scintillating tiles mounted in a horizontal, rotating structure. Meant to be interactive, the CRiL is controlled with a touch screen. Users can place their hands between the horizontal detectors and note that it has no effect on the passage of cosmic ray particles. The group traveled to CERN in 2008 to install the demo. Coiro went on to study physics at Purdue University. He made national news by building a solar powered motorcycle that could also be charged with regular household current. Coiro along with other electric vehicle enthusiasts also started the Purdue Electric Vehicles Club. Coiro now works in the aerospace industry. Danielle McDermott later obtained a Ph.D. from Notre Dame and obtained an appointment with the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Barry Baumbaugh had joined the Notre Dame High Energy Physics Group in 1978 and had worked with professor Ruchti at Fermilab and CERN. Baumbaugh was also deeply involved in the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center. According to Notre Dame professor Mitch Wayne, Baumbaugh had helped a wide range of people from university faculty and graduate students to area high school students and educators.

=== Project GRAND ===
In the late 1980s, professor John Poirier of the University of Notre Dame started construction of Project GRAND, a cosmic ray detector array located the on the Notre Dame campus. The detector consisted of 64 huts arrayed in a 10,000 m2 grid pattern. Within each hut was an array of stacked proportional wire chambers that were able to measure the energy and direction angles of muons generated by the impact of cosmic rays with molecules of gas in the atmosphere. Poirier and his students used Project GRAND to study various phenomena related to the sun and space weather. Project GRAND was later utilized as a summer project for Notre Dame undergraduate students along with area high school faculty and students. Local teachers Ed Fidler and Calvin Schwartzendruber performed research under the aegis of the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center. Goals of the Project GRAND summer project were outreach and enrichment of potential science students.

=== NDeRC ===
In 2007, the University of Notre Dame secured a grant for $2.71 million from the National Science Foundation to support 37 graduate students who worked as "ambassadors for science" in local secondary school classrooms. The program was named the Notre Dame extended Research Community (NDeRC). The grant, referred to as an "NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education Award" was secured due to the efforts of Tom Loughran and other teachers active in the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center. According to Loughran, the grant would enable graduate students to contribute to local science, technology, and engineering (STEM) education while providing broad preparation for their later careers. The graduate students were paired with QuarkNet teachers in Lakeshore High School in Stevensville, Michigan and Indiana high schools in LaPorte, Bremen, and Elkhart. The graduate students also participated in the QuarkNet summer research projects of their respective teachers. The projects were linked to Notre Dame research in astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, and robotics. Loughran also emphasized that QuarkNet and NDeRC would work with Notre Dame's Robinson Community Learning Center, which had shared an adjacent wing of the building housing the Notre Dame QuarkNet Center. The Robinson Center provides programs and resources for the South Bend community. The graduate students would be able to contribute to programs offered by the Robinson Center. Starting in 2007, NDeRC also sponsored a series of annual forums named "Collaborating for Education and Research Forum" (ND Forum) that were held on the Notre Dame campus. The events provided opportunities for local school teachers and administrators to interact with university faculty and graduate students along with representatives from local business and government. An exhibit hall allowed local science and education organizations to showcase exhibits and the work they perform for the community. Indiana representative, and later senator, Joe Donnelly spoke at the 2011 ND Forum.