At age 22, Leif Karlstrom is close to receiving his undergraduate degree with a triple major in math, physics and performance violin – a task he doesn’t recommend “Unless you’re interested in what you’re doing,” he said.
Most terms he had to take more than 20 credits in order to acquire the degree over a span of five years.
“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I came here,” he said, but after taking numerous physics, math and music classes, he decided to major in all three.
His thesis, “Signatures of Nonlinear Interaction in Groups of Tuning Violinists,” received a Pass with Distinction from the Robert D. Clark Honors College. To earn this grade, an undergraduate’s work must be on par with that of a graduate student, must be potentially publishable, creative, clear and the student must have a superior performance on the oral examination, according to the college’s online Thesis Manual-Style Guide.
Professor of physics John Toner said he had never seen a thesis project that was entirely the student’s own idea and done with such a high degree of independence before Karlstrom’s project.
“It’s really quite remarkable,” he said.
Although his project has already passed, Karlstrom has continued to revise it for publication in some sort of international physics journal, Toner said.
The paper explores the way the human ear processes sound and how the interactions between players in a group of musicians affects their ability to play. The way violinists interpret the pitch of the orchestra around them in order to play correctly is similar to the way a bird manages to stay in its flock’s formation while flying by averaging the speed of birds around it, Karlstrom said.
Toner said he was impressed with the way Karlstrom came up with an experiment, gathered all the needed components, analyzed the data and conducted all the research with virtually no help. Karlstrom used about 20 violinists in the experiment that resulted in a thesis paper that Toner said would have delighted him if a graduate student had brought it to him. He said he is confident after seeing the degree of independence that Karlstrom has shown at his young age that he will do well with his career.
“He’s very interesting, very intense. He really throws himself into everything he does,” Toner said.
Karlstrom said he likes the program at the Honors College and the fact that the University is far away from his home in Albuquerque, N.M. He said he’s had some good teachers at the University, such as Associate Professor of physics Heiner Linke, with whom he has conducted physics research, and Toner, who taught him as a freshman and has advised him on his thesis paper.
Karlstrom said Toner is “very excited about what he’s doing and conveys that well to students.”
Karlstrom describes his experience at the University as positive, but with all the credits he’s been taking, he said it’s “positive like beating your head against a wall.” With such a heavy load each term, he said it’s been difficult trying to retain all the material.
“No one here is going to lead you by the hand,” he said. “You have to take the initiative.”
Linke said Karlstrom is “a very talented physics major and a very talented music major.” People usually find these two fields to be contrasting, he said, but Karlstrom has found a way to intertwine them and on top of it all, find the time to be an outdoor enthusiast.
In order to fund his education, Karlstrom has had the help of several small scholarships, his parents and numerous summer jobs. For the last three years he has worked as a rock-climbing instructor in the Student Rec Center, but that job, he said, doesn’t cover much more than the cost of his morning coffee. During the summers he has served as a river guide on the Deschutes, North Umpqua and McKenzie Rivers, done construction in New Zealand and labored at a cannery in Alaska. He’s also a substitute violinist for orchestrated concerts in Eugene, Albany and Corvallis. The University’s violin program is classical, but Karlstrom also likes to play with jazz groups as well as at the Bluegrass Jam at Sam Bond’s Garage on Tuesday nights when he has the time.
Despite his heavy workload, he has found the time to entertain what he calls his “strong connection to the outdoors.” This summer he plans to do some rock climbing in Colorado, Wyoming and British Columbia and over the last winter break he traveled to Cuba for some climbing in Trinidad and Havana among other things.
Karlstrom plans to go to the University of California at Berkeley next year to earn a Ph.D. in geophysics, a field he was first introduced to by his father, professor of structural biology at the University of New Mexico Karl Karlstrom. He said he’s not sure what he’s going to do after grad school, but whether it be teaching or conducting research, he wants to take advantage of the opportunities to get outdoors in his chosen field.