Katherine D. Ocker Stone

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Physics

P.O. Box: 5002
Phone: ext. 5241
Email: kstone@tusculum.edu

I have 16 years of teaching experience at the post secondary level. I first taught introductory physic and astronomy labs as an undergraduate at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. As a graduate student, I continued to teach physics and astronomy labs while attending SHSU and then geology labs at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After obtaining my Ph.D. in geology, I taught a physical geology lecture and its companion lab at Pellissippi State Technical Community College, Knoxville, Tennessee. Currently, I am teaching physics and college algebra at Tusculum College. In the near future we hope to offer a geology course.

Along with my teaching, I have a broad research experience, having worked in the chemistry, physics, and geology fields. As an undergraduate at Sam Houston State University, I assisted graduate students at Texas A & M in the dating of cave paintings. For my own undergraduate research, I have study aqueous alteration of troilite as the possible precursor to magnetite in meteorites. I also spent one summer quantitatively analyzing shocked quartz during my term with the Lunar and Planetary Institute. For my master dissertation, I designed and implemented an oxygen plasma chamber to release trapped noble gases for mass spectrometry analysis. I continued my research in mass spectrometry analysis for my Ph.D. with krypton isotopes from meteorite chondrules as well as xenon isotopes from mineral separates from martian meteorites. I still have research connections with the Institute for Rare Isotope Measurements, in Oak Ridge, TN, and University of Manchester Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences Dept, in Manchester England.

Publications

-Ocker K. D. and Gilmour J. D (2004) Martian xenon components in Shergotty mineral separates: Locations, sources and trapping mechanism. Meteoritics and Planetary Science 12, 1967-1981.
- Ocker Stone K. D. (2002) Martian xenon components in the basaltic shergottite meteorites. Doctoral dissertation, University of Tennessee.
-Ocker K. D., Thonnard N. and Joyner C. F. (2000) Versatile sample viewing system with large magnification range. Review of Scientific Instruments, 71, No. 2, 581-582.

Courses

MTH 101
MTH 102
PHY 101
PHY 102
GEO 101 (not currently offered)

Links

http://www.tusculum.edu/faculty/home/kstone/
http://www.tusculum.edu/academics/programs/math/
http://www.tusculum.edu/faculty/home/kstone/physics