Nastac to Receive University Medal

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Category: Department News

Published: Wednesday, May 20 2020 05:56

The path Michael Nastac set off on while watching Carl Sagan’s television series “Cosmos” as a child has taken him through some of the most prestigious laboratories in the world and led him to the cusp of a bright career in physics.

“Michael is brilliant, driven, friendly, charming, collaborative, and yet also appropriately competitive,” says physics Professor William Dorland. “Clearly, he isn’t the traditional ‘student leader’ type. He is a scientific leader, already establishing himself as a world-class intellectual force.”

Following a tremendous undergraduate record at UMD, Nastac has been selected as a University Medalist. He will be honored at the virtual commencement on Friday, May 22. The ceremony will be livestreamed starting at 1:00 pm on commencement.umd.edu as well as the UMD Facebook and YouTube channels.

A Banneker/Key Scholar and a member of the University Honors program, Nastac came to UMD with a general interest in physics and mathematics before delving into nuclear fusion and its potential to revolutionize the field of sustainable energy. He began researching plasma turbulence both at UMD and at the University of Oxford, working to construct simple mathematical models that could be handled by present-day computers and help resolve one of the great conundrums of nuclear fusion: the energy input to current fusion reactors is greater than the energy put out by them.Michael Nastac

“He never needs someone else to instill a sense of urgency in him,” says Alexander A. Schekochihin, professor of theoretical physics and fellow of Merton College at the University of Oxford. “He is clever, quick on the uptake, industrious, independent, communicative, articulate (and) extremely well educated.

Nastac is graduating with a double degree in physics and mathematics and a 3.99 GPA. He won a poster prize at the 2019 Sherwood Fusion Theory Conference; gave talks at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the University of Oxford and the 12th Plasma Kinetics Working Meeting at the Wolfgang Pauli Institute in Vienna, Austria; and is first author of an upcoming publication in the Journal of Plasma Physics.

Next year, Nastac will be a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford, pursuing a doctorate of philosophy in theoretical physics. He plans to continue pursuing solutions to the world’s energy crisis and also wants to teach; as a member of the Foundational Learning and Mentorship Experience (FLAME) program, Nastac taught after-school science lessons to students at Adelphi Elementary School.

“It feels incredibly rewarding to see how much fun these young students are having by learning about the same topics that inspired me to pursue science,” he says. “In graduate school and beyond, I want to continue mentoring others, paying forward what I’ve received from my mentors.”

Nastac is the fourth physics student to receive the University Medal in recent years. Two others--Chris Bambic in 2018 and Noah Mandell in 2014—also studied with Dorland. Bambic and Mandell are graduate students in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. In 2017, Gregory Ridgway, who studied fundamental theory with Paulo Bedaque, received the University Medal. He is now a graduate student at MIT’s Center for Theoretical Physics.  

Three Grad Students Receive SCGSR Awards

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Category: Department News

Published: Tuesday, May 19 2020 05:56

Three UMD students were among 62 recently selected for funding by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program. The SCGSR program helps students carry out thesis research in 14 DoEli MizrachiE national laboratories, in subjects central to the Office of Science mission areas.

Eli Mizrachi, who works with Carter Hall, was selected for the proposed SCGSR research project, "Effects of Impurities on Low Energy Electron Signals in Xenon-Based Dark Matter Searches" at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The aim of the project is to modify an existing liquid xenon particle detector to accommodate ceramic components in place of plastic ones. The new ceramic components are expected to introduce fewer impurities into the detector, thereby improving the detector's sensitivity to single-electron signals from low energy particle interactions. An increased level of sensitivity in this regime may extend the reach of xenon-based low-mass WIMP dark matter searches, and open up new opportunities for monitoring nuclear reactors with compact, portable detectors.

Kristie Engel at the HAWC installation near Puebla, MexicoKristi Lynne Engel, who works with Jordan Goodman, was selected for the proposal, “Constraining Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter with HAWC”, to be conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). One of the biggest questions in high energy physics today pertains to determining the particles that make up cosmic dark matter. Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) in certain mass ranges (<< one solar mass) constitute a possible dark matter candidate. Since the existence of stellar­mass black holes was recently confirmed during the first observational run of Advanced LIGO, there has been a resurgence in support for a PBH component of the total dark matter energy density. Engel intends to her advance her previous work from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory to search for PBH bursts to further constrain the local PBH density and, consequently, the fraction of dark matter that may be made up of PBHs. Engel intends to use instrumental calibration, algorithm improvements, and better data/detector Monte Carlo agreement to improve the sensitivity of HAWC to transient searches and dark matter analyses.

John Collini

John Collini, who works in the Quantum Materials Center (QMC) with Johnpierre Paglione, will investigate properties of the topological superconductor uranium ditelluride (UTe₂) using chemical synthesis and high pressure x-ray experiments. Recently discovered by QMC researchers, UTe₂ harbors a rare form of spin-triplet superconductivity that gives rise to unprecedented properties such as survival under extreme magnetic fields and topological protection. Collini will pursue this project via a placement at Livermore, under the advisement of Jason Jeffries, leader of the LLNL High Pressure Group.

To learn more about the awards program, visit the DoE Office of Science page: https://science.osti.gov/wdts/scgsr/SCGSR-Awards

Ellen Williams Named Director of ESSIC

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Category: Department News

Published: Monday, May 18 2020 05:56

Distinguished University Professor Ellen D. Williams has been named director of the university’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) for a five-year term beginning July 1, 2020.

Established in 1999 through a cooperative agreement with the Earth Sciences Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, ESSIC supports research, teaching and career training in Earth system science.

“With Ellen Williams at its helm, ESSIC is in an excellent position to expand its leadership in Earth system science research,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “Ellen has successfully led large organizations throughout her career, and she has vast experience in interdisciplinary research related to energy and national security.”Ellen Williams. Credit: Lisa Helfert

The broad goal of ESSIC is to understand the relationships between Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land masses and biosphere, with a focus on the influence of human activities on Earth’s coupled systems. Major research thrusts include numerical weather prediction, climate variability and change, atmospheric composition and processes, the global carbon cycle and the global water cycle. ESSIC has 18 academic faculty members, over 140 professional-track research faculty members and annual research awards of more than $45 million. 

ESSIC also administers the Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS), a joint center with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service. The establishment of CISESS in 2019 built on NOAA’s long-term partnership with UMD, which included the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) from 2009 to 2019 and the Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies from 1984 to 2009.

As the largest research center at UMD, ESSIC serves a unique role as a collaboration hub within the national Earth system science research community by linking research efforts at UMD’s Departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Geology, and Geographical Sciences with NASA and NOAA.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as the director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center,” Williams said. “Its mission is core to addressing the issues of climate change in the context of the world’s ecosystem. I am looking forward to working with ESSIC’s talented scientists in this crucially important mission.”  

Williams is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Royal Society (London). She is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the American Vacuum Society.

Williams came to UMD in 1981 for a postdoctoral fellowship and rose to the rank of professor by 1991. At Maryland, she established an internationally recognized research program in experimental surface science, exploring fundamental issues in statistical mechanics and nanotechnology. She also pioneered the use of powerful scanning tunneling microscopy to study the surface of materials such as silicon at the atomic level. In 1996, Williams founded the University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, serving as its director until 2009. She holds an appointment in the Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST). 

Williams served as the chief scientist for British Petroleum (BP) from 2010 to 2014, where her work included sustainability studies in collaborations including the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University and the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois. In 2014, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Williams led the agency in its mission to advance high-potential, high-impact clean energy technologies that are too early in development for private-sector investment. 

Williams returned to UMD in January 2017. Since then, she has been working on bridging policy and technology perspectives for clean energy innovation. Recently, she completed a report to the State of Maryland on “The Present Status and Future Potential of Maryland’s Clean Energy Innovation System.”

She received her bachelor's degree in chemistry from Michigan State University in 1976 and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1981.

Williams succeeds Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, who is leaving UMD to become dean of the College of Science at George Mason University in Virginia. He served as interim director of ESSIC since January 2016.  

Since arriving at UMD in 2013, Miralles-Wilhelm led efforts to secure the five-year, $175 million cooperative agreement with NOAA in 2019 to form CISESS; the five-year, $64.8 million cooperative agreement with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for ESSIC in 2017; and the five-year, $93 million cooperative agreement with NOAA for CICS in 2014. He served as principal investigator for the three programs. Since July 2018, he also served as chair of UMD’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science.

Carter Hall Named Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education

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Category: Department News

Published: Saturday, May 09 2020 11:32

Carter Hall will replace Kara Hoffman as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education in the Department of Physics, effective July 1, 2020.

Hall graduated summa cum laude from Virginia Tech and earned his his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was awarded the Goldhaber Prize and Wallace-Noyes Fellowship. After a postdoctoral appointment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, he joined the University of Maryland in 2006. He has received a Department of Energy Early Career Award, the Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship and the CMNS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

From 2017-19, Hall was the spokesperson for the LZ experiment, and now leads its xenon handling system.