In Memoriam

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

It is with much sadness that the Department of Physics announces the passing of several members of our community.

Janet Das Sarma (1971-2019) managed the Condensed Matter Theory Center for the last decade. She received the department’s Staff Excellence Award in October. More

Leona Dunklee (1926-2019) was an account clerk in the Department of Physics who supported the electronic development group and was active in planning departmental events.

Hans R. Griem (1928-2019), a noted expert in high-temperature plasmas and spectroscopy, served on the UMD faculty from 1957 to 1994. He was a consultant with Los Alamos National Laboratory. More

Udayaditya “Yudi” Konwar (1997-2019), an international student from Assam, India, would have been a junior physics major this year.

Don Langenberg (1932-2019) was a physicist, the Chancellor of the University System of Maryland from 1990 to 2002, and in recent years an active voice for education at the National Academies. More

Susanne Misner (1933-2019) is survived by her husband, Professor Emeritus Charles Misner. The couple donated proceeds from the sale of correspondence with Stephen Hawking to establish the department’s Weber Endowment for Gravitational Physics.

Lawrence A. Schmid (1928-2019) was a longtime NASA physicist who contributed to the Apollo Lunar Landing. He was a generous donor to undergraduate education in UMD’s Department of Physics.  

Joseph Sucher (1930-2019) was a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and the poet laureate of the department. He established the Joseph and Dorothy Sucher Graduate Prize in Relativistic Theoretical Physics. More

Peter Hawley Walpole (1947-2019) was a physicist who worked on the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) and Boron And Carbon Cosmic rays in the Upper Stratosphere (BACCUS) experiments. 

Gaurang Yodh (1928-2019) was a UMD Physics Professor from 1961 to 1988 before moving to the University of California, Irvine. More

Summer Camps Introduce High School Girls to Physics

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

Since its inception in 1988, over 1,500 students have participated in the University of Maryland’s Summer Girls physics program for rising 9th through 12th graders. Last summer alone, more than 50 young students came to campus for one or two weeks to explore concepts from classical and modern physics, conduct hands-on laboratory experiments, and learn about careers in physics. The students also met and spoke with physics professors and graduate students, listened to interesting lectures, and toured research laboratory tours. 

The program is mostly funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation through the Physics Frontier Center at the Joint Quantum Institute. Students paid only $25 to participate last year. Participants of the program, which is directed by Donna Hammer, have come not only from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., but also from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and all over the world. Graduates have gone on to become engineers, doctors, computer scientists and, of course, physicists. 

Longtime Staff Member Lorraine DeSalvo Retires

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

After 41 years tending to the people and places of the Department of Physics, Director of Administrative Services Lorraine DeSalvo retired in December. In tribute, colleagues established the Lorraine DeSalvo Chair's Endowed Award for Outstanding Service to provide annual recognition to physics employees who demonstrate exemplary commitment to their work. 

DeSalvo graduated from the University of Maryland in 1972 and immediately accepted a job in the Department of Chemistry. 

“I have had the pleasure of knowing so many truly wonderful staff members on this campus during my years here,” she said. “Having this fund to recognize physics department colleagues is the finest farewell I could have asked for.” 

DeSalvo’s duties covered both facilities and human relations, meaning that she knew every inch of space and every employee. Her vast institutional memory and cross-campus contacts allowed her to untangle innumerable bureaucratic knots.  As Department Chair Steve Rolston noted, the most commonly uttered phrase in the department in recent decades may well have been, “Just ask Lorraine.” 

Modern, energy-intensive physics experiments long strained the aging infrastructure of the John S. Toll Physics Building and required constant vigilance and frequent, extensive renovations. When funding was approved for the new Physical Sciences Complex, DeSalvo’s workload expanded considerably. She worked with architects, builders, and capital improvement staff to plan the move, order furniture, and ensure that labs were built to the exacting specifications of dozens of extremely particular scientists. 

She fostered camaraderie with vibrant holiday parties and memorable fiestas, extending invitations to helpful colleagues across a swath of campus sectors. To the department’s many international students, scholars and visitors, she extended her welcome, wisdom and warmth. She owned a variety of small stuffed flamingos, which she dispatched to travelers with a request for a scenic photo. A slideshow of UMD physics folks hoisting pink birds across the globe ran continually in her office. 

She also displayed a keen regard for the department’s achievements. 

After the death of physicist Joe Weber in 2000, his lab fell into disuse. DeSalvo kept protective watch over the “Weber bars,” colossal aluminum cylinders built to record gravitational waves. Years later, in 2015, the LIGO experiment detected gravitational waves, generating worldwide acclaim and renewing interest in Weber’s quest. Last March, the Weber Garden was dedicated outside of the Physical Sciences Complex.  

“Without Lorraine’s protective instincts and her foresight that the Weber bars would prove significant, these excellent monuments to UMD innovation would have been lost forever to campus and the world,” Rolston said.

As a retiree, DeSalvo says she looks forward to finding the best crab cake restaurants around—and to keeping in touch with the department. 

She was serenaded at her retirement party by the following: 

Her global flamingos and holiday parties
And summer fiestas gave Physics some verve
And year in and year out, there surely could be no doubt
How heartfelt is her motto of “I live to serve.”

Contributions to the Lorraine DeSalvo Chair's Endowed Award for Outstanding Service can be made here.

Faculty, Staff, Student and Alumni Awards & Notes

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

We proudly recognize members of our community who recently garnered major honors, authored books, began new positions and more.

Faculty and Staff Awards

• Steve Anlage – Graduate Advising Award 

• Maissam Barkeshli – Richard A. Ferrell Fellowship

• Mark Conners – Chair's Award 

• Janet Das Sarma – Chair's Certificate of Excellence 

• Sankar Das Sarma – Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researcher

• Zohreh Davoudi – DOE Early Career Research Funding and 2019 Sloan Research Fellowship

• Dennis Drew – American Physical Society Outstanding Referee

• Alexey Gorshkov – Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

• Mohammad Hafezi – Blavatnik Award Finalist

• Donna Hammer – Chair's Certificate of Excellence 

• Daniel Lathrop – Distinguished Scholar-Teacher 

• Vlad Manucharyan – Google Faculty Research Award and DOE Early Career Research Funding

• Howard Milchberg – American Physical Society Outstanding Referee

• Chris Monroe – Willis Lamb Award and Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researcher

• Jay Deep Sau – American Physical Society Outstanding Referee

• Peter Shawhan – American Physical Society Fellow

• Ian Spielman – Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researcher

• Kristin Stenson – Chair's Certificate of Excellence 

• Samantha Suplee – Sibylle Sampson Award 

• Ellen Williams – Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Michigan State Distinguished Alumni Award

 Student Awards

• Batoul Banihashemi – Ralph Myers Award

• Dawid Brzeminski – Ralph Myers Award

• Leonard Campanello – Monroe H. Martin Graduate Research Fellowship

• Daniel Campbell – Ann G. Wylie Semester Dissertation Fellowship 

• Liz Friedman – Leon A. Herreid Science Fellowship

• Hong Nhung Nguyen – Ruth M. Davis Fellowship

• Pranava Jayanti – Kulkarni Fellowship

• Soubhik Kumar – Monroe H. Martin Graduate Research Fellowship

• Jillian Kunze – Merrill Presidential Scholarship

• Kungang Li – Ralph Myers Award

• Fangli Liu - Ann G. Wylie Semester Dissertation Fellowship

• Dalia Ornelas Huerta – Monroe H. Martin Graduate Research Fellowship

• Spandan Pathak – Ralph Myers Award

• Abu Saleh Musa Patoary – Ralph Myers Award

• Nicholas Poniatowski – Barry Goldwater Scholarship, Merrill Presidential Scholarship and Ralph Myers Award

• Andrew Shaw – Joseph and Dorothy Sucher Graduate Prize in Relativistic Theoretical Physics

• Ana Valdes-Curiel – Ruth M. Davis Fellowship

• Yidan Wang – Ruth M. Davis Fellowship

• Zhiyu Yin – Leon A. Herreid Science Fellowship and Thomas G. Mason Interdisciplinary Physics Fund

• Mark Zic – Barry Goldwater Scholarship

 Group Efforts

• LHCb’s discovery of CP violation was named a Physics World Breakthrough of the Year finalist. More

• The European Physical Society High Energy and Particle Physics Prize went to the DØ and CDF collaborations, which include Nick Hadley, Sarah Eno, Drew Baden, Greg Sullivan, and Kara Hoffman. More

• The Society of Physics Students won an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. More

• A team led by Chris Monroe won the overall Invention of the Year Award at Innovate Maryland 2019 for “Cryogenic Ion Trapping and Storage System for Quantum Information.” Monroe’s early-stage quantum computing company IonQ also took home the prize for Startup of the Year. More

Alumni Notes

• Damian Blazy (B.S. ’02) was named a principal in the Los Angeles office of OpenGate Capital.

• Joel Dahlin (Ph.D. ’15) received the AIP Publishing Ronald Davidson Award.

• Alexei Fedotov (Ph.D. ’97) received the Science & Technology Award of Brookhaven National Lab.

• Mark Harley (B.S. ’07) joined the faculty of Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren, N.J., as a physics teacher. 

• Ruth Kastner (B.S. ’82, M.S. ’92) published Corralling quantum cats: from Cheshire cat to Schrodinger's cat, World Scientific Publishing Company, 2019.

• James P. Lavine (Ph.D. ’71) published Time-Dependent Quantum Mechanics of Two-Level Systems, World Scientific Publishing Company, 2019.

• John Martyn (B.S. ’19) received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Ralph Myers Award.

• Thomas Mason (B.S. ’89) was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

• Ana Maria Rey (Ph.D. ’04) was named Blavatnik National Laureate in Physical Sciences & Engineering.

• Gareth Roberg-Clark (Ph.D. ’19) received a NERSC Early Career HPC Achievement Award.