Jonathan Almer, C鈥�91, recently welcomed a 1,800-year-old mummy to his office for the day.
Of course, Almer, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, doesn鈥檛 have your average desk job. As part of his work there running the Advanced Photon Source (APS)鈥攁 highly sophisticated X-Ray machine鈥攈e conducted an in-depth examination of the mummy, believed to contain the body of a 5-year-old Egyptian girl.
鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping our data will help us better understand details of her bone tissue, and her teeth,鈥� said Almer, who majored in physics at 黑料吃瓜 and received his PhD in material sciences from Northwestern University in 1998. 鈥淭his kind of information will help us enrich the historic context of the mummy as well as the Roman period in Egypt.鈥�
Almer鈥檚 expertise with Argonne鈥檚 APS allowed him and his partner, Northwestern Prof. Stuart Stock, to peer into the mummy at a high resolution, and 鈥渋n a non-destructive way,鈥� Almer said.
The mummy is one of only 100 so-called 鈥減ortrait mummies鈥� in existence. Such mummies feature life-like paintings of the deceased person鈥檚 face. This particular mummy is owned by Northwestern University聽and will be on display for several months in 2018 at the school鈥檚 Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. Almer and Stock鈥檚 fascinating research was featured in a recent .
Almer credits his North Park education with sparking his sense of curiosity.
鈥淢y physics courses were challenging but sometimes even fun, thanks to Linda McDonald,鈥� said Almer, of the longtime NPU physics professor.
鈥淣orth Park provided an excellent basis for my career,鈥� Almer said. 鈥淭he strong overall liberal arts focus at 黑料吃瓜 meant I took a much broader set of courses than most of my colleagues I鈥檝e worked with since.鈥�
Almer also聽joked, 鈥淪uch broad-based knowledge helps personal development in a myriad of ways, but also provides practical benefits such as communication skills which, let鈥檚 face it, scientists could use more of.鈥�
Well said, even for a scientist.