Rutgers Physics News
Thanks to Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers has been named a member of the
PhysTEC "5+ Club" for graduating five or more physics teachers
in the past academic year. This puts Rutgers in the 99
Congratulations Eugenia!
(12-6-2019)
Congratulations once again
to our Society of Physics Students Chapter.
The SPS National Office has awarded the Rutgers SPS Chapter
Outstanding Chapter status.
Congratulations to the Chapter, and particularly the Officers, on the fine work they did to earn that status:
- Lucas Hansen, President
- Riya Prabhudesai, Vice President
- Skanda Rao, Treasurer
- Noah Paladino, Secretary
- Esha Rao, Outreach Coordinator
- Georgia Sandidge, Public Relations
- Chong Xia, Event Coordinator
And a tip of the hat to faculty advisors Matt Buckley, Jed Pixley, and Blakesley Burkhart.
(12-5-2019)
Matt Blackman, former Physics Major and graduate of the
Rutgers 5-year Physics Education Program with Eugenia Etkina,
was named the 2019 PhysTEC Teacher of the Year.
PhysTEC, the Physics Teacher Education Coalition, is a joint project
of the APS and the AAPT that addresses the shortage of qualified
physics teachers in the US.
Matt is an AP Physics teacher at Ridge High School, where he has
successfully raised enrollment, diversity, and performance in the AP
program. Most recently at Rutgers, Matt has been teaching a
summer workshop for high school physics teachers aimed at
aligning lessons with the Next Generation Science Standards, a
program established by Eugenia and Amit Lath.
Learn more at: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201908/blackman.cfm
Congratulations Matt!
(12-5-2019)
Gabi Kotliar has received a Carl Friedrich von Siemens Research Award
of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
The award is given in recognition of the winner's entire body of
work. It provides the opportunity to carry out a research project
of their choosing with colleagues in Germany, to promote
international scientific collaboration.
Gabi will be hosted by Prof. Dr. Jan Delft of
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Munich, Germany,
where he will work collaboratively on strongly correlated electron systems.
Congratulations Gabi!
(12-5-2019)
Vitaly Podzorov and co-workers discover unusually large
strain-induced anisotropic charge carrier mobility enhancement
in organic semiconductors fabricated from the single crystalline
organic semiconductor rubrene. This is an important step towards
realizing higher peformance organic electronic devices.
The work is reported in the journal
Advanced Science, and
featured in a recent article in Rutgers Today.
(12-5-2019)
Hsaing-Hsi (Sean) Kung, former graduate student in
Physics & Astronomy, has received the American Physical Society's
2020 Richard L. Green Dissertation Award in Experimental
Condensed Matter or Materials Physics.
Sean, who's dissertation is entitled "Collective excitations in the antisymmetric channel of Raman spectroscopy," did his Ph.D. work under the supervision of Prof. Girsh Blumberg.
This award recognized doctoral thesis research of exceptional quality and importance in experimental condensed matter or experimental materials physics. The annual award consists of a monetary prize, a certificate, and expenses to attend, give an invited talk, and accept the award at the APS March Meeting.
Once again we get to say congratulations Sean and excellent mentoring Girsh!
(10-31-2019)
The American Physical Society has just announced that Gabi Kotliar,
along with his long time collaborator Antoine Georges, has been awarded
the 2020 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics.
The citation reads: "For the development of the Dynamical Mean Field Theory as a tool for the computation of properties of strongly correlated materials."
This prize recognizes outstanding achievement in computational physics research. The prize consists of a monetary award, an allowance for travel to the APS March Meeting at which the recipient will deliver the Rahman Lecture, and a certificate citing the contributions made by the recipient.
Gabi joins the ranks of our colleague David Vanderbilt who was awarded the Rahman prize in 2006.
Congratulations to Gabi for yet another notable accomplishment.
(10-23-2019)
Jed Pixley has been named a recipient of an Air Force Office
of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigators Research
Program (YIP) Award. The AFOSR made only forty YIP awards
this year, in all areas of science and engineering of relevance
to its mission. The YIP program makes awards to scientists and
engineers at United States research institutions who
received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last seven years
showing exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research.
YIP awardees receive a three year grant totaling $450,000.
More information about the AFOSR YIP program..
More information at the Daily Targum..
Congratulations to Jed on receiving this well-deserved recognition.
(10-15-2019)
Yuri Gershtein has been named a Senior LHC Physics Center Distinguished Researcher for 2020.
Yuri is one of only three individuals to receive this honor.
Read more at: https://lpc.fnal.gov/fellows/2020/Yuri_Gershtein.shtml
(10-3-2019)
We are pleased to announce that three of our faculty members have
been elected 2019 Fellows of the American Physical
Society (APS). Moreover, these distinctions span
three different Divisions of the APS, underscoring both the
depth and breadth of scholarship in our department. Fellowship in
the APS is a distinct honor signifying recognition by one's
professional peers. Each year, < 0.5% of the Society's membership
is recognized by election to the status of APS Fellow.
Yuri Gershtein was nominated by the Division of Particles and Fields. His citation reads: "For important contributions to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model at both the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider, and for developing innovative techniques for precision photon measurement that directly contributed to the Higgs boson discovery."
Kristjan Haule was nominated by the Division of Materials Physics. His citation reads: "For pioneering quantitative first-principles investigation of correlated electron physics in broad classes of materials, including iron pnictides, heavy fermion, and transition metal compounds."
Saurabh Jha was nominated by the Division of Astrophysics. His citation reads: "For critical contributions to a deeper understanding of Type Ia supernovae, and to their exploitation as cosmological probes."
Congratulations to Saurabh, Kristjan and Yuri on receiving this very prestigious recognition of their research accomplishments!
(9-20-2019)
Jed Pixley has been awarded the Strongly Correlated Electron
Systems (SCES) -2019 Neville Mott Prize.
SCES awards prizes for significant contributions to the study of strongly correlated electron systems. The Neville Mott Prize in particular is awarded to a person who has made significant contributions to the theory of strongly correlated electron systems.
Jed's Citation reads: "for ... pioneering work, combining analytic and computational tools to shed light on quantum criticality in strongly correlated heavy fermion systems and localization in topological Weyl semi-metals."
The Prize comes with a monetary award and an invited presentation at the SCES2019 Conference in Okayama, Japan.
Congratulations Jed!
(6-28-2019)
We are happy to announce that the Rutgers Board of Governors has
promoted Bob Bartynski (the Physics and Astronomy Department
Chair) and Girsh Blumberg to the rank of Distinguished Professors.
Congratulations to Bob and Girsh for your well-deserved promotions!
(6-19-2019)
Physics Major Lucas Hanson (Class of 2020) has received
a Leadership Scholarship from the national office of the
Society of Physics Students, part of the American Institute
of Physics. Lucas has been working in the lab of Eva Andrei.
Lucas was selected for this recognition owing to his academic and personal achievements, as well as for exhibiting exemplary leadership within our SPS Chapter.
Congratulations Lucas!
(6-6-2019)
Distinguished Research Professor Phil Batson has been
honored as a member of the inaugural class of elected Fellows
of the Microanalysis Society.
Founded in 1951, the Microanalysis Society (MAS) is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge concerning the principles, instrumentation, and applications of microanalysis down to the atomic level.
Fellowship was established to recognize eminent scientists, engineers, and technologists in the field of microanalysis of materials and related phenomena who have distinguished themselves through outstanding research and service to the microanalysis community.
Congratulations Phil on receiving this well-deserved distinction.
(5-17-2019)
Board of Governors Prof. Gabi Kotliar has been elected
to the National Academy of Sciences.
Gabi joins other current NAS members in the department including Eva Andrei, Karin Rabe, David Vanderbilt and Joel Lebowitz, as well as former members Sasha Zamolodchikov and Elihu Abrahams, and affiliated members Paul Falkowski, Morrel Cohen, and Jim Phillips.
Congratulations Gabi on receiving this well-deserved honor!
(5-3-2019)
David Vanderbilt has been elected to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Academy is one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research.
David is the only individual from Rutgers to be elected this year, and is the sixth member of our Department to be elected to the Academy, joining Eva Andrei, Tom Banks, Daniel Friedan, Greg Moore, and Karin Rabe. Other members affiliated with our department include Helen Berman and Paul Falkowski.
Congratulations David!
(5-3-2019)
Matthew Buckley will be receiving the 2019 School of
Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributions to
Undergraduate Education at the Assistant Professor rank.
and
Sevil Salur will be receiving the 2019 School of Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education at the Associate Professor rank.
This is now the third year in a row that our faculty members have received multiple awards for their contributions to undergraduate education. It is particularly gratifying that the faculty continues to win awards across the ranks!!
Congratulations Matt and Sevil in receiving this well deserved recognition.
(4-29-2019)
Three students from Rutgers have been selected to
receive 2019 Goldwater Scholarships, and all three have
connections to the Department of Physics & Astronomy.
(Rutgers is the only school in New Jersey to have three
Goldwater Scholars this year.)
Rikab Gambhir is a junior who is double majoring in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Physics. In our department, Rikab is working with Steve Schnetzer.
Brandon Gomes is a sophomore who is double majoring in Physics and Mathematics. In our department, he is working with JP Chou.
Mariya Galochkina is a junior who is double majoring in Geology and Physics. Her main research is in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, but she is also pursuing the ocean physics option of the physics major.
This is the 10th consecutive year, and 12th time in the past 14 years, that students from Physics & Astronomy have won Goldwater Scholarships. Congratulations to all of the students, their mentors, and Art Casciato from the Office of Distinguished Fellowships.
Added 4-30-2019: There is a fourth 2019 Goldwater Scholar with a connection to our Department -- Emma McLaughlin, a Providence College undergraduate who did research with Jaki Noronha-Hostler as a Summer 2018 REU student.
(4-30-2019)
Graduate student Aidan Zabalo has been awarded a Rutgers
Discovery Informatics Institute (RDI2) Fellowships for Excellence
in Computational and Data Science (CDS) for the 2019-2020
Academic year. This competitive Fellowship supports Rutgers PhD
students working on multi-disciplinary collaborative
computational/data-enabled research projects that address more
than one element of CDSE research. Aidan is working in the group
of Jed Pixley studying quantum phase transitions that are
induced through making repeated local measurements in models of
quantum circuits.
Congratulations Aidan!
(4-24-2019)
Our Physics Major, Maine Christos has been selected to
receive a Research Excellence Award at this year's New Brunswick
Chancellors Student Leadership Gala.
This award is given to a student who demonstrates high-quality research which exhibits critical thinking, analysis, and creativity, and has demonstrated measurable evidence of academic enrichment outside of the classroom utilizing new methods of discovery and critical thinking skills.
Maine has been doing research under the supervision of Sunil Somalwar, has presented her work at multiple conferences, and is co-author on a Physics Review Letter.
Congratulations Maine for yet another recognition of your good work!!
(4-23-2019)
Graduate student Steven Clark, who is working with
Eva Halkiadakis on CMS, is being awarded a competitive
3-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
His proposal was titled: "Search for a Light Extended Higgs
Sector at the Large Hadron Collider."
Each year, NSF receives approximately 50,000 proposals, of which
less than 25% are awarded. It appears that Steven is the only
awardee this year who is currently attending, or is an
alumnus of Rutgers.
More information can be found at: https://www.research.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList
Steven is also a 2018-19 Rutgers SUPER Grad Fellowship recipient.
Congratulations to Steven on his excellent work and Eva for her keen mentoring.
(4-22-2019)
Tad Pryor was interviewed by CBS about the recent
dramatic meteor viewed locally Tuesday night.
(4-19-2019)
Three of our faculty members will be recognized by the University
this year for their outstanding achievements.
- Andrew Baker will receive the Warren I. Susman Award for Teaching Excellence. This is the highest honor for outstanding and innovative performance in the classroom by a tenured faculty member offered by the University.
- Alyson Brooks will receive a Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence AND a Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. These awards are based on her outstanding scholarship and teaching accomplishments as documented in the evaluation leading to her upcoming promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure.
- Chuck Keeton will receive a Faculty Scholar-Teacher Award which honors tenured faculty members who have made outstanding synergistic contributions in research and teaching.
Given Alyson's daily double, perhaps this is a quad-fecta.
Congratulations to our colleagues on their outstanding achievements.
(4-16-2019)
Phil Batson has received the 2019 Microscopy Society of
America's Distinguished Scientist Award in the Physical Sciences.
This award recognizes a preeminent senior scientist in the physical discipline who has a long-standing record of achievement during their career in the field of microscopy or microanalysis.
This distinction is particularly noteworthy given the breadth of the Microscopy Society of America, an organization which is dedicated to the promotion and advancement of techniques and applications of microscopy and microanalysis in all relevant scientific disciplines.
For more information, visit: https://www.microscopy.org/awards/2019_awardsrecipient.cfm
Congratulations Phil on receiving this deserved recognition.
(4-12-2019)
The Department of Physics & Astronomy is very pleased to announce
that at its April 9, 2019 meeting, the Board of Governors approved
the promotions of:
- Alyson Brooks to Associate Professor with tenure
- Weida Wu to Full Professor
- Kristjan Haule to Distinguished Professor
The promotions are effective July 1, 2019.
Congratulations to Alyson, Weida, and Kristjan on their well-deserved promotions.
(4-12-2019)
Geraldine Cochran is the 2019 recipient of the American
Association of Physics Teachers Homer L. Dodge Citation for
Distinguished Service to the AAPT.
The Citation is presented annually to one of its members in recognition of their exceptional contributions to the association at the national, sectional, or local level. Geraldine has been cited for her wide-ranging work concerning inequality, inequity, and social justice in physics, as well as her long record of service and leadership on many AAPT committees.
Geraldine will receive the Citation at the AAPT 2019 Summer Meeting
in Provo, Utah.
Read about
the Citation on the AAPT website..
Congratulations Geraldine!
(4-9-2019)
Hsaing-Hsi (Sean) Kung, former graduate student in
Physics & Astronomy, has received the 2019 Northeast Association
of Graduate Schools Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award.
Sean, who's dissertation is entitled "Collective excitations in the antisymmetric channel of Raman spectroscopy," did his Ph.D. work under the supervision of Prof. Girsh Blumberg.
Founded in 1975, the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools (NAGS) is one of four regional affiliates of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), has members in states from Maryland to Maine, as well as the Eastern Provinces of Canada.
Sean's recognition is particularly notable as the NAGS offers a Doctoral Dissertation Award in the fields of Physical Sciences, Mathematics & Engineering only once every four years.
Congratulations Sean and excellent mentoring Girsh!
(3-27-2019)
Congratulations to Dave Maiullo upon winning a 2017-2018 Individual SAS Staff
Excellence Recognition Award!
For over 30 years, Dave has enriched lectures presented in the Physics Lecture Hall
with his creative and memorable demonstrations and other support. He continues to be
a tremendous ambassador for the department and the university, bringing his demonstrations
and promoting physics and science to schools, libraries, and other venues with
dozens of visits annually throughout the state. And, he's brought his talents Off-Broadway with
"That Physics Show", reaching an
ever wider audience, young and old, with his message that
science (particularly physics!!!) is fun, cool, and an important part of everyone's daily life.
Congratulations Dave on this well deserved recognition.
See the feature article about Dave in the Daily Targum
(2-21-2019)
Congratulations to graduate students Prasiddha Arunachalam
and Adam Broussard for winning the Chambliss Astronomy
Achievement Student Awards for their posters at the 233rd AAS meeting in
January 2019 in Seattle!
(1-30-2019)
Former graduate student Kshitij Wagh, who got his PhD in 2013
under the direction of Prof. Gyan Bhanot, has made important progress
in understanding new approaches towards HIV vaccine design.
Working with a network of collaborators at Duke, Harvard, NIH and UPenn, Kshitij, now a staff scientist at LBNL, investigates how a subset of HIV-infected individuals develop desirable cross-reactive antibodies during the course of infection, and uses that information to inform HIV vaccine design. In their recent study, Kshitij and his collaborators discovered that the sugars on the surface protein of HIV from the infecting virus plays a key role in the development of cross-reactive antibodies in HIV infections.
Kshitij was recently awarded a LANL LDRD grant to further develop modeling of sugar profiles of HIV proteins, and is applying for NIH funding to design vaccines based on their work to be used in animal and eventually preclinical and human clinical trials.
For more information, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124718315584 and https://www.lanl.gov/discover/news-stories-archive/2018/October/1023-hiv-vaccine.php
(1-22-2019)
Incoming Assistant Prof. in Astrophysics, Blakesley Burkhart,
has won the Annie Jump Cannon Award
of the American Astronomical Society.
The Annie Jump Cannon Award is for outstanding research and promise for
future research by a postdoctoral woman researcher.
It is given to a North American female astronomer within
five years of receiving her PhD in the year designated for the award.
Congratulations Blakesley!!!
(1-8-2019)
Congratulations once again to our Society of Physics Students
Chapter. The SPS National Office has once again awarded the
Rutgers SPS Chapter Distinguished Chapter status.
Congratulations to the Chapter, and particularly the Officers, on the fine work they did to earn that status:
- Will Cheng, President
- Maine Christos, Vice President
- Lucas Hanson, Treasurer
- Brian Ellsworth, Secretary
- Riya Prabhudesai, Secretary
And kudos to faculty advisors Alyson Brooks and Matt Buckley.
(12-12-2018)
The 2018 Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) list
of highly-cited researchers was just released and we are delighted
that, once again, two of our colleagues, Sang-Wook Cheong and
Saurabh Jha,
are included among this group. This distinction places them among the
top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication,
earning them the mark of exceptional impact. In all, only 9 Rutgers
faculty members are on this year's list, of which 3.5 are from
the School of Arts and Sciences.
Congratulations again Sang and Saurabh!!!!
(11-27-2018)
Girsh Blumberg and Scott Thomas have been elected 2018 Fellows
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
They are two of only 19 Fellows elected in the Section on Physics.
AAAS presents its members the lifetime honor of being an elected
"in recognition of their extraordinary achievements in advancing
science."
Girsh is cited for "distinguished contributions to the field of spectroscopy of electron systems with strong correlations, particularly for Raman spectroscopy of superconductors and quantum magnets."
Scott is cited for "contributions to the field of particle physics, particularly theories with supersymmetry and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider."
For more information, please see:
(11-27-2018)
Chemistry Professor and member of our Graduate Faculty
Wilma Olson has been named a 2018 Fellow of the
American Physical Society by the Division of Biological Physics.
The citation for Wilma reads: "For seminal contributions to understanding nucleic acid structure, properties, and interactions, for leadership in developing important computational methods used to analyze and rebuild nucleic acid structures, and for pioneering theoretical investigations of DNA structure and supercoiling."
Congratulations Wilma!
(11-15-2018
Professor Sang-Hyuk Lee uses 2018 Nobel Prize winning optical tweezers techniques to study molecular forces in biological systems.
Professor Sang-Hyuk Lee and his Rutgers team (Shishir Chundawat, Eric Lam, and Laura Fabris), along with collaborators at Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, received a $1.5M DOE award for this study. Lee's lab will employ optical tweezers, a technique developed by 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Arthur Ashki that uses the electric field and radiation pressure of a focused laser beam to grab microscopic objects with sub-nanonewton force, to study molecular and cellular forces involved in bioenergy relevant plant cell wall synthesis in living cells.
More on
- 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2018/press-release
- DOE grant: https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-announces-40-million-bio-based-research
- Read about the $1.5M DOE grant at the Daily Targum
- Read more at Rutgers SAS news website
(10-4-2018)
Professor Eric Gawiser has been named a 2018 Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Fellowship is a distinction bestowed for exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise, including outstanding physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education, and is reserved for the top one-half percent of APS members. Eric is one of only seven Fellows from the Division of Astrophysics this year.
The citation for Eric reads: "For exceptional accomplishments and leadership in the study of galaxy evolution and Cosmology."
Congratulations to Eric on receiving this well-deserved distinction!
(9-26-2018)
Professor Alyson Brooks has been named to receive the
2019 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award of the American Physical Society.
This award, which recognizes outstanding achievement by a woman physicist
in the early years of her career, is given to only one individual annually.
The citation for Prof. Brooks' award will read: " For contributions to theoretical astrophysics, in particular, the use of numerical hydrodynamic simulations compared with observations to elucidate the essential physics of galaxy formation."
Congratulations Alyson for this well-deserved recognition!
(9-24-2018)
Professor Jaki Noronha-Hostler has won a DOE Early Career Award.
Jaki is one of 84 young scientists from US Universities and DOE national labs
receiving an award in 2018.
Seven awards were in nuclear physics, and only three awards in nuclear theory.
This is the ninth year of the award, which is designed to bolster the nations scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.
Jaki joins our other DOE Early Career Award winners Weida Wu (2012) and David Shih (2010).
Congratulations Jaki on this notable achievement!
(8-22-2018)
Professor Geraldine Cochran has a Guest Editorial on the importance of
diversity AND inclusion AND equity, just published in the Gazette,
the newsletter of the American Physical Societys Committee on the Status of
Women in Physics and the Committee on Minorities.
You can find the article at this link at the APS. Click on Fall2018.
Note that Geraldine has a similar contribution at The Scholarly Kitchen.
(8-22-2018)
Prof. Jak Chakhalian's group has used "atomic engineering" to
realize a room temperature two-dimensional polar metal in superlattices of
BaTiO3/SrTiO3/LaTiO3.
Polar metallic oxides, which sometimes are called "ferroelectric metals",
are commonly defined by the coexistence of polar crystal structure
and metallicity and were thought to be nonexistent.
This new development provides a route to
creating exotic quantum states including coexisting ferroelectric,
ferromagnetic, and superconducting phases.
Read more here:
https://news.rutgers.edu/rutgers-physicists-create-new-class-2d-artificial-materials/20180610#.Wx53Ny2B3OR
(6-12-2018)
At its June 12, 2018 meeting, the Board of Governors approved the
promotions of:
- Sean Oh to Full Professor
- Sunil Somalwar to Distinguished Professor
Congratulations Sean and Sunil on your well-deserved promotions!!
(6-12-2018)
Graduate student Wenbo Wang in Professor Weida Wu's group
together with collaborators in China present direct evidence of robust
ferromagnetism in a quantum anomalous Hall system by
visualizing
the domain behavior. These findings pave the way to dissipationless
conduction at elevated temperature via topologically protected edge
states for applications in low power electronics and quantum
computing.
Their article is published in Nature Physics (2018) advanced online publication.
(5-29-2018)
Saurabh Jha and Mike Gentile have received
SAS Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate
Educations at the Full Professor and Assistant Teaching
Professor ranks, respectively.
This is the second year in a row that the Department has had multiple winners of this award. It is very noteworthy that our colleagues, at so many different ranks, are being recognized for their excellent teaching and innovations to undergraduate education.
(4-26-2018)
Prof. Saurabh Jha appears on NJTV to explain the mission
of NASAs recently launched Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite (TESS),
and how it will revolutionize the search for earth-like planets
orbiting nearby stars in our Galaxy.
The key difference between TESS and its predecessor Kepler was that Kepler was looking at one patch of the sky at relatively faint stars far away. TESS will look all over the sky at much more nearby & brighter stars. This is important because those brighter stars (and their planets) will be the ones that can be studied more in depth with future telescopes like James Webb.
(4-20-2018)
Anshuman Panda, who received his Ph.D. in January 2018,
supervised by Gyan Bhanot, was awarded a prestigious
New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research Fellowship
based on his PhD thesis work.
The fellowship will support Anshuman as a post doc at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey for the next two years, working with Dr. Shridar Ganesan on Immune Checkpoint Therapy.
(4-6-2018)
Elaad Applebaum has been awarded a Blue Waters Fellowship
from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Elaad is working with Alyson Brooks performing challenging
simulations of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, testing our understanding
of cosmology, star formation and galaxy evolution.
The fellowship includes stipend, tuition and 50,000 node-hours on the Blue Waters petascale computing system, as well as travel to the Blue Waters Symposium to present research results.
(4-5-2018)
Daniel Brennan has been awarded one of the
University's prestigious Louis Bevier Dissertation Completion
Fellowships. Daniel is working with Greg Moore studying
works on supersymmetric field theories and BPS states,
which are massive representations of an extended supersymmetry algebra,
and is an expert on the semiclassical study of BPS states.
The Bevier Fellowship includes a stipend and tuition remission, and is designed to enable senior graduate students to concentrate fully on competing their dissertations.
(4-5-2018)
For the ninth consecutive year one of our majors has won the
prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, which was given to only 211
students across the whole nation majoring in the natural sciences, math,
or engineering.
Our winner is Maine Christos, a junior this year, who is working with Sunil Somalwar. There was one other winner from Rutgers, a student majoring in the Life Sciences. And there was one Honorable Mention from Rutgers, a student majoring in Mechanical Engineering.
(3-30-2018)
Chad Ummel will be receiving a 2018 Stewardship Science
Graduate Fellowship from the Department of Energy,
National Nuclear Security Administration.
This Fellowship provides a generous stipend, full remission of
tuition and fees and up to 4 years of support.
Chad is a second-year PhD student, former GAANN fellow and is
doing research under the supervision of Professor Jolie Cizewski.
(3-19-2018)
For the second year in a row, Rutgers led the nation in producing
physics teachers (8 this year, 10 last year). This success is
largely owing to the great work of our colleague Eugenia Etkina,
who reports that about 70% of these teachers are graduates from the
Department of Physics & Astronomy.
Congratulations to Eugenia, as she keeps Rutgers at the forefront in one of its most important missions.
(2-19-2018)
Professor Jacquelyn Noronha-Hostler
has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Fellowship for her work in theoretical Nuclear Physics. The Sloan
Fellowship recognizes the most promising young
researchers in
America.
Jaki is one of only 23 Sloan Fellowships awarded in Physics this year.
Jaki joins Professors Alyson Brooks, John Paul Chou, Kristjan Haule, Valery Kiryukhin, Alex Morozov, David Shih, and Emil Yuzbashyan to make eight Sloan winners in our Department since 2001.
(2-15-2018)
Ron Gilman has been selected as the University's 2018 Career Mentor
of the Year recipient. Ron will receive the award at the
4th Annual Career Knights of Distinction Awards Dinner in May.
Ron's nomination, prepared by his students, impressed the selection
committee which noted that Ron is "... not only doing some great work
as a professor within the Department of Physics and Astronomy but
are also providing a world-class mentoring environment for Rutgers' students.
Congratulations Ron!!
(12-12-2017)
Our chair, Bob Bartynski, has just been elected a Fellow
of the American Vacuum Society (AVS)!
The AVS selects its fellows for "sustained and outstanding scientific and technical contributions in research, engineering, technical advancement, academic education, or managerial leadership." Less than 0.5% of the AVS membership may be elected in any year. Bob's citation is "For technical method development in surface spectroscopy and scientific inquiry into the electronic structure of a wide range of materials."
More information is available at the AVS website: https://www.avs.org/Awards-Recognition/Current-Awardees
Congratulations Bob!
(12-12-2017)
The National organization of the Society of Physics Students (SPS),
an organization of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), has named
the Rutgers SPS Chapter a Distinguished SPS Chapter for 2016-17.
Congratulations to the Chapter, and particularly 2016-17 Officers, on the fine work they did to earn that status:
- Jenny Coulter, President
- Vedant Sachdeva, Vice President
- Will Cheng, Treasurer
- Anu Sridhar, Secretary
(12-8-2017)
Post Doctoral fellows Yuhang Jiang and Jinhai Mao
in Professor Eva Andrei's group together with collaborators
discovered that under the influence of
local gates, electrons in graphene undergo a transition from
quantum confinement to optical guiding. These findings could
open the door to novel graphene-based electronic building blocks.
Their article is published in Nature Nanotechnology (2017) advanced online publication.
News story at Rutgers Today
Links to News stories outside of Rutgers are posted here:
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~eandrei/news.html
(10-25-2017)
Graduate student Sean Kung in the research group of
Professor Girsh Blumberg, along with collaborators,
have discovered a new collective spin mode on the surface of
Topological Insulator that can be used to transport energy or
information with little energy dissipation.
The study is published in the Physical Review Letters
at https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.136802 .
Read more in Rutgers Today
at
http://go.rutgers.edu/x5u7pj83
(10-2-2017)
On Aug. 21, 2017 there was a solar eclipse.
In New Jersey we saw
a partial eclipse (about 73%). The student-led Rutgers Astronomical Society
hosted a viewing at the Robert A. Schommer Astronomical
Observatory in
Piscataway.
The eclipse viewing event was from 12:30pm - 4:00pm, held in room 401 of the Serin Physics & Astronomy building, on Busch campus. The transit (of the Moon blocking out the Sun) began around 1:20pm, and the Moon's greatest blockage of the Sun was at around 2:40pm.
Please check http://observatory.rutgers.edu for more information.
(8-8-2017)
Professor Emeritus
Tom Devlin has received the 2017 Mentoring
Award from the American Physical Societys Division of Particles
and Field (DPF). The award is intended to recognize DPF members
who have had an exceptional impact as mentors of particle physics
scientists and students.
The citation reads:
"for his tremendous dedication to mentoring a broad community of
students and postdocs, and for his early and unwavering support
of gender diversity in physics. His leadership by example, in
studying new ideas, accepting all questions, and creating an
inclusive environment where young scientists could bond with
and learn from senior scientists and from each other has shaped
the careers of many current leaders in experimental particle physics."
(8-2-2017)
At its June 15, 2017 meeting, the Board of Governors approved the
promotions of:
- Andrew Baker to Full Professor
- Eric Gawiser to Full Professor.
- Sergei Lukyanov to Full Professor
- Alex Morozov to Full Professor
- Emil Yuzbashyan to Full Professor
- Scott Thomas to Distinguished Professor
Congratulations Andrew, Eric, Sergei, Alex, Emil, and Scott on your well-deserved promotions!!
Along with the earlier announcements about Saurabh Jha, JP Chou and Sevil Salur, we are a remarkable 9 for 9 on faculty promotions this year. Great job all!
(6-29-2017)
Graduate student Jesse Rivera participated in the 2017
Congressional Visit
Day, educating policy makers and their staffs on
issues affecting science
and raising support for science, engineering, and technology from the
federal government. Jesse's account of the day was posted by the American
Astronomical Society:
https://aas.org/posts/blog/2017/05/important-lessons-congressional-visits-day
(5-17-2017)
Distinguished Professor Eva Andrei and her group have
discovered that graphene, a 2-dimensional, one atomic layer
sheet of carbon atoms, has a power factor which is a factor
of two higher than in previously thermoelectric coolers,
making it a potential new way of cooling the smallest of
semiconductor devices on microelectronics chips.
Read more here:
(4-19-2017)
Physics Major Jennifer Coulter, Class of 17, has been
offered THREE prestigious graduate fellowships:
an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a National Defense Science
and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, and a Department of Energy
Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.
Jennifer has accepted the latter of the three as she heads to Harvard to conduct her graduate studies in Physics.
Jennifer was featured in a Rutgers Today article on May 1, 2017.
(4-19-2017)
John Paul Chou has been awarded a
2017 Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence.
The award is in recognition of outstanding scholarly accomplishments as documented in his evaluation for promotion. JP received the award at a ceremony on May 4, 2017.
(4-19-2017)
Its been a banner year for recognition of our faculty and students.
We're pleased to announce the following recent awards:
- Baki Brahmia has received the 2017 SAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education at the Associate Teaching Professor rank.
- Alyson Brooks has received the 2017 SAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education at the Assistant Professor rank.
- Graduate Student Aniket Patra has received the 2017 SAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education at the Teaching Assistant rank.
Congratulations to all three of you for receiving this recognition, and thank you for personifying the departments commitment to excellence in education.
(4-19-2017)
At its April 6, 2017 meeting, the Board of Governors approved
the promotions of:
- John Paul Chou to Associate Professor with tenure
- Sevil Salur to Associate Professor with tenure.
(4-7-2017)
Physics Major Viktor Krapivin, Class of 2018, has received a highly
prestigious 2017 Goldwater Scholarship, which is awarded to
only 240 students across the whole
nation, majoring in science, math, or engineering.
Viktor has been doing research with Girsh Blumberg.
For more information please visit:
https://goldwater.scholarsapply.org
More information about many of our past Goldwater winners is available at: http://sas.rutgers.edu/news-events/featured-news/1938-how-one-rutgers-science-department-produced-13-goldwater-winners
(4-5-2017)
Jennifer Coulter and Angela Ludvigsen have both just been
awarded NSF Graduate Fellowships.
Jenny, a senior who is currently a Goldwater Fellow and is doing her honors thesis with Karin Rabe and Premi Chandra.
Angela Ludvigsen is a first-year graduate student who is working with Eva Andrei.
Congratulations on receiving this well-earned distinction.
(4-3-2017)
Humna Awan, working with Prof. Eric Gawiser, has won an inaugural
Fellowship of Excellence in Computational and Data Science for her
proposed research
on "Big Data in Astrophysics: Clustering Analysis of Partial Galaxies."
(3-31-2017)
Aniket Patra was awarded a 2017 Dean's Award for Excellence in
Research. Aniket has worked with Emil Yuzbashyan on topics including
the multistate Landau-Zener problem and the driven-dissipative
dynamics of quantum condensates.
(3-31-2017)
Jasen Scaramazza, (who has Jersey Roots and is a former Goldwater Fellow)
was awarded the prestigious
Bevier Fellowship for the 2017-18 academic year.
Jasen also works with Emil Yuzbashyan to develop the theory of quantum
regularity - the opposite of quantum chaos.
(3-31-2017)
Gabi Kotliar has been named a 2017 Simons Fellow Awardee in
Theoretical Physics. One of only 13 awardees, this highly
competitive fellowship will allow Gabi up to a semester long research
leave with the objective to increase creativity and
provide intellectual stimulation.
Find more information at: The Simons Foundation
Gabi joins Piers Coleman and David Vanderbilt who received this distinction in 2014, and Greg Moore, who received the award in 2012.
(3-27-2017)
Sevil Salur has been named APS Woman Physicist of the Month for March
2017. This APS program highlights "exceptional female physicists" and highlights
those who have "positively impacted other individuals' lives and careers."
(3-23-2017)
A very nice article about Joel Lebowitz,
and the Statistical Mechanics Conference he has hosted for
over 57 years, appeared in a recent issue of Physics World.
To read the article, please visit http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/2017/feb/09/joels-conference
(3-20-2017)
At its February 8, 2017 meeting, the Board of Governors
has approved the promotions of Saurabh Jha to Professor 1,
effective January 1, 2017.
Congratulations Saurabh on your well-deserved promotion.
(2-9-2017)
Distinguished Professor Rachel Somerville,
Downsbrough Chair in Astrophysics and Simons Investigator,
has been appointed to the Simons Center for Computational
Astrophysics (CCA) to lead the Galaxy Formation Group.
This appointment, anticipated to last three to five years,
will be held jointly with her appointment as Distinguished
Professor at Rutgers.
The new Center for Computational Astrophysics is in the process of being established in New York City by the Simons Foundation, and will be directed by David Spergel of Princeton University.
(11-18-2016)
Distinguished Professor Natan Andrei has been awarded the
2017 Lars Onsager Prize of the American Physical Society.
The Prize is given "recognizing outstanding research in theoretical
statistical physics, including quantum fluids."
Natan, who will share the prize with Paul Wiegmann of the University of Chicago, is cited "For the pioneering discovery of the exact solution of the Kondo and Anderson models, opening a new field of exact treatments of quantum impurity systems."
Natan joins Daniel Friedan and Sasha Zamolodchikov of the NHETC, who won the Onsager Prize in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
(9-30-2016)
Sang-Wook Cheong and Saurabh Jha have been listed by Thomson Reuters
as among the Highly Cited Researchers of 2016 . This distinction places
Sang and Saurabh among the top 1% most cited for their subject field
and year of publication, earning them the mark of exceptional impact.
Saurabh received the same distinction in 2015, and Sang in 2014.
(9-23-2016)
50 years of excellence in nuclear physics graduate education at Rutgers University,
Saturday, October 1, 2016, 1:00 - 5:00 PM, Physics Lecture Hall, Rutgers University, 120 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854
2016 is the 50th anniversary of the first Ph.D. degree at the Rutgers-Bell Nuclear Physics Laboratory. In recognition of 50 years of excellence in nuclear physics graduate education at Rutgers, we will be hosting a commemorative event on October 1. This event will present an opportunity for former and current students, postdocs and faculty to recognize the accomplishments of the alumni in nuclear physics. We will unveil a plaque recognizing the historical significance of the Rutgers-Bell Tandem Nuclear Physics Laboratory.
(9-22-2016)
At its June 15, 2016 meeting, the Board of Governors has approved
the promotions of:
- Eva Halkiadakis to Professor 1
- Vitaly Podzorov to Professor 1
(5-16-2016)
Andrew Baker and collaborators, using the Atacama
Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, have
measured with unprecedented precision the mass of a
supermassive black hole, 660 million times as massive
as the Sun, in the center of a galaxy some 73 million
light years away.
Read more at:
(5-10-2016)
Alexander (Sasha) Zamolodchikov of the New High
Energy Theory Center,
has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Sasha joins members Eva Andrei, Karin Rabe, and David Vanderbilt, elected in 2013, as well as Joel Lebowitz of Math and Physics, and Paul Falkowski, Morrel Cohen, and JC Phillips who are affiliated with Physics and Astronomy.
Congratulations Sasha!!
(5-9-2016)
"That Physics Show" featuring our very own Dave Maiullo performing on Broadway,
received a very nice write-up in the New York Times. The show has also been
nominated for a Drama Desk Award in the category of Unique Theatrical
Experience. The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater honors for which productions
on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway compete against each other in the same
category. The organization, was established in 1949 by a group of New York City theater
critics, editors, reporters, and publishers.
Congratulations Dave!
UPDATE: At the 2016 Drama Desk Awards on Jun 5, 2016, Dave took home the award for "Most Unique Theatrical Production" of the year for Broadway/Off Broadway.
(4-8-2016)(5-12-2016)(6-6-2016)
Scott Thomas of the New High Energy Theory Center
has been awarded a 2016 Board of Trustees Award for Research Excellence. This award is
the University's highest honor for distinguished research contributions. Scott will
receive the award at a ceremony on May 5, 2016.
(4-5-2016)
For the 7th consecutive year one of our majors, Jennifer Coulter,
has won the
prestigious Goldwater Scholarship,
given to only 300 science and engineering
students across the whole nation. This year she is the only winner
from Rutgers.
In addition to being our 7th winner in a row, Jennifer is also our 9th winner
since 2006.
Jennifer works with Sevil Salur who has quite an impressive track record of mentoring talented students. Both Alexandra DeMaio (Rutgers 2015) [Goldwater Honorable Mention(2014), NSF Graduate Fellowship (2015)] and Aditya Parikh (Rutgers 2016) [Goldwater Scholarship (2015), NSF Graduate Fellowship (2016)] were Aresty Summer Researchers in Sevil's lab, and later were supported by an REU supplement to her NSF grant.
Congratulations Jennifer, and way-to-go Sevil!
(4-1-2016)
Eva Andrei is featured in Elsevier's "Virtual Special Issue on Women in
Physics," an on-line publication celebrating women in physics in honor of
International Woman's Day, which is today, Tuesday, March 8, 2016.
Highlighting the work of 36 women physicists from around the world, the
issue contains a brief profile of Eva's career, and a link to the article in
Thin Solid Films where her measurements of the topological insulator Bi2Se3,
performed with collaborators Torgny Gustafsson and Sean Oh, are described.
Read more at:
(3-8-2016)
The group of Eva Andrei, along with collaborators from Belgium and
Japan, have discovered a new way to control and guide electrons in
graphene by removing a single carbon atom from its perfect
honeycombed lattice. They showed that the vacancy can stably host a
local charge which traps electrons in satellite orbits, resembling a
tunable artificial atom.
This is the first observation of a stable and tunable charged vacancy in graphene and could potentially lead to the fabrication of artificial atom arrays for performing the electronic equivalent of optical operations.
The article appeared in Nature Physics advanced online publication on February 22, 2016.
(3-7-2016)
Distinguished Professor
Jolie Cizewski has been named recipient of the 2016 Daniel Gorenstein
Memorial Award.
The award includes a small stipend and the honor of presenting the
Gorenstein Memorial Award Lecture.
The award was established in 1993 and is given for outstanding
scholarly achievement to a Rutgers faculty member who has also
performed exceptional service to the University community. Without a
doubt, Jolie's accomplishments in both categories are exceptional.
Jolie joins Noemie Koller, the first woman to receive the Award, as the second Gorenstein Award winner from Physics and Astronomy. Only four other departments have two award recipients (English, History, Math, and Sociology).
Congratulations Jolie on this well-deserved recognition.
(2-29-2016)
The National
organization of the Society of Physics Students (SPS), an
organization of the American Institute of Physics (AIP),
has named the
Rutgers SPS Chapter a Distinguished SPS Chapter for
2014-15.
Congratulations to the Chapter, and particularly 2014-15 Officers, on the fine work they did to earn that status:
- Alex DeMaio, President
- Aditya Parikh, Vice President
- Yianni Tamanas, Treasurer
- David Osterman, Outreach Coordinator
- Dhir Patel, Webmaster
- Donald Chawla, Events Coordinator
- Kudos also to faculty advisors Alyson Brooks and Matt Buckley.
(2-29-2016)
Saurabh Jha used data from Rutgers' share of of the Southern African
Large Telescope (SALT) to help identify the most luminous supernova
ever discovered. The SALT data were used to measure the distance
(redshift) of the supernova, called ASASSN-15lh and discovered by the
All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae based at Ohio State
University.
Two of Jha's former undergraduate students (Ben Shappee, Rutgers '09, and Tom Holoien, Rutgers '13, both summa cum laude graduates in Physics & Astronomy) helped discover the supernova as part of the ASASSN project. The results were published by Subo Dong (Peking University) et al. in the journal Science: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6270/257
Read more at..
(2-1-2016)
Len Feldman has been named a fellow of the IEEE
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers),
effective January 1, 2016. Each year, following a rigorous
evaluation procedure,
the IEEE Fellow Committee recommends a select group
of recipients for elevation to IEEE Fellow. Less than
0.1% of voting members are selected annually
for this member grade elevation.
The citation for Len reads: for contributions to semiconductor-dielectric interfaces for MOS technologies.
Len is Vice President for Physical Science and Engineering Partnerships, Director of the Institute for Advanced Materials, Devices and Nanotechnology and Distinguished Professor Physics and Materials Science & Engineering. With this new distinction he is now a Fellow of the IEEE, the Materials Research Society, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Vacuum Society and the American Physical Society.
(12-3-2015)
Joel Lebowitz has been elected a foreign member of
the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (The Academy of the
Lincei), in the Class of Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences.
The Academy of the Lincei, founded in 1603 by Federico Cesi, is the oldest scientific academy in the world; Galileo Galilei is counted among its first members.
(12-3-2015)
Two members of the Rutgers HEX group have won competetive
fellowships at the Fermilab LHC Physics Center (LPC).
Postdoc Matthew Walker won an LPC Distinguished Researchers Fellowship for 2016 and graduate student David Sheffield won LPC Graduate Scholar for 2016.
For more info..
(11-12-2015)
Peter Lindenfeld has been helping Rutgers students overcome "Physics Phobia" for
years.
(11-6-2015)
Dave Maiullo brings his own brand of physics and fun to the
off-Broadway scene, opening on November 4 at
the Playroom Theater. Shows run through January 2, 2016.
(10-21-2015)
Weida Wu (PI) , along with co-PI's Sean Oh,
Peter Armitage [Johns-Hopkins], and Shengbai Zhang [RPI],
have received a $2M
NSF Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Award entitled
"2-DARE: Engineering novel topological interface states in 2D chalcogenide
heterostructures." The team aims to engineer topological interface states
residing at the boundary between a topological insulator and a conventional
semiconductor. The research activities will address the challenges of
materials synthesis, realization of optoelectronic and spintronic devices, and
their characterizations.
Congratulations Weida and Sean.
(10-14-2015)
The DOE has awarded $12 million to
establish the Center for Computational Design of Functional Strongly
Correlated Materials and Theoretical Spectroscopy, led by
Gabi Kotliar and
located at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The Center will have a node at
Rutgers which will be led by Kristjan Haule, with
Martha Greenblatt from
Chemistry and Chemical Biology establishing an experimental component.
More information about the Center is available from..
(10-12-15)
Saurabh Jha has been listed by Thomson Reuters as
among the Highly Cited
Researchers of 2015 .
This distinction places Saurabh among some of the most influential
scientific minds. About three thousand researchers earned this
distinction by writing
the greatest number of reports officially designated by
Essential Science Indicators
as Highly Cited, ranking among the top 1% most cited for their subject
field and year of publication, earning them the mark of exceptional impact.
Saurabh joins Sang Cheong who received the same distinction in 2014.
(10-7-15)
Greg Moore, Board of Governors
Professor in the NHETC and the Department of Physics & Astronomy, is a 2015
recipient of the Dirac Medal, awarded by the International Center for
Theoretical Physics (ICTP).
Greg joins a rarified list of previous winners, which includes Sasha Zamolodchikov, also BOG Professor in the NHETC and Department of Physics & Astronomy, and former NHETC member Juan Maldacena, now Professor at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton.
Moore, along Alexei Kitaev (California Institute of Technology), and Nicholas Read (Yale University) were recognized for their interdisciplinary contributions which introduced the concepts of conformal field theory and non-abelian quasiparticle statistics in condensed matter systems and applied these ideas to quantum computation. Their work has played a fundamental role in recent advances in our understanding of the quantum states of matter and quantum entanglement theory.
ICTP's Dirac Medal, first awarded in 1985, is given in honor of P.A.M. Dirac, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and a staunch friend of the ICTP. It is awarded annually to scientists who have made significant contributions to theoretical physics.
(9-29-15)
HEX group postdoc Matthew Walker has been
named "LPC Distinguised Researcher".
(9-29-15)
Physics and Astronomy Alumnus, Matt Hill, is a member of the New
Horizons team whose spacecraft completed the recent Pluto flyby.
Matt is lead instrument scientist of the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation instrument on board New Horizons.
Read more at:
(7-20-2015)
At its June 18, 2015 meeting, the Board of Governors has approved
the promotion of:
- Yuri Gershtein to Professor 1
(6-18-2015)
Professor David Shih, faculty member in New High Energy Theory
Center, has been selected to receive a 2015 Board of Trustees
Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence. This award bestowed in
recognition of David's outstanding scholarly accomplishments during
his years at Rutgers, as documented in the evaluation that led to his
promotion to Associate Professor.
(4-13-2015)
Rouven Essig, former student of Scott Thomas who received his PhD in 2008,
has received the 2015 Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle
Physics. The citation reads "For seminal contributions to theoretical models
of dark matter with new gauge interactions, and for leadership of the APEX
experiment at the Jefferson Laboratory." Rouven is now an Assistant Professor
at Stony Brook University.
(4-3-2015)
Brian Dennis, Girsh Blumberg (Rutgers) and the department alumnus Vladimir
Aksyuk (NIST), working with collaborators at ANL and U Colorado-Springs,
report a technology that could result in optical switches with
sub-square-micron footprints, potentially allowing switching fabrics on a
chip with an unprecedented density.
The article appeared in Nature Photonics
(4-3-2015)
At its April 2, 2015 meeting, the Board of Governors has approved
the promotions of:
- David Shih to Associate Professor with tenure
- Chuck Keeton to Professor 1
- Rachel Somerville to Distinguished Professor
(4-2-2015)
For the 6th consecutive year one of our majors, Aditya Parikh, has won the
prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, given to only 300 science and engineering
students across the whole nation. Aditya has been working with Sevil Salur, and he
is majoring in both physics and astrophysics!
In addition to being our 6th winner in a row, Aditya is also our 8th winner in the last ten years.
(4-2-2015)
Yanan Geng, former Ph.D. student of Prof. Weida Wu, named a winner of
The Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad.
This Award was established in 2003 by the China Scholarship Council to encourage research excellence and to recognize the achievements among Chinese students abroad. The award includes a $6,000 prize and a certificate of recognition. Yanan is one of only 39 Chinese students in our ten-state jurisdiction receiving this award.
(3-26-2015)
Professor Alyson Brooks has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan
Research
Fellowship. The Sloan recognizes the most promising young
researchers in
America. Over 40 Sloan Fellows have later gone on to win Nobel Prizes.
Alyson joins Professors John Paul Chou, Kristjan Haule, Valery
Kiryukhin, Alex Morozov, David Shih, and Emil Yuzbashyan to make
seven Sloan winners in our Department since 2001.
(3-10-2015)
The Department of Physics and Astronomy is pleased to announce the
establishment of the Robert A. Schommer Prize, to be awarded annually
to a graduate student in the department for outstanding published
research in astrophysics. The prize is funded by a private gift, and
honors the legacy of former Rutgers Prof. Bob Schommer, who was a
leader in the study of stellar populations in the Milky Way and other
galaxies, an expert in astronomical instrumentation and observation,
and a co-discoverer of the accelerating expansion of the Universe
through measurements of distant supernovae. At Rutgers, Bob was a
passionate advocate for the development and growth of research and
graduate study in astrophysics, and this prize commemorates his
far-reaching vision.
(3-3-2015)
Graduate students Sean Kung and Weilu Zhang,
postdoc Verner Thorsmolle,
and Profs. Girsh Blumberg and
Kristian Haule,
working with collaborators in Los Alamos and Leiden University,
have made a major step towards solving the 30-years old puzzle
of so called "hidden order" in an exotic heavy fermion
system.
Key to achieving this breakthrough was the combination of Blumberg's unique laser laboratory at Rutgers, a new generation of samples prepared at LANL and a novel tour-de-force DMFT calculation performed by Kristjan Haule and Gabriel Kotliar. The paper appeared in Science Express online prior to publication in the Science journal.
Read more at:
(2-19-2015)
Sang-Wook Cheong was elected as a new fellow of the Korean Academy
of Science and Technology (KAST), officially starting from Jan. 1, 2015.
KAST is the South Korea's highest integrated think-tank for science and technology. Koreans or Korean-origin foreign nationals are eligible for the KAST fellows , and the total number of the fellows in five different areas should be <500. KAST chose 33 new members. Sang Cheong is one of seven new fellows in the area of Natural Science, and one of two new fellows in the area of Physics.
(2-5-2015)
The Rutgers Physics & Astronomy Department is hosting a 2015
Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWIP) from January
16-18. This is one of eight such conferences coordinated by the
American Physical Society (APS) this year. It brings together
leading female physicists and over 130 undergraduate women in physics
to highlight career opportunities for women in physics and the
contributions of women to physics.
(1-14-2015)
Three faculty members of our
department were elected to the 2014 class of Fellows of the American
Physical Society.
Eva Halkiadakis is cited for "... her leadership in precision electroweak and top quark measurements at the Tevatron and searches for Supersymmetry at the LHC and for pioneering work in pursuit of new physics in multi-jet final states."
Valery Kiryukhin is cited for "... use of x-ray and neutron scattering to understand multiferroics, colossal magnetoresistance and low-dimensional magnetism."
Scott Thomas is cited for "... contributions to the careful analysis of data from experiments at hadron colliders, to the phenomenology of many theories of physics beyond the Standard Model, and to supersymmetry, inflationary cosmology, and quantum gravity."
(12-16-2014)
Andrew Baker and Bob Bartynski have been
elected Fellows of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS selects its fellows "based
on their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts
to advance science or its applications."
Andrew's citation reads "for extraordinary contributions to scholarship in radio astronomy through innovative design of instrumentation, leadership of international collaborations and dedicated mentoring of students."
Bob's citation is "for seminal studies of electronic states at surfaces and interfaces, made possible by developing novel tools such as Auger Photoelectron Coincidence Spectroscopy and Inverse Photoemission."
You can read more at..
(11-26-2014)
The High-Z Supernova Search Team, of
which Saurabh Jha is a member, is one of two collaborations sharing the 2015
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics recognizes major insights into the deepest questions of the Universe.
The prize cites the collaborations' discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and the winners will share a $3,000,000 award!! The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. The prizes aim to celebrate scientists and generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career.
(11-25-2014)
Rutgers astrophysics graduate student John Wu,
who spent a month
this summer as one of two Americans among the 24 participants
in the Vatican Observatory Summer School, is the subject of a
feature story in Rutgers Today:
(10-27-2014)
$500,000 gift from an anonymous donor helps to establish the Peter
Lindenfeld Graduate Fellowship in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
This gift is a special tribute to Professor Emeritus Peter Lindenfeld's
tireless dedication to physics instruction. The fellowship will be used to
support a Physics and Astronomy graduate student who embodies and
exemplifies the teacher-scholar model of learning pioneered by Prof.
Lindenfeld. The Department welcomes donations towards this fellowship so
that it may further honor Peter Lindenfeld by extending the reach of this
opportunity for graduate student support.
(9-7-2014)
Nathaniel Craig, former member of the NHETC
who recently started an Assistant Professor position at UC-Santa Barbara,
has been named a 2014 Regional Award for Young Scientists Finalist by the
Blavatnik Foundation. This recognition comes with an award of $10,000 in
unrestricted funds.
Nathaniel, who was an NHETC postdoc from 2010-2012, and a research associate from 2012-2014, worked closely with David Shih and Scott Thomas on problems in high energy theory beyond the Standard Model and on collider phenomenology that is central to the experimental efforts at the LHC.
(9-7-2014)
A team of astronomers, including Rutgers graduate student Curtis McCully
(lead author)
and Professor Saurabh Jha, used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to find a
companion star to a white dwarf which later exploded in a supernova.
Their findings were published in the August 7, 2014 issue of the journal Nature.
Read more about the "Zombie Star" at:
(8-27-2014)
Sang-Wook Cheong and Seongshik (Sean) Oh have received
five year, $1.7M and $1.5M, respectively, awards from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation's initiative on Emergent Phenomena in Quantum
Systems (EPiQS) through the Materials Synthesis Investigator Program.
The aim of this program is to boost discovery of new quantum materials: substances in which the collective behavior of electrons leads to many complex and unexpected emergent phenomena.
Sang and Sean are two of only twelve investigators nation-wide to receive Materials Synthesis Investigator Awards. Rutgers University is in good company with Stanford University, and Princeton University as the only institutions to receive multiple investigator awards.
The announcement of the awards:
notes: "Recognizing that the discovery of new materials and improvement in materials' quality are key drivers of progress in this field, we will dedicate significant funds to promoting and strengthening materials synthesis within the EPiQS initiative. "
(8-14-2014)
Pankaj Mehta, Rutgers Physics & Astronomy PhD (2006), has been named
a 2014 Simons Investigator. Pankaj, currently a Professor of Physics
at Boston University, received the award for his theoretical work
which "demonstrated the importance of interference between different
signaling channels and provided a mathematical model of the
concentrations of receptor cells, which adjust themselves in response
to multiple and time-varying signals so as to respond optimally to
environmental cues."
Pankaj wrote his thesis in theoretical condensed matter physics entitled "A scattering approach to quantum impurity models in and out of equilibrium" under the direction of Prof. Natan Andrei.
Pankaj joins our Prof. Rachel Somerville as one of the 2014 class of Simons Investigators.
(8-14-2014)
Claud Lovelace's Contributions to String Theory Noted in Popular
Media:
A very nice account of the contributions to the early days of string theory made by the late Rutgers Physics and Astronomy Professor Claud Lovelace can be found at the following website:
- Medium.com article: Man who invented the 26th dimension
- Blog article with some follow-up clarifications
Prof. Lovelace bequeathed his entire estate to Rutgers University, endowing the Claud Lovelace Chair in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics and the Claud Lovelace Graduate Fellowship.
(8-13-2014)
Sang-Wook Cheong has been listed by
Thomson-Reuters as one of The Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014.
This list, which is comprised of 21 fields of science and is available at http://highlycited.com , represents some of the world's leading scientific minds. These researchers earned the distinction by writing the greatest numbers of reports officially designated by Essential Science Indicators as Highly Cited Papers, ranking among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication, and earning them the mark of exceptional impact.
Sang-Wook notes that his former PhD student, Yew San Hor, currently an assistant professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology, is also on the list.
Professor Sang-Wook Cheong is director of the Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials
(8-12-2014)
Rachel Somerville has been named a
2014 Simons Investigator. She is one of only 16 mathematicians,
theoretical physicist or theoretical computer scientists who have
been selected as Simons Investigators in 2014. Rachel is cited for
"... her contributions to the development of `semianalytic modeling'
methods that combine computational and pencil-and-paper theory, and
her use of these methods, to further our understanding of the
physical mechanisms of the formation, structural evolution and
nuclear activity of galaxies."
The Award includes annual research support of $100,000 for a period of 5 years, renewable for an additional 5 years.
(7-25-2014)
Piers Coleman and David Vanderbilt were among 17 individuals named
Simons Fellows Awardees in Theoretical Physics. This highly
competitive award will allow Piers and David up to a semester long
research leave with the objective to increase creativity and provide
intellectual stimulation. Cornell University was the only other
institution where two awardees were named.
Former colleague Glennys Farrar, now at NYU, is also among the awardees.
Congratulations Piers and David.
(7-8-14)
David Maiullo
has been named an inaugural Fellow of the American Association of
Physics Teachers. Fellowship in the AAPT is reserved for "individuals
who have made an exceptional contribution to AAPT's mission to enhance
the understanding and appreciation of physics through teaching."
David's work with our instructional program, his central role in the Faraday Lectures and Rutgers Day presentations, his tireless outreach activities to schools throughout the state and beyond, his increasing number of television appearances, and his presence at the World Science Festival in New York City are just a few of the activities that make him so deserving of this distinction.
Congratulations David, and thanks for being such a great ambassador for our Department and Rutgers University.
(6-30-2014)
Joel Lebowitz has been named by the French Acadmie as the
recipient of the 2014 Grande Medaille de L'Academie.
This award is presented in chemistry or biology on odd years,
and in physics or mathematics on
even years.
The medal is awarded by the French Academy annually to a French or foreign scholar who has contributed decisively to the development of science, both for the originality of their research and by the stimulating international influence it has had in creating a true research discipline.
(06-30-2014)
Larry Zamick awarded Outstanding Review Status for the Annals of
Physics.
The Elsevier Journal, Annals of Physics, which presents original work in all areas of basic physics research, publishing papers on particular topics spanning theory, methodology, and applications, reserves this status for reviews who are in the top 10th percentile in terms of the number of reviews completed for the journal.
(06-30-2014)
Gerfried Kumbartzki, Noemi Koller, and Larry Zamick,
and collaborators,
recent Physical Review C article has been selected as "Editor's
Highlight."
- The article, entitled "Transition from collectivity to single-particle degrees of freedom from magnetic moment measurements on 3882Sr44 and 3890Sr52" can be found here..
(06-30-2014)
Phil Batson, Torgny Gustafsson, and Len Feldman
pioneer two new microscopes, pushing the forefront of nanoscience
and technology.
(06-09-2014)
Rutgers astrophysics professor Saurabh Jha and graduate students
Curtis McCully and Brandon Patel
are on the CLASH (Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble)
team that
has announced the discovery of gravitationally lensed Type Ia supernovae
that can be used to measure how much dark matter is in a cluster of
galaxies. The results from the CLASH team appears in the
May 1, 2014 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
(06-04-2014)
The 2014 US News and World Report rankings are out and Rutgers
Physics & Astronomy is tied for #15 among public institutions.
Rutgers Condensed Matter Physics is ranked #15 in the nation among ALL PhD granting institutions, public or private.
(05-21-2014)
Professor Daniel Friedan has been elected
a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy is
one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a leading
center for independent policy research.
Daniel is the only individual from Rutgers to be elected this year, and is the sixth member of our Department to be elected to the Academy, joining Eva Andrei, Tom Banks, Greg Moore, Karin Rabe and Sasha Zamolodchikov.
(04-24-2014)
For the fifth year in a row, and the eleventh time since its
inception in 1986, one of our majors has won the prestigious Barry
Goldwater Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to 300 students
across the whole nation, majoring in the sciences or engineering.
The latest of our winners is astrophysics major Asher Wasserman, who has been doing research with Andrew Baker.
Physics major Alexandra "Alex" DeMaio received an Honorable Mention.
Alex has been working with Sevil Salur. Last summer she did a research internship at Caltech, and this coming summer she will do a prestigious internship at CERN.
Physics major Taylor Smith, who has been working with Steve Schnetzer, was also awarded a prestigious CERN internship and will be working there this summer.
(04-02-2014)
At their April 1 meeting, the Board of Governors has approved the
promotions of:
- Amit Lath to Professor 1
- Emanuel Diaconescu to Professor 1
Congratulations Amit and Emanuel on your well-deserved promotions.
(04-02-2014)
Four current or former physics majors have been awarded NSF
fellowships this year:
- Kiersten Ruisard '12 (now at Maryland);
- Carlos Vargas '12 (now at New Mexico State);
- Victoria Yu '12 (now at UCLA);
- Julia Gonski '14.
- Former major Tom Holoien '13 (now at Ohio State) received an honorable mention.
Read more about the NSF FastLane Graduate Research Fellowship Program..
(04-02-2014)
Professor Yuri Gershtein, faculty member in our high energy experiment
physics group, will receive a Trustees Award for
Excellence in Research in 2014 at a ceremony later this year.
This award is the university's highest honor for distinguished research
contributions.
(04-01-2014)
Kam-Biu Luk, a former Rutgers Physics graduate student and
currently a professor at Berkeley, has won a
2014 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in
Experimental Particle Physics.
Established in 1985 by friends
of W.K.H. Panofsky (who among his credits was a former
director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory and
professor at Stanford) the $10000 prize is presented annually to a single
researcher or researchers working on the same outstanding
accomplishment in Experimental
Particle Physics.
Professor Kam-Biu Luk was a former PhD student of Rutgers professor Thomas Devlin, who himself also won the Panofsky Prize in 1994.
(03-27-2014)
Eugenia Etkina, Professor in the Graduate
School of Education and member of our graduate faculty, has won the
2014 Millikan Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers
(AATP). The award recognizes educators who have made notable and
creative contributions to the teaching of physics. The award
recognized a number of Eugenia's achievements, in particular her role
a co-creator of the Investigative Science Learning environment (ISLE)
- an approach to teaching and learning physics that helps students
learn physics by engaging in activities that mirror the practice of
physics.
In addition to this award, Eugenia has received the AAPT Distinguished Service Citation in 2012, the 2012 New Jersey Distinguished Faculty Showcase of Exemplary Practices Award, 2011 Rutgers University Graduate School of Education Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award, 2010 Rutgers University Warren I Susman Award for Excellent Teaching, and the 2007 Rutgers University Graduate School of Education Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Research Award.
(3-13-2014)
Professor Sang-Wook Cheong
has been recognized by the 2014 journal editors of the Physical
Review and Physical Review Letters as outstanding referee.
Physical Review and Physical Review Letters began a program to recognize outstanding referees for their journals in 2008. This year, only 143 of the 60,000 referees for these journals were selected for this distinction.
Sang joins past winners: Elihu Abrahams, Eva Andrei, Jolie Cizewski, Piers Coleman, Charlie Glashausser, Gabi Kotliar and David Vanderbilt, as well as Eugenia Etkina from the Dept. of Education and member of our graduate program.
(3-12-2014)
Professor Len Feldman has been named a Fellow
of the Materials Research Society.
Similar to the American Physical Society, the number
of MRS fellows selected each year is capped at
0.2% of the society membership, so this is indeed a notable
distinction.
The citation reads: "For innovative applications of ion beam analysis; seminal contributions to the elucidation of surface and interface structures; and distinguished service to the materials community."
(3-12-2014)
Professor Sevil Salur
has won a prestigious NSF CAREER award. The CAREER award is given in
support of early career development activities with special emphasis
on integrating research and education. This is the 12th such award
to our department since 2004.
(2-18-2014)
Professor John Paul Chou,
has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.
The Sloan recognizes the
most promising young researchers in America. Over 30 Sloan Fellows
have later gone on to win Nobel Prizes. John Paul joins Professors
David Shih, Kristjan Haule, Emil Yuzbashyan, Alex Morozov, and Valery
Kiryukhin to make six Sloan winners in our Department since 2001.
(2-18-2014)
Eva Andrei has been elected as
Chair-Elect of the Section on Physics of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Eva will serve as Chair-Elect
('14-'15), Chair (`15-`16) and Retiring Chair(`16-`17). The Section
on Physics, of which our own Jolie Cizewski is a member-at-large, is
one of 24 that comprise the AAAS.
The AAAS is an international organization with a mission to "advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people." Well known for publication of the journal Science, the AAAS works to fulfill its mission by, among other activities, enhancing communication, promoting integrity, strengthening support for science and technology enterprise, articulating for science on social issues, and promoting responsible use of science in public policy.
(1-28-2014)
Physics Department support specialist David Maiullo has
brought his entertaining and
informative demonstations to a Weather Channel show.
(1-27-2014)
Rutgers undergraduate David Kolchmeyer, a high-energy physics
student, wins the prestigious Churchill Scholarship for graduate study
at University of Cambridge.
(1-24-2014)
Professor Premi Chandra has
been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Her citation reads: "For contributions to the theory of frustrated antiferromagnets and glasses, ferroelectrics and heavy fermion materials."
APS Fellows are elected for exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise. The number of Fellows elected annually is no more than 1/2 of 1% of the Society membership, so Premi is indeed receiving a recognition of distinction.
(1-23-2014)
Professor Greg Moore has been named as the recipient
of the 2014 Leonard Eisenbud Prize for Mathematics and Physics.
Presented every three years by the American Mathematical Society, the prize honors a work or group of works that brings mathematics and physics closer together and that appeared within the preceding six years. The prize will be awarded on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore.
Greg is honored for "his group of works on the structure of four-dimensional supersymmetric theories with extended supersymmetry." The prize citation reads: "[For] his works on supersymmetric solitons in a variety of contexts---including black holes in supergravity, branes in string theory, and monopoles in gauge theory---have led to an explanation of the wall-crossing phenomena in the BPS spectrum. Moore's research has injected new physical ideas and created new constructions in the mathematical fields of cluster algebras, integrable systems, and hyperkähler geometry."
(12-5-2013)
Rutgers Physics & Astronomy postdoc Katherine Myers has received the
American Physical Society Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics
for her
thesis research on the Qweak experiment at Jefferson Lab, under the
supervision of Prof. Allena Opper of The George Washington University.
Only about a dozen such dissertation awards exist, so these are very
selective awards. The Qweak experiment uses parity violating electron
scattering to determine the weak charge of the proton.
(12-4-2013)
At the Board of Governors meeting on December 3, 2013, Professors
Eva Andrei and Karin Rabe were named Rutgers Board of
Governors Professors of
Physics. Board of Governors Professorships are awarded to individuals
whose accomplishments are recognized nationally or internationally as
being consistently and unusually outstanding at a level exceeding even the
extremely high standards expected of faculty members who have earned
Professor II designations at the University. These professorships
recognize faculty members whose accomplishments are particularly
outstanding and have earned the individual faculty member national or
international distinction within the discipline.
Prof. Andrei is cited "her ground-breaking and highly creative contributions to the fields of low dimensional electronic systems and mesoscopic physics"
Prof. Rabe is cited for "her pioneering work in the development of computational methods for studying structural phase transitions in solids, and in the application of these methods for obtaining a deep understanding of the physics of ferroelectric materials"
(12-3-2013)
Professor Ronald Gilman has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS selects its fellows "based on their
scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications."
(11-25-2013>
Professor Greg Moore has been awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for
Mathematical Physics by the American Physical Society. The prize
recognizes outstanding publications in the field of mathematical physics.
The citation reads "For eminent contributions to mathematical physics with a
wide influence
in many fields, ranging from string theory to supersymmetric gauge theory,
conformal field theory,
condensed matter physics and four-manifold theory."
Greg joins a distinguished list of previous Heineman Prize winners, including Professor Zamolodchikov, former Rutgers professor Nathan Seiberg, former NHETC post-doc Juan Maldacena, Stephen Hawking, and Nobel Prize winners Steven Weinberg, Kenneth Wilson, Aage Bohr, Murray Gell-Mann, and Gerard 't Hooft.
More info at the APS website..
(10-02-2013)
Craig Fennie,
former graduate student of Karin Rabe, has won a 2013
MacArthur "Genius" Award.
Craig is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University.
Craig was also a Lucent Fellow in the Department from 2004 to 2006. He won the 2007 Graduate School Dissertation prize, and since then has received national distinction, receiving a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2012, an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) NSF, 2011 and an ARO Young Investigator Award in 2010.
Read more: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/890/
(09-25-2013)
Kristjan Haule has
been awarded a 2013 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists from The New York
Academy of Sciences. "The Blavatnik Awards celebrate innovative and impactful researchers
age 42 or younger working in the life sciences, physical sciences,
mathematics, and engineering." Read more about the Blavatnik Awards at the New York Academy of Sciences.
(06-21-2013)
Mohan Kalelkar establishes a new award for outstanding women physics majors.
(06-17-2013)
Eva Andrei, Karin Rabe, and David Vanderbilt have been
elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Juan Maldecena, a
former post-doc in NHETC, was also elected.
(04-30-2013)
Karin Rabe has been elected a member
of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Academy is one of the nation's most
prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy
research.
Karin is the fifth member of our Department to be elected to the Academy, joining Eva Andrei, Tom Banks, Greg Moore, and Sasha Zamolodchikov.
(04-25-2013)
Jerry Sellwood has been chosen to
receive a Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research for the
academic year 2012-13.
(04-11-2013)
Junior physics major David Kolchmeyer has won the
highly prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship.
The scholarship is awarded annually to 300 students
across the nation, across all of the natural sciences, math, and
engineering.
- More info about The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program..
- Read Rutgers News release..
(03-29-2013)
Professor Eva Andrei appears in an article in
Nature which discusses the gender gap in science.
(03-06-2013)
Two Rutgers Seniors have been awarded Gates Scholarships for graduate study
at University of Cambridge. One of the students, Kelvin Mei, is
a physics major who spent last summer at the CERN laboratory in
Geneva, Switzerland, conducting research in the search for the Higgs
subatomic particle.
Rutgers is the only state university to have two students selected this year.
(02-12-2013)
Rutgers Physicists, Premala Chandra, Piers Coleman,
with Rebecca Flint(now at MIT) have discovered a
new form of hidden "hastatic" order in the
heavy-fermion compound URu2Si2.
- Original article in Nature
- News and Views, Nature, "Hidden is More", by Qimiao Si
- Article by Matthew Francis at arstechnica.com
- Tendencias 21, Descubren un nuevo orden en un material de electronica cuantica
- Wissenschaft aktuell
- Electronics News, New order theorised for electronic polarizer
- Physicists find new order in quantum electronic material
(01-31-2013)
The January/February 2013 issue of Discover magazine ranked
the Higgs Boson
story #1 for the year, and the discovery of "El Gordo" #64.
About 25 Rutgers faculty, post-docs, and grad students are collaborators on CMS, one of the two LHC experiments which discovered the Higgs-like particle. Research Associate Felipe Menanteau and Professor Jack Hughes were leaders of the Chandra X-ray Observatory team which discovered El Gordo, the most massive and hottest galaxy cluster ever seen.
Read more..
(01-29-2013)
The American Mathematical Society has instituted a
new Fellows Program in
late 2012, similar to that
of the American Physical Society. Joel Lebowitz,
who has joint appointment
between the
Mathematics and Physics & Astronomy Department,
and Greg Moore, were
selected as members
of the inaugural class.
More information can be found at http://www.ams.org/profession/ams-fellows/ams-fellows
(01-23-2013)
Physics World has announced its "Top 10 Physics
Breakthroughs" of 2012. Rutgers physicists were involved in three
of the top 10.
- #1. Our high energy experimental and theoretical groups were major players in this, with 25 Rutgers faculty, staff, post-docs and students on the paper. Faculty are John Paul Chou, Yuri Gershtein, Eva Halkiadakis, Amit Lath, Sevil Salur, Steve Schnetzer, Sunil Somalwar and Scott Thomas.
- #4. Galaxy-cluster motion. This was based on data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), an NSF-funded project including Rutgers. Jack Hughes and Felipe Menanteau are co-authors of the Hand et al study.
- #9. Communication using neutrinos. The MINERvA experiment at Fermilab was used to detect a short message using neutrinos from the FNAL NuMI neutrino beam production line. The MINERvA experiment is the main research activity of Ronald Ransome (Department Chair) and his group.
(12-14-2012)
Rutgers Theorists prediction of exotic insulator has
been confirmed by experiment.
Two of the Rutgers/U. Maryland condensed matter theory team that predicted this new insulator have Rutgers connections, Dzero, then a postdoc at U. Maryland, is a former Rutgers Postdoc, and Piers Coleman, is the Director of the Rutgers Center for Materials Theory.
(12/12/2012)
Dave Maiullo and his
travelling Physics show is the topic
of a Rutgers News
article
entitled:
"A Dazzling Physics Show Provides Enduring Lessons"
(11/26/2012)
The APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics began a program
in January 2012 to highlight exceptional female physicists. The award
recognizes female physicists who have positively impacted other individuals'
lives and careers. Jolie Cizewski was named Woman Physicist
of the Month for November, 2012.
The full citation can be found here
(11/12/2012)
Professor Eva Andrei's research is featured on the main
Rutgers University website at
http://www.rutgers.edu/about-rutgers/champion-graphene
For more information about Eva Andrei's work visit Andrei Group website.
(11/2/2012)
CERN experiments have observed a particle consistent with the
long-sought Higgs boson in the mass region around 125-126 GeV.
The preliminary results were presented in Geneva on July 4, 2012.
Rutgers Physicists have been very active in the search for the
Higgs, the existence of which is predicted by the Standard Model.
For more info..
(7/5/2012)
Professor Weida Wu has won a DOE Early Career Award.
The five-year awards are
designed to bolster the nation's
scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers
during the
crucial early career years, when
many scientists do their most formative work. This is the 2nd DOE early
career award won by one of our
faculty (David Shih won one earlier). Weida also won an NSF
CAREER award.
(5/30/12)
Professor Terry Matilsky has won the Richard H. Emmons Award
from the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, which is awarded annually
to an individual demonstrating outstanding achievement in the teaching of
college-level introductory astronomy for non-science majors. Details
can be found at
http://www.astrosociety.org/membership/awards/awards.html.
(5/21/12)
Graduating senior astrophysics major Benjamin Forrest has won one of
two 2011-12 American Eagle Outfitters Michael Tranghese Postgraduate
Leadership Awards given across the entire BIG EAST Conference. The
Tranghese Award honors academic excellence and comes with a $5000
scholarship that can be applied to postgraduate study, in Forrest's
case at Texas A&M University.
More details..
(5/21/12)
Professor Jerry Sellwood has won the Dirk Brouwer Award from
the Division of Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society.
The Brouwer Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of
dynamical astronomy, including excellence in scientific research, impact,
and influence in the field, and
excellence in teaching and training of students.
Details can be found
at http://dda.harvard.edu/.
(5/14/2012)
Professors Eva Andrei and Sasha Zamolodchikov
have been elected to membership in the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The AAAS is one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies
and a leading center for
independent policy research. Founded in 1780, the AAAS
counts more than 200 Nobel Prize laureates and 100
Pulitzer Prize winners among its fellows.
They join Greg Moore and Tom Banks to make 4 members of our Department in the AAAS.
(4/17/2012)
Professor Eva Halkiadakis has won the Rutgers Board of
Trustees Research
Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence
which honors faculty members who have recently
been promoted with tenure and whose work shows
exceptional promise. The fellowship includes a
citation and a $2,000 research account.
(4/17/2012)
Professor Andrew Baker has won the
Presidential Fellowship
for Teaching Excellence which
honors newly
tenured faculty members for outstanding teaching and scholarly work.
The fellowship includes a citation and a $2,000 research account.
(4/17/2012)
Junior physics major Kelvin Mei
has won the highly prestigious Barry Goldwater
Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded
annually to 275 students across the nation,
across all of the natural sciences, math, and engineering.
For more information, please visit..
(3/29/2012)
Professor Gregory Moore has been named a 2012-2013 Simons
Fellow in Theoretical Physics. Each year the Simons Foundation makes up to 20
of these awards in theoretical physics, enabling leaves which
allow physicists to concentrate on their research.
For more information..
(3/23/2012)
The neutrino mixing angle,
θ13
, found to be sizable by the
Daya Bay experiment in China. Professor Kam-Biu Luk of Berkeley
is a Daya Bay co-spokesperson.
He obtained
his Ph.D. from Rutgers under Professor Tom Devlin.
For more information..
(3/19/2012)
In 2008 Physical Review and Physical Review Letters began a program to
recognize outstanding referees for their journals. Of the 45,000
active
referees, about 150 are recognized each year for their unpaid (and
unacknowledged) work in maintaining the high standards of these most
prestigious journals.
This year Eva Andrei and David Vanderbilt have been recognized as outstanding referees. They join past winners: Elihu Abrahams, Jolie Cizewski, Piers Coleman, Charlie Glashausser, and Gabi Kotliar, as well as Eugenia Etkina from the Dept. of Education and member of our graduate program.
(3/2/2012)
Professor David Shih of the Department of Physics & Astronomy
and New High Energy Theory Center has won a Sloan
Fellowship.
The Sloan recognizes the most promising young researchers in America.
Over 30 Sloan Fellows
have later gone on to win Nobel Prizes. David is the only winner from
Rutgers this year,
and joins Professors Kristjan Haule, Emil Yuzbashyan, Alex Morozov, and
Valery Kiryukhin to make
five Sloan winners in our Department since 2001.
(2/15/2012)
Taking inspiration from a kitchen gadget, Vitaly Podzorov develops
a method to apply thin polymer insulators to organic transistors.
Read more about this discovery..
(1/27/2012)
Felipe Menanteau and Jack Hughes and their collaborators have
discovered the most massive and hottest galaxy cluster ever seen in the
distant universe.
The cluster is located some 7 billion light years away from Earth.
Observations were made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the
NSF funded Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile. The galaxy cluster
known as ACT-CL J0102-4915 has been nicknamed "El Gordo" (meaning
"the big one" in Spanish) by the researchers who discovered it.
Read more about this discovery:
- Rutgers Research Highlights
- European Southern Observatory official press release
- NASA/Chandra official press release
- BBC News
- CNN
- Daily Mail (UK)
- MSNBC
- Wired
- CBC News
- Space.com
- AAAS
- Earth & Sky
- Discovery
- Interview on NPR's "All things considered"
(1/11/2012)
Professor Claud W. Lovelace has made a $1.5 million pledge
to fund a new faculty position in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
This is the first gift toward a $27 million challenge grant to establish
18 endowed chairs at the university. The gift will fund a position
named the "Professor Claud Lovelace Endowed Chair in Experimental
Condensed Matter Physics.
Read more about the gift...
(12/6/2011)
The results of the APS Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) 2011
election has been announced. Professor Yuri Gershtein has been elected
a member of the DPF Executive Committee.
- For more info, see http://dpfnewsletter.org
(11/3/2011)
Rutgers has been awarded a $2.3M MRI grant that will bring a "first
of its kind" nanoscale ion beam facility to Rutgers campus.
The principal investigator is Professor Torgny Gustafsson. Co-PI's
on the project are Professors Eva Andrei and
Len Feldman, and Professors Laura Fabris and Adrian Mann
from
Materials Science and Engineering.
Together with other recent NSF
awards this
instrument will provide new nano-scale capability and establish
Rutgers as a national center for nano-scale microscopy. When
complete, the
facility will be the base of a multi-user center for ion microscopes
providing excellent hands on opportunities for Rutgers students and
researchers,
the broader academic community as well as New Jersey industries.
(10/14/2011)
The Rutgers Astronomical Society co-sponsored the International
Observe the Moon Night event at the Orange Public Library in
Orange, NJ on October 8, 2011.
Professor Carlton Pryor and Society members Viraj Pandya, Chris Carroll, Madison Hagar, and Garth Malcolm shared interesting stories about the Cosmos and set up three telescopes for young children and their parents to view the Moon through.
(10/13/2011)
Dave Maiullo has appeared on Dark Matters
(Science Channel); for episode
clips with him in them see
(10/06/2011)
Rutgers professor Saurabh Jha was a graduate student on a team led by
today's Nobel Prize in Physics winner Brian Schmidt,
who shares half of the prize with Adam Riess, lead author of the seminal
report on the expansion of the galaxy
(Astronomical Journal, v. 116, p. 1009, 1998).
Team members observed bright exploding stars at the edges of the universe, gauging how far away they were and how fast they were receding, reaching the conclusion that the universe is continuing to expand. Since then, Jha has continued to work on observing these exploding stars, called type 1a supernovae, measuring their distance and speed with increasingly higher precision. His work has contributed to the confidence that scientists have in the conclusions drawn from that original 1998 study.
Read more about Professor Jha:
Read more about the Nobel Prize for Physics..(10/04/2011)
Professor Eva Halkiadakis has been appointed a co-convener
of the Supersymmetry Search group of the CMS experiment of the
Large Hadron Collider. In this capacity, she will lead CMS's
supersymmetry search teams of leading scientists from
the world's major universities.
(09/15/2011)
Professor Eric Gawiser has won a prestigious NSF CAREER award.
The CAREER award
is given in support of early career development activities with special
emphasis on
integrating research and education. This is the 11th such award to our
department since 2004.
(08/30/2011)
Professor Sasha Zamolodchikov has won the 2011 Dirac Medal, awarded by
the International
Centre for Theoretical Physics for his contributions to string
theory and condensed matter
theory.
The announcement can be found at http://www.ictp.it/news/2011-dirac-medal.aspx
(08/30/2011)
Professor Eric Gawiser is part of a collaboration which discovered
evidence that black holes were common in the early universe. The
discovery was announced by NASA June 15, 2011
(Read NASA announcement)
and Eric was profiled in Rutgers Today
(Read article)
(06/15/2011)
Professor Mark Croft helped develop a new battery technology with GE,
profiled in the
Discovery & Innovation site of the Department of Energy Office of Science
as
published in the Journal of Power Sources (view PDF).
Based on the successful collaboration, GE has a joint proposal with Rutgers
for
the creation of a new beam line
at the National Synchrotron Light Source.
(06/14/2011)
Professor Sang-Wook Cheong was named Board of Governors
Professor at the
June 14, 2011 meeting of Board of Governors. Board of Governors
Professorships are awarded to individuals whose accomplishments are
recognized
nationally or internationally as being consistently and unusually
outstanding at a level exceeding even
the extremely high standards expected of faculty members who have earned
Professor II designations
at the University. These professorships recognize faculty members whose
accomplishments are particularly
outstanding and have earned the individual faculty member national or
international distinction within the discipline.
(06/14/2011)
Assistant professor Eva Halkiadakis has been awarded
an LHC Physics Center Fellowship
for the 2011-12 academic year. She joins current fellow
John Paul Chou who
will be
an assistant professor at Rutgers starting fall 2011. More information on
the LPC program
can be found at
http://lpc.fnal.gov/fellows/index.shtml
(05/26/2011)
Professor Saurabh Jha won
the 2010-2011 Bart J. Bok prize from the Harvard
Department of Astronomy.
It is awarded annually to a Harvard Astrophysics Ph.D. recipient 35 or
younger for outstanding research.
He received the award for "outstanding work and keen insight in crafting methods to make supernovae into sharp tools for measuring the universe."
Saurabh gave the Bok Prize Lecture at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center on May 5.
(05/10/2011)
Professors Gregory Moore and Thomas Banks have been elected to
membership in the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, one of the
nation's most prestigious
honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy
research. Founded in 1780, the AAAS is
one of the most prestigious honorary societies and counts
more than 200 Nobel Prize laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners
among its fellows.
(4/20/2011)
Junior physics major Kiersten Ruisard has
won the highly prestigious Barry
Goldwater Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded annually to 275 students
across the nation, across all of the natural sciences, math, and
engineering. For more information, please visit the Barry M. Goldwater
Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program website at
http://www.act.org/goldwater/
(4/1/2011)
Professor Eva Andrei's work on graphene has been spotlighted at
the physicsworld.com website.
(4/4/2011)
Professor Jack Hughes and postdoctoral researcher
Kristoffer Eriksen have made the discovery of a pattern
of X-ray "stripes" in the remains of an exploded star. Their work
used observations of the Tycho supernova remnant made with
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
(3/25/2011)
The work of Eva Andrei has been recently highlighted in
Physics-spotlight of Physical Review Letters at
the American Physical Society. The groundbreaking paper
provides "experimental proof of the influence of twisting on the
band structure of bilayer graphene."
(3/22/2011)
Rutgers University astrophysics major, Samia Bouzid, while
participating in a summer research program in Arizona, was on a research
team that unexpectedly discovered two novae in the Andromeda Galaxy.
In 2008 Physical Review and Physical Review Letters began a program to
recognize outstanding referees
for their journals. Of the 45,000 active referees, about 150 are recognized
each year for their
unpaid (and unacknowledged) work in maintaining the high standards of our
most prestigious journals.
Among this year's winners are:
- Charles Glashausser
- Gabi Kotliar
- Eugenia Etkina (a member of our Graduate Program and faculty member in the Department of Education)
Read more at the APS website
(2/11/2011)
Piers Coleman and collaborators from Rice and Tokyo have found
a new material that is "intrinsically quantum critical
with very simple behavior." The research may have discovered an exotic new
phase of matter known as the "critical strange metal" phase. Read more about
this ground-breaking discovery below:
More information available at:
(1/20/2011)
The AAAS has announced that
Eva Andrei and Karin Rabe
have been named fellows of the AAAS. The American Association for
the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization
dedicated to "advance science and serve society". Amoung the publications
published by AAAS is it's journal Science. Professors Andrei and Rabe
will be recognized for their contributions to science, along with other new
fellows, at the Feb 19 2011 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
More information can be found at:
(1/11/2011)
David Maiullo was recently featured on the Rutgers radio station
"The Core" on 90.3FM. In the interview, David discusses the 2010
Faraday Christmas Children's Lectures.
- Information about the 2010 Faraday Christmas Children's Lecture...
- Listen to David Maiullo's "The Core 90.3" radio interview (mp3 file)...
- Article from MyCentralJersey.com...
(12/09/2010)
Steve Schnetzer was named this year as a Fellow of the American
Physical Society. The citation reads: "For his work co-founding
the AMY detector collaboration, at which he and his student made
powerful quantitative tests of quantum chromodynamics, and for his
work on experimental particle physics
hardware, especially his pioneering work on diamond-based detectors.".
(12/02/2010)
Noemie Koller has been awarded the
2010 Nicholson Medal for Human Outreach. The citation reads
"For unselfish commitment to advocating the freedom of scientists around the
world and for leadership in fostering equal opportunities for women in
science."
More info...
(12/02/2010)
Eugenia Etkina, Professor of Education and member of the
Graduate Program of Physics and Astronomy, has won the
Science Prize for On-Line Technology Resources of the AAAS, a prize for
the best on-line materials in science education.
(11/02/2010)
Jack Hughes, Felipe Menanteau and
collaborators at the Pontifical Catholic
University of Chile have discovered new galaxy clusters revealed by cosmic
"shadows." Their discovery is published in the November 10 issue of the
Astrophysics Journal.
(11/01/2010)
Professor Alexander (Sasha) B. Zamolodchikov has won the 2011
Lars Onsager Prize of the American
Physical Society. The citation reads "For outstanding
contributions to theoretical physics, and especially for the
remarkable ideas that they introduced concerning conformal field
theory and soluble models of statistical mechanics in two
dimensions."
Sharing the prize were Alexander A. Belavin of the Landau
Institute and
Alexander M Polyakov of Princeton University
(10/25/2010)
The Aresty Center
has awarded a travel scholarship to physics
senior Sean Yeager. He is writing his honors thesis on search for
supersymmetry under Prof. Sunil Somalwar. Sean has previously
received research fellowships from the department as well as the
Aresty Center.
(10/25/2010)
Professor Sang-Wook Cheong is coauthor of an article appearing in the
October 2010 issue of Physics Today entitled Multiferroics:
Past, present, and future. Read the article (subscription required)
(10/21/2010)
Professor Vitaly Podzorov, along with postdoctoral researcher
Hikmat Najafov, graduate students Bumsu Lee and
Qibin Zhou, and
Leonard Feldman, director of the Rutgers Institute for
Advanced Materials,
Devices and Nanotechnology (IAMDN), have been published in Nature
Materials. Their paper entitled "Observation of long-range
exciton diffusion in highly ordered organic semiconductors"
discusses a newly discovered property in a material that may lead to
efficient and inexpensive plastic solar cells.
(10/11/2010)
Professor Philip Batson, with co-PI's Sang Cheong,
Fred Cosandey
(Materials Science and Engineering), Jing Li (Chemistry and
Chemical Biology) and Ondrei Krivanek (Nion Corp.) have been
recognized in the report
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/100-Recovery-Act-Projects-Changing-America-Report.pdf
(project 46) as one of 100 projects funded by the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act which are helping to transform
America. The project will make Rutgers a leading university for electron microscopy.
(9/17/2010)
Professor Vitaly Podzorov has been awarded a
prestigious NSF CAREER award.
This is the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in
support of early
career development activities with special emphasis on integrating
research and
education. The award provides long term stability (5 years) for young
professors.
Vitaly received the award in 2009, we apologize for the delayed
announcement.
This makes this the 10th NSF career award to our department in the past
6th years.
(9/17/2010)
Undergraduate Physics student Edward Lochocki is one of three
Rutgers students to win a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship.
He is majoring in Physics and Mathematics and is interested in a
career in academia. More info
(9/1/2010)
Professor Karin Rabe is a coauthor on a recent Nature paper
that was an experimental
confirmation of a prediction of her former grad student Craig Fennie.
More info:
(8/26/2010)
Professor Jolie Cizewski's
recent work with her former postdoc, Kate Jones, now a professor
at University of Tennessee, has attracted great notice. They studied the
structure of the doubly magic tin-132
nucleus through the addition of a neutron to form tin-133. The
results impact on the r-process
which produces heavy nuclei in supernova explosions.
(8/10/2010)
Professor Andrew Baker
has been recommended for a prestigious NSF CAREER award.
This is the
National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of early
career-development activities with special emphasis on integrating research
and education. The award provides long term funding stability (5 years).
This is the 9th such award to our department during the past six years.
(8/4/2010)
Former Rutgers student Marta Losada,
as been elected President of Antonio
Narino University,
Bogota, Colombia. Dr. Losada received her Ph.D. from Rutgers
in 1996, under the supervision
of Professor Glennys Farrar.
Professor Chuck Keeton will receive two awards from
the University at a reception on May 5, 2010. One of the awards is a
Board of Trustees Fellowship for
Scholarly Excellence. The other award is a Presidential Award
for Teaching Excellence.
Congratulations go out to Chuck for his many wonderful
contributions to our department and our university.
At the April 15 meeting, the Board of Governors approved the promotion
of Misha Gershenson to Professor II, and Yuri Gershtein
and Chuck Keeton to Associate Professors with tenure.
Warmest congratulations to Misha, Yuri and Chuck for these richly deserved
promotions!!
Professor Andrew Baker
will be
awarded an SAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to
Undergraduate Education at a ceremony in the Winants Hall
Assembly room in Voorhees Hall at 4 PM on May 4.
Professor Jolie Cizewski has been elected Member-at-Large
for the Section on Physics of the
American Association for the Advancement
of Science. Her term started February, 2010.
Professor Eva Andrei will receive the Trustees Award for
Excellence in Research at a ceremony on May 5, 2010, recognizing her
widely known and highly appreciated
work on graphene.
This award is the university's highest honor for distinguished research
contributions.
It is the second year in a row that this award goes to our department -
Jack Hughes won last year.
Junior physics major Ed Lochocki has won the highly prestigious Barry
Goldwater Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded annually to 300 students
across the nation, across all of the natural sciences, math, and
engineering. For more information, please visit the Barry M. Goldwater
Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program website at
http://www.act.org/goldwater/.
Professor Yuri Gershtein has been
selected to receive a 2010 NSF CAREER award.
This is the
National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of early
career-development activities with special emphasis on integrating research
and education. The award provides long term funding stability (5 years).
This is the 8th such award to our department during the past three years.
Andrei Malashevich has won one ofthe six annual Dean's awards
for outstanding
research, based on
his dissertation "FIRST-PRINCIPLES STUDY OF ELECTRIC POLARIZATION IN
PIEZOELECTRIC AND MAGNETOELECTRIC MATERIALS", under the guidance of Professor
David Vanderbilt. The award includes a prize of $1000.
Brian Tice was selected to attend the
2010 Nobel Laureate Meeting at Lindau
June 27-July 2. About 600 students
in chemistry, physics, and medicine/physiology are chosen in a world-wide
competition.
Over 60 Nobel Laureates will attend the meeting to give
lectures and meet with the
students.
Brian is a student of Professor Ron Ransome.
Physics support specialist David Maiullo is featured in
Rutgers Magazine. As the author of the article writes:
David "takes hard-to-understand scientific principles and creates
ways to make audiences sit up and pay attention".
Read more..
Assistant professor David Shih has won the DOE Early Career Award
(the DOE equivalent of the NSF CAREER award) for his proposal:
"Supersymmetry Breaking, Gauge Mediation and the LHC".
More information about the Early Career Research Program can be found at
the
U.S. Department of Energy website.
A recent APS Phys Rev E paper, entitled "Diffusion of
scientific credits and the ranking of scientists" describes a
method for ranking publications and authors, and then compares the system
to the assignments of major career awards. The authors discuss that while
this ranking system uses the Phys Rev database, it can be applied to other
disciplines as well. By visiting http://www.physauthorsrank.org you can enter a name and
receive the rank based on their algorithm.
On page 7 of the
article
two tables show the top 20 scientists ranked according to
their method for two years, 1973 and 2004. Rutgers Physics professor
Claud Lovelace ranked 14th according to their system in 1973 and
professor David Vanderbilt ranked 13th in 2004 on these charts!
This provides further evidence of the highly influential work being
performed in the department.
Professor Andrew Baker is spending the Fall semester as a
visiting scientist at the Atacama Large Milimeter/submillimeter Array
(ALMA) project in Chile. This large array of telescopes is currently
being constructed and tested and will be used for observations in 2011.
George Horton, Professor II of physics, passed away Nov 1, 2009, at the
Robert Wood Johnson hospital in New
Brunswick. George had been in poor health for some time,
but his death still came as a surprise to
his many friends.
George received his Ph D in 1949 at Birmingham University in the UK, under Sir Rudolph Peierls. After doing a post-doc in Zurich, he moved to the University of Alberta in Canada in 1951. In 1960, he came to Rutgers as chair of the physics department at Douglass college. The spring semester 2010 would therefore have been his 100th semester here.
George was a condensed matter theorist with a specialization in lattice dynamics, particularly in strongly anharmonic crystals. As late as in 2003, he still published on this subject. He had a long and lasting impact on the department and on Rutgers. He was a popular and loved teacher and did important work related to the teaching of physics, both locally and on the national scene. He created the Physics Learning Center (now the MSLC), the Gateway program and was very active in forming the AAUP chapter at Rutgers. He was also the central figure in establishing an HMO at Rutgers, which very significantly improved the health benefits for all his colleagues here. He received many honors for his work, such as the Georgina Smith Award from the AAUP "For Creative and Distinguished Leadership", the presidential Award for Distinguished Public Service, the Sussman Award for Excellence in Teaching, Best Teacher of the Year Award and several more.
-Torgny Gustafsson, Physics & Astronomy Chair
Visit Geoge Horton Memorial website
Eva Andrei and colleagues make a ground-breaking discovery!
From the Nature press release:
"Physics: Charge break-up in graphene"
"Researchers confirm that charge carriers in graphene interact strongly with each other and exhibit collective behaviour manifesting as fractions of an electron's elementary charge. Graphene is expected to find a range of applications in future electronics and these findings are important for understanding its complex physical properties."
"When charge carriers such as electrons are confined to moving in a two-dimensional plane and subject to a perpendicular magnetic field, they can form new quasi-particles with a fraction of the electron's elementary charge. This is known as the fractional quantum Hall effect FQHE. Graphene could be considered such a perfect two-dimensional system because the carbon atomic constituents are arranged in a single plane. Its charge carriers are remarkably mobile and have been predicted to interact strongly with each other. But firm evidence of collective behaviour such as the FQHE has been difficult to obtain."
"Eva Andrei and colleagues report the experimental observation of FQHE using devices containing suspended sheets of graphene probed in a two-terminal measurement set-up. Their approach removes disturbances from impurities that would normally obscure the effects of electron interactions, and may explain why previous searches have failed."
More press releases and news articles:
| Science article | Physics World article | Rutgers Press Release |
| Eurikalert | e!ScienceNews | nanowerk |
| Science Daily | Nanotechweb | Softpedia |
| Google News | Polish news interia | Thaindian News |
Daniel Friedan, Professor II and a founding member
of the New High Energy Theory Center (NHETC) has won the
2010 Lars Onsager Prize of the American Physical Society,
one of the most prestigious prizes the APS awards. The citation reads:
For seminal work on the classification and characterization of
two-dimensional unitary conformal field theories of critical states
Daniel shares this prize with Steve Shenker of Stanford University. Steve was also a founding member of the NHETC and a member of our faculty until the end of 1998.
Professor Sang-Wook Cheong is being honored by the
American Physical Society with the
2010 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials, one of
the most prestigious prizes the APS awards. The citation reads:
For groundbreaking contributions in theory and experiment that have
advanced the understanding and utility of multiferroic oxides.
The prize consists of a cash award and a certificate. He shares this prize with Ramamoorthy Ramesh, UC-Berkeley, and Nicola Spaldin, UC-Santa Barbara (Nicola, a theorist, got her start in this field working with Karin Rabe of our department).
Rutgers Physics and Astronomy Assistant Professor Saurabh Jha has been
selected to receive an NSF CAREER award. Professor Jha won the award for his
proposal "CAREER: Supernova Cosmology and the Changing Sky". This is the
National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of early
career-development activities with special emphasis on integrating research
and education. The award provides long term funding stability (5 years).
This is the 7th such award to our department during the past two years.
Ron Ransome has received an award from the Department of Education
for 5 fellowships
under the Graduate Assistantships in Areas of National Need (GAANN)
program. The fellowships
are intended to support students with excellent records and financial need,
with an emphasis on
encouraging under-represented groups to pursue careers in areas of national
need.
Chuck Keeton
has been named to receive a
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Chuck is
being recognized by the White House as an outstanding early career
researcher, the highest honor that a beginning scientist or engineer can
receive in the United States. The awards are given based on pursuit of
innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and a
commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific
leadership, public education, or community outreach.
Charles Keeton will receive his award in the Fall at a White House ceremony.
Former Rutgers postdoc, Dr. Kate Jones, has received a 2009
Outstanding Junior Investigator award from the U.S. Department
of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics. She worked under the supervision
of Professor Jolie Cizewski and is now at the University of
Tennessee-Knoxville. The award is given to exceptionally talented new
physicists early in their careers to assist and help facilitate the
development of thier research programs.
Professor Kristjan Haule
has been awarded a Rutgers University Board of
Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence,
recognizing him as one of the university's most
distinguished young faculty members.
More about
Kristjan Haule's work
Professor Jolie Cizewski
has been named Outstanding Referee by the American
Physical Society. The Outstanding Referee program
expresses appreciation for the essential work that anonymous
peer reviewers do for APS journals and to the physics community.
Each year a small percentage of the 42,000 APS referees are selected
and honored with
the Outstanding Referee designation.
Selections are made based on the number, quality, and timeliness
of the referee reports as collected in a
database over the last 20 years.
Professor Jack Hughes will receive the Rutgers Board of
Trustees Award for Excellence in Research.
This award is the university's highest honor for distinguished research
contributions.
Professor Sunil Somalwar will receive the Rutgers
Faculty Scholar-Teacher Award. This award honors faculty members who
have made outstanding contributions in research and teaching, making visible
the link between teaching and scholarship.
The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has selected
David Maiullo as the recipient of a Distinguished Service Citation, to be
awarded at the Summer 2009 meeting, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The distinguished
Service Citation is presented to AAPT members in recognition of their
exceptional contributions to AAPT and physics teaching.
More info
Assistant Professor Alex Morozov, who has a joint appointment in
our department and in BioMaps, has won a Sloan Foundation fellowship.
These two-year prestigious fellowships are given to early-career
scientists and scholars of outstanding promise in recognition of
distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial
contributions to their field.
Assistant Professor Alex Morozov, who is in his first year on our
faculty, has just received funding for his first grant proposal to
NIH. His proposal was rated in the 99.5th percentile in the NIH
study section (the highest in this section), where most of
the proposals came from more senior scientists.
Professor Yuri Gershtein has been elected the US Physics Coordinator of
the
CMS experiment
at the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Sourabh Dube has been awarded the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's
2009 Chamberlain Fellowship. This Fellowship honors Owen Chamerlain,
who (along with others) discovered the antiproton in 1955 at the
Berkeley Bevatron.
Rutgers Physics Assistant Professor Seongshik Oh
has been selected to receive an NSF CAREER award.
Professor Oh won the award
for his proposal "CAREER: Atomically-Engineered Complex
Oxides and their Heterostructures for Novel
Electronic Functionalities".
This is the National Science
Foundation's most prestigious award in support of early career-development
activities with special emphasis on integrating research and education.
The award provides long term funding stability (5 years).
This is terrific news, and is the 5th such award to our department during
the past twelve months.
Associate Professor Valery Kiryukhin has won a Friedrich
Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation in Germany. Award winners are honored "for their
outstanding research record and invited to spend a
period of up to one year cooperating on a long-term research project
with specialist colleages at a research institution in Germany."
Valery is planning to be working with colleagues at the Max Planck
Institute in Stuttgart.
Weida Wu, Rutgers Physics Department Assistant Professor, has been
awarded an NSF CAREER award for his proposal: "CAREER:
Nanoscale Magnetic Phenomena and Coercivity Mechanism in Layered Magnets
with Extremely Large Anisortopy".
This is the National Science
Foundation's most prestigious award in support of early career-development
activities with special emphasis on integrating research and education.
The award provides long term funding stability (5 years).
This is terrific news, and is the 4th such award to our department during
the past twelve months.
David Vanderbilt was
appointed Board of Governors Professor at the Board of
Governors meeting on December 12, 2008 in Winants Hall. David's path
breaking research, which has given him and Rutgers world wide acclaim, is
matched by stellar accomplishments in teaching and service. Congratulations
to David on this prestigious appointment.
Sang-Wook Cheong, Professor II of Physics and Donald H. Jacobs Chair
in Applied Physics,
has received the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) Overseas Compatriots Award.
The award is given to ethnic Koreans living overseas who have made
a distinguished contribution in promoting the image of the people and culture
of Korea. The award is for ten million Korean won, or about seven thousand
US dollars, and KBS will produce a documentary on his life and achievements.
Further information
Congratulations to Jack Hughes who has
just become a fellow of the
American Physical Society.
This is a further sign of the great regard that Jack's work
(and that of the entire astronomy group) is held in.
Len Feldman (Ph.D. 1967 under Gibson - Large Angle
Elastic Scattering of Energetic Protons in Silicon Single Crystals)
has been awarded the
Graduate School Alumni Prize for Distinguished Accomplishments
and Services in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Engineering.
Len has recently rejoined the Department as the head of the
IAMDN.
Doug Boyd (Ph.D. 1968 under thesis advisor Donovan -
The Proton-Neutron Final State Interaction
)
will receive this year's Graduate School Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Kristjan Haule has received the CAREER award from the National Science
Foundation. This award supports the early career-development activities of
teacher-scholars who effectively combine research with education activities.
This is the third such award given to our department for the academic year
2007/8, a record number.
More about Kristjan's work
Junior astrophysics major
Jennifer Van Saders
has won the highly prestigious
Barry Goldwater Scholarship.
The scholarship is awarded annually to 300 students across the nation, across
all of the natural sciences, math, and engineering. For more information,
please visit the Barry M. Goldwater
Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program website.
Congratulations to Patrick O'Malley who will be receiving the Department
of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration Stewardship Science
Graduate Fellowship starting Fall 2008 for up to 4 years. He will
be receiving a very competitive stipend, full tuition and fee remission,
plus an account for his research.
Patrick is one of only 4 recipients from across the country.
A second-year graduate student, Patrick
is doing research in low-energy experimental nuclear physics
with Jolie Cizewski.
Charles Keeton
has been awarded a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.
This award
supports the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars who
effectively combine research with education activities. More info is
available from the NSF.
Professor Kristjan Haule has been awarded a
2008 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship
award. These very competitive awards are given annually
in seven fields. The award is intended to enhance the careers of the
very best young faculty members in these fields of science.
More about Kristjan's work
David Maiullo demonstrates standing waves in NY Times article which
appeared on the web on Feb 19, 2008. Watch NY Times video 
Vladimir Aksyuk, Ph.D. 1999, under the supervision of Prof. Abrahams and
Dr. Bishop of Lucent, has been selected for the
graduate school award
for distinguished accomplishment by an alumnus early in his career
, for
his contributions to telecommunications technology. Dr. Aksyuk is
currently employed by Alcatel-Lucent Technologies.
Eric Gawiser
has made some very interesting observations of small distant galaxies
which are a step in the evolution of our own galaxy. He gave a news
conference on January 8, 2008 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin
on Monday and the story has spread quickly.
Related articles:
Eva Halkiadakis
has received the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. This award
supports the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars who
effectively combine research with education activities. More info is
available from the NSF.
Mark Croft, Misha Gershenson, and Matt Strassler
have become fellows of the American Physical Society.
- Mark Croft is cited for "seminal contributions to correlated electron physics and electronic structure of rare earth and transitional metal compounds; novel applications of synchrotron radiation"
- Misha Gershenson is cited for "experimental studies of quantum transport and dephasing processes in disordered low-dimensional electronic systems."
- Matt Strassler is cited for "work extending the AdS/CFT gravity/gauge duality to QCD-like confining theories, and for insights into novel aspects of the physics of strongly coupled supersymmetric theories."
Emil Yuzbashyan, Assistant Professor in our department and a
condensed matter theorist, has won a Packard Foundation
fellowship. The Packard Foundation awards extremely competitive
fellowships to outstanding junior faculty members in science and
engineering.
Only the most prominent universities in the US are allowed
to nominate candidates and the competition is extemely tough.
This year, out of the 20 fellowships awarded, only two were given in physics
in the entire country (last year, none). This is the very first Packard
award not just in our department but in any department at Rutgers.
Related links:
Professor Karin Rabe
has
won the 2008 David Adler Lectureship Award of the American Physical Society.
This award was established to recognize an outstanding contributor in
materials physics, who is noted for the quality of his/her research,
review
articles and lecturing. The citation announcing
Karin's award reads:
"For research, writings and presentations on the theory of structural phase
transitions and for the application of first-principles electronic structure
methods to the understanding of technologically important phenomena in
ferroelectrics"
Junya Yagi and Dmitry Hits
were presented the Richard J. Plano Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards
at the recent Department Welcome Reception.
This award, which includes a cash prize, is given annually to TAs who in the
judgement of the faculty have demonstrated outstanding teaching excellence.
Read more about the Plano Outstanding
TA Award.
Incoming junior faculty, Saurabh Jha,
is a member of the supernova team
that was awarded this year's Gruber Prize in Cosmology.
Congratulations to Saurabh!"
Amit Lath and Anton Anastassov were cited in the July 24, 2007
NY Times article about the race for the (Higgs) "God Particle".
The article about the "Race for the Higgs Boson" made the front page of the NY Times Online.
Vitaly Podzorov was recently interviewed by Thompson Scientific,
which has identified his group's highly cited papers in the forefront
of research on Organic Semiconductors.
Read the Interview.
The Essential Science Indicator
Thompson Scientific is a resource that
enables
researchers to conduct ongoing, quantitative analyses of research
performance
and track trends in science. Covering a multidisciplinary selection of
11,000+ journals
from around the world, this in-depth analytical tool offers data for ranking
scientists,
institutions, countries, and journals.
The Ho-Am Foundation has selected Professor Sang-Wook Cheong
to be awarded one of five Ho-Am Foundation prizes this year.
Cheong has won the prize for
Science with a value of about 200 million won or about $200,000. It is
sometimes referred to as the Korean Nobel Prize. The prize was
awarded at a ceremony in Korea on June 1. The other areas are Engineering,
Medicine, the Arts, and Community Service.
The foundation was set up in memory of the founder of the Samsung Group. The award honors "those who have made outstanding contributions to the development of science and culture and the enhanceof the welfare of mankind." Cheong is being honored for establishing a new paradigm in the field of the physical properties of emergent materials.
Watch the video posted on the Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials website.
The 2007 Graduate School Dissertation
prize was won by Craig Fennie. Craig did his research
under the supervision of Karin Rabe, and is now a
Nicholas Metropolis Fellow at Argonne National Lab.
This is the second year in a row the award went to a physics
student (last year Jeff Thomas, Jolie Cizewski's student, won).
Lev Ioffe has been awarded fellowship in the American Physical Society
"For significant contributions to the theory of spin glasses without
quenched disorder, disordered superconductors, high T_c superconductors
and the discovery of Josephson networks with topological order parameters."
Joel Lebowitz has been awarded the Planck medal of the German Physical
Society for his lifetime achievements. This is the most prestigious prize
for theoretical physics awarded by the Society. The list of previous winners
is truly impressive.
From the press release (Translated from the German) (Nov.11, 2006):
Max Planck medal goes into the USA
Awards of the German Physical Society
Bad Honnef, 15. November 2006 --- In the coming year, Joel L. Lebowitz,
head of the Center for Mathematical Sciences Research at the US-American
Rutgers University, is going to receive the Max Planck medal, the highest
honor for theoretical physics of the German Physical Society (DPG). Born
in former Czechoslovakia, the expert for statistical physics will be honored
for his lifetime achievements. The Stern-Gerlach medal ...
***
It follow sections pertinent to the two medals
Section: Max-Planck-Medal 2007
Subtitle: highest DPG honor for theoretical physics
Prof. Dr. Joel L. Lebowitz (76),
Rutgers University, Center for Mathematical Sciences Research
Piscataway, US State of New Jersey
it follows the citation:
"for his important contributions to the statistical physics of equilibrium and
non-equilibrium systems, in particular his contributions to the theory of phase
transitions, the dynamics of infinite systems, and the stationary non-equilibrium
states. Furthermore he is going to be honored for his promoting of new directions
of this field at its farthest front, and for enthusiastically introducing several
generations of scientists to the field."
It follows a brief description of JLL's achievements:
Physics of many particles: Joel Lebowitz, born 1930 in former Czechoslovakia,
receives this distinction for his lifetime achievement. Throughout his scientific
career Lebowitz has been concerned with fundamental topics of statistical physics.
This includes heat transport, magnetism and questions of hydrodynamics. Lebowitz
also pondered the phenomenon of the `arrow of time.' This is about the question
why time only progresses and why physical processes generally evolve only in one
direction. All these works bear on the vast field of statistical physics. Its aim
is to deduce macroscopic properties of many particle systems --- such as the
pressure of a gas or the magnetization of a solid --- from microscopic (atomic)
laws.
... This distinction consists of a gold medal
The award ceremony takes place in March 2007 during the central annual
meeting of the DPG in Regensburg
Congratulations to Noemie Koller who is the recipient of the 2006
Distinguished Service Award of the Division of Nuclear Physics of the
American Physical Society. She was recognized "For her sustained and
exceptional contributions to the Division of Nuclear Physics and to the
American Physical Society on behalf of the Division, for her creative
promotion of education and the climate for women in nuclear science, and for
her vigorous efforts to develop the Division's initial Nuclear Physics
brochure and to fund the Bonner Prize."
The award was presented at the meeting of the Division in Nashville
in October of 2006.
First Light for the Rutgers Fabry Perot Instrument on the SALT Telescope. The Farby-Perot system of the Robert Stobie Spectrograph was used
for the first time on September 22, 2006 to acquire on-sky images with the
Southern African Large Telecope.
Read more (PDF)
The CDF experiment at Fermilab has measured the oscillation
of the Bs meson into Bs-bar. Quoted as a mass difference,
the value is Delta_ms = 17.77 +- 0.10 (stat) +- 0.07 (sys) ps-1.
The oscillation is explained by the Standard Model, and the value above is in accordance with it. However, there are many beyond SM models (supersymmetry for instance) that cannot avoid affecting this oscillation. So this result will help narrow the window for new physics. The details are in hep-ex/0609040. Read more at the CDF Web site at FermiLab
Kitta MacPherson of the Newark Star-Ledger had a story this morning: http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1159251134290850.xml?starledger?ntop&coll=1
Note an egregious mistake near the end: "For reasons of physics, the Higgs boson, which has much less mass, would likely be drawn to the heavier b quark in the meson." Oh, don't we wish the Higgs were that light! In fact, the Higgs boson has much MORE mass than the b quark. It is (probably) lighter than twice the top quark mass, so it will want to decay to the LIGHTER b quark. Assuming of course the Higgs is indeed what is responsible for breaking electroweak symmetry.
At this year's Graduate Student Organization sponsored Dept Welcome Reception,
the Richard J. Plano Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award was
presented to Vesselin Marinov and Brian Vancil.
The NJ Science Teachers Association
and the NJ Science Education Leadership Association
have selected Dave Maiullo to be awarded the NJAAPT
Lifetime Contribution to Physics Education Award at the New Jersey
Science Convention Awards Dinner October 11, 2006.
Emil Yuzbashyan has been awarded
a prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.
This award, given to the most outstanding young scholars, will provide
substantial research support for the next five years.
According to the NSF web site, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education.
Gabe Alba and Hsu-Chang Lu have won First Prize in the 2006 Apparatus
Competition of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Their entry
was entitled "Bend It Like Bernoulli" and demonstrated how a soccer ball is
made to bend around a wall of defenders from a kicker imparting a spin to
it.
At the annual Departmental Awards Banquet on April 18, 2006, the following
awards were presented:
| Society of Physics Students Outstanding Teacher Award: | Thomas Devlin |
| Richard J. Plano Dissertation Prize: | Juntai Shen |
| Richard T. Weidner Physics Prize: | Joseph Walsh |
| Mary Wheeler Wigner Memorial Scholarship: | Joseph Wolf |
| Robert L. Sells Scholarships: | Pablo Mosteiro and Javier Sanchez |
| Herman Y. Carr Scholarships: | Anthony Barker and Jack Hanson |
| Noemie B. Koller Scholarships: | Kinga Partyka and Christine Hsieh |
| Richard J. Plano Summer Research Internships: | Stanislav Solomovich and Matthew Calhoun |
| Summer Research Internship in Experimental High Energy Physics: | Scott Robinson |
Professor Mohan Kalelkar has been selected to receive a
Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award is
Rutgers University's highest honor for outstanding and innovative
performance in the classroom by a tenured faculty member. The award is named
in memory of Professor Susman, a prominent cultural historian and
popular teacher.
On Apr 6, 2006, Sang-Wook Cheong was officially awarded the
Donald H. Jacobs Chair
in Applied Physics for the period Jan. 1, 2006 to Dec. 31, 2008 during
a ceremony at the Board of Governers meeting.
Professor Harry Kojima has been elected as Fellow of the APS for
his work in Condensed Matter Physics for experimental discoveries of unusual
low-temperature excitations and dynamics in quantum liquids and solids
(especially superfluid 3He).
Congratulations go to Aaron Warren and Dr. Jeff Thomas.
Aaron has won the Graduate School at New Brunswick award for
outstanding teaching by a graduate student.
Jeff, a student of Prof. Jolie Cizewski, has won the Graduate
School at New Brunswick outstanding dissertation award.
Carlos Badenes, a post-doc in the astronomy group, has been awarded a
Chandra Fellowship for 2006. This highly competitive, prestigious
fellowship will support Carlos' research on supernovae and their remnants
at Rutgers over the next three years.
Physics Support Specialist David Maiullo receives 2005 Excellence
in Service Award. David provides access to a large number of physics
demonstrations and helps make physics fun for students to learn and faculty
to teach.
Professor Emil Yuzbashyan has just been named a Sloan Foundation Research Fellow for 2006.
These awards are intended to enhance the careers of the very best young
faculty members in specified fields of science. Currently a total of 116
fellowships are awarded annually in seven fields: chemistry, computational
and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics,
mathematics, neuroscience, and physics.
Rutgers Professor Gabriel Kotliar has been awarded The 2006 Agilent Technologies Europhysics Prize, along with Antoine Georges, Walter Metzner, and Dieter Vollhardt, for the Development and Application of the Dynamical Mean
Field Theory.
From the European Physical Society announcement:
The Agilent Technologies' Europhysics Prize for Outstanding Achievement in
Condensed Matter Physics is an annual award, funded by donations from the
Agilent Technologies' corporate contributions programs to the European
Physical Society.
The Europhysics Prize is considered to be one of the most prestigious
physics prizes presented in Europe. Eight previous winners have subsequently
won Nobel Prizes for their work. Since 1975, the award has been given to
leading scientists in nearly every internationally important area of
condensed matter physics.
The award is given in recognition of recent work by one or more individuals
in the area of physics of condensed matter, particularly work leading to
advances in the fields of electronic, electrical and materials engineering,
which, in the opinion of the Society's Selection Committee, represent
scientific excellence. The Selection Committee consists of five members who
are appointed by the Society and includes an Agilent Technologies'
representative.
Agilent is proud to continue the tradition of funding the prize, a tradition
started by HP in 1975. It includes a substantial cash award. Agilent sponsorship demonstrates its commitment to technical innovation, including fundamental physics.
The 2005 McMillan Award has been given to Rutgers Alumnus, Dr Peter
Armitage. Armitage was a physics Major at Rutgers, graduating in 1994.
The McMillan award is given annually to a to a young condensed matter
physicist (theoretical or experimental) for distinguished accomplishments.
Past recipients include many leading figures in condensed matter physics.
Peter Armitage has been awarded this year's prize for "his crucial
contributions to the field of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
studies of electron-doped superconductors". High temperature
superconductors are known to be doped Mott insulators - the "hole-doped"
have been extensively studied throughout the 90s - but it is only recently
that it has been possible to carry out detailed photo-emission studies of
their close cousins, the electron doped cuprates. Armitage and co-workers
at Stanford University were able to characterize the nature of the
electronic excitations in neodinium cerium cuprate, and show that the
electron-electron interaction effects were weaker than in their hole-doped
counterparts. Armitage has been involved in many other areas of
spectroscopy, including optical conductivity. Armitage is currently an
assistant Professor at John's Hopkins University, on leave at the
University of Geneva in Switzerland.
Professor David Vanderbilt is the winner of the 2006
Aneesur Rahman Prize
in Computational Physics, one of the major prizes of the American
Physical Society.
The prize was established in 1992 by the IBM Corporation to recognize
and encourage outstanding achievement in computational physics
research. The citation reads, "For his conceptual breakthroughs in
his development of the ultrasoft pseudopotential and the modern theory
of polarization and their impact on first-principles investigations of
the properties of materials." The prize will be awarded at the 2006 APS
March Meeting in Baltimore.
The 2006 budget request to Congress by the Dept. of Energy highlights the
recent measurement of the g-factor of an accelerated radioactive nucleus
by Prof. Noemie Koller and her group.
It was carried out at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, which is supported by the DOE.
Five current graduate students in the Rutgers Physics Department
have been awarded Lucent-Rutgers Fellowships: Ms. Kasturi Basu,
Mr. Ilya Berdnikov, Mr. Craig Fennie, Mr. Shitao Lou and Mr. Soonyong Park.
These students will soon be matched with mentors at Lucent, giving them
opportunities to work in both academic and industrial research environments.
Congratulations to Kasturi, Ilya, Craig, Shitao and Soonyong!
Natan Andrei and Bob Bartynski have been recently elected to APS Fellowship. Prof. Andrei's citation: For elucidating the many-body effects of several condensed
matter systems, in particular the Kondo model.." and Prof. Bartynski's citation: For pioneering experiments to determine the electronic
properties of surfaces, especially for leadership in developing Auger
Photoelectron Coincidence Spectroscopy"
More info at http://www.aps.org/fellowship/2004/index.cfm
Namjung Hur, a student of Prof. Sang-Wook Cheong, was chosen to
to receive a GMAG Outstanding Dissertation in Magnetism awards.
This award has three components: an invited talk
in
an appropriate session at the March 2005 APS Meeting in Los Angeles, a
monetary prize to the student, and finances towards travel or other
costs
of attending the Meeting.
Professor Joel Lebowitz has been awarded the 2004 Nicholson
Medal for Humanitarian Service by the APS. The
medal will be presented at the March 2005 Meeting of the APS.
The citation
reads:
"For his tireless personal activism, throughout his superb career as a
theoretical physicist, to help scientists and defend their human rights
in countries around the globe."
Rutgers University Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dr. Philip Furmanski has announced the formation of the
Institute for Advanced Materials
and Devices at Rutgers University.
This Institute is intended to provide a vital link between academic
scientific research at Rutgers and the needs of emerging commercial
technologies in the areas of advanced materials and devices, and will
involve the participation of about 20 faculty from the Department
of Physics and Astronomy working together with faculty from other
FAS and Engineering departments.
Professor David Langreth receives an honorary Doctorate Honoris
Causa from Chalmers University, Gothenberg, Sweden in Theoretical
Physics in 2004.
Professor Ted Madey receives an honorary Doctorate Honoris Causa
from the University of Wroclaw, Poland in Experimental Physics
in 2004.
Professor Gabi Kotliar is among the four physicists selected this
year to receive a prestigious and highly competitive Guggenheim Fellowship.
Professor Kotliar received the 2003 award for his work in condensed
matter theory.
Dr. George Downsbrough (B.S.'31, Ph.D.'36), the second Ph.D.
recipient in our department, has contributed $200K towards an
endowed fund in the department. The purpose of the fund is to help
provide startup monies for new faculty members in Physics and
Astronomy, who will be known as "Downsbrough Faculty Research
Fellows" during the years that they receive such funds.
A bequest in the amount of $500K from the Van Dyck Trust, set up
some years ago in honor of Francis Cuyler Van Dyck, the founder of
the Physics Department, passed to the Department of Physics and
Astronomy this year. Income from the funds will help supplement
graduate fellowships for incoming graduate students who will be
known as Francis Van Dyck Fellows.
The relocation in September 2001 of about a half-dozen faculty
members into new offices in the NPL signals the completion of a
major renovation project begun about 5 years ago. Adjacent to the Serin
Physics building, the NPL -- formerly the "Nuclear Physics Laboratory" --
had been underutilized since a Tandem Accelerator was removed more than a
decade ago. Now rededicated as the "NANOPHYSICS LABORATORY", the
building provides offices and laboratory space for experimental faculty and
postdocs associated with the Laboratory for Surface Modification (LSM), as
well as other condensed matter laboratories. LSM has extensive
state-of-the-art instrumentation in NPL, ranging from ion beam accelerators
for determining surface structure and composition, to scanning probe
microscopes for atomic-scale surface measurements.
The NSF has funded a major proposal submitted by Gabi Kotliar,
David Vanderbilt, Karin Rabe, and Christian Uebing to acquire and
install a supercomputer facility consisting of a cluster of roughly
150 tightly-linked high-performance PC's. In addition to its
targeted reasearch mission for computational studies of complex
materials, the cluster will also be available for broader research
and educational purposes.
Dr. Basil Mchunu has arrived from South Africa as the the first Rutgers-SALT
graduate fellow in astrophysics. He completed his undergraduate work at
the University of Zululand in South Africa. This is a new fellowship program
between Rutgers and the Government of South Africa.
Professor Valery Kiryukhin has been named a recipient of an NSF
CAREER award. These awards fund junior faculty members who show
exceptional promise of excellence in research and education.
Professor Walter Kohn (U.C. Santa Barbara) received an honorary
Doctor of Science degree from Rutgers University at the University
Commencement on May 17, 2001. Kohn is widely acclaimed for his
work on density-functional theory that led to the award of the 1998
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in addition to a large number of other
seminal contributions to condensed matter physics. In connection
with his visit, he gave a joint Physics and Chemistry Colloquium
and was toasted at a special reception that followed.
Joel Lebowitz has won the 2001 Volterra Award of the Academia Lincea in Rome, and will be giving the Vito Volterra Lecture there this spring.
Herbert Neuberger has been selected as a 2001
Guggenheim US/Canadian Fellow in Physics. The basis for this award is
"unusually impressive achievement in the past and
exceptional promise for future accomplishment."
Baki Brahmia has won the FAS Award for Distinguished Contributions
to Undergraduate Education.
Baki will
be presented with the award at the FAS Faculty Meeting next week.
Prof. Frank Zimmermann has been awarded the 2001 Board of Trustees
Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, given each year to a
few Rutgers faculty members at the time of promotion for especially
outstanding scholarship and research. The award carries a $2,000
research grant.
Congratulations to Michael Gershenson and Frank Zimmermann,
who have
been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure, and to
Ron Ransome, who has been promoted to Full Professor, effective
July 1, 2001.
Noemie Koller has been selected as the 2001
winner of the Rutgers University Daniel Gorenstein Memorial Award
in recognition of her scholarly excellence in experimental nuclear
physics research and 40 years of dedicated service,
administration, and teaching at Rutgers.
David Merritt has been elected vice-chair of the Division of Dynamical
Astronomy (DDA) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). He wil
automatically become chair of the Division after one year.
Valery Kiryukhin as been chosen to receive an
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship for 2001.
Kirkyukhin's research interests
are in the area of experimental studies of novel materials with
unusual superconducting and magnetic properties.
An anonymous donor has made a major multi-million dollar
gift to the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University.
These new funds will undoubtedly make a major impact on our programs.
Among other things, it will be used for:
- Creation of the Peter Lindenfeld Chair in Experimental Condensed-Matter Physics as of September 1, 2001, by a cash gift and a 5-year pledge.
- $500K cash gift for the SALT telescope project as a matching fund.
- Enhancement of the Mary Wheeler Wigner Scholarship endowed fund so that about $5,000 can be provided to the best rising senior physics major each year.
- Enhancement of the Richard J.Plano Teaching Assistant Prize endowed fund to allow for the offering of two new $1,000 prizes each year.
- Creation of the Richard J. Plano Dissertation Prize providing $1,000 each year for the best Ph.D. dissertation.
- Creation of the Henry C. Torrey Graduate Fellowship in Physics and Astronomy which will provide an additional $8,000 for two years to the recipient of a Graduate School Henry C. Torrey Graduate Fellowship as an incoming student.
- Creation of six new undergraduate full-tuition scholarships for outstanding physics majors, to be named the Herman Y. Carr, Robert L. Sells, and Noemie Benczer Koller Scholarships.
- Creation of two Richard J. Plano Summer Research Scholarships of $4,500 each to be awarded annually for research to be carried out during the summer after the junior year.
- Creation of an annual $40,000 Undergraduate Instructional Equipment Fund to be used for the purchase and renewal of state-of-the-art equipment for our undergraduate teaching laboratories in physics and astronomy.
Emanuel Diaconescu, a recent Rutgers Ph.D. graduate who did his thesis
work under the supervision of Michael Douglas, has been awarded the 2000
U.S. Council of Graduate Schools/University Microfilms International
(CGS/UMI) Distinguished Dissertation Award for his thesis "D-branes and
Nonperturbative Dynamics in String Theory." This is awarded annually for
the best Ph.D. dissertation in the entire country in any field. He is now
at the Institute for Advanced Study. Congratulations, Emanuel!
Professor Michael Douglas of the Rutgers Department of Physics
and Astronomy, and the New High Energy Theory Center, is a co-winner of
the 2000 Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences, along with
Professor Juan Maldacena of Harvard University (a former Rutgers postdoc).
The prize is being awarded for their "outstanding contribution
to Superstring Theory".
This annual prize is awarded to a scientist(s) under the age of 40 in
a selected area of the physical sciences. This year, the first year of
the award, the topic was High Energy Physics.
A distinguished international panel (including Stephen Weinberg)
chose Douglas and Maldacena as the high energy theorists under
the age of 40 who have made the most outstanding contributions
in the world to the field.
In future years,
other areas of the physical sciences will be selected. The award was
administered by Tel Aviv University in Israel, and was presented
in Israel on May 22, 2000.
Revised 12/6/2019
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