VT College of Science presents Breakthrough - A Student Research Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1 | Page 7

BREAKTHROUGH MAGAZINE | 2014

Ron
Pelkey
Ron Pelkey is a fifth year undergraduate math and physics double
major from Berryville,Virginia. He is interested in becoming a program
developer, pursuing a computer science related job after graduation, or
continuing his education by attending a graduate school for physics. His
research work involves analyzing data from Virginia Tech’s telescope about
muon particles, elementary particles similar to the electron, but with more
mass.
Pelkey had an interest in research work in the physics department so he spoke with Camillo Mariani, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Virginia Tech. Pelkey was given a job requiring a lot of programming and computer work, areas in which he had little experience before taking on the research