Mohammad Hafezi Receives ONR Young Investigator Award

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, May 15 2015 09:20

Affiliate Professor Mohammad Hafezi was announced as a recipient of a 2015 ONR Young Investigator award. ONR's website describes the program as being designed to promote the professional development of early-career academic scientists – called investigators, or YIPs – both as researchers and instructors. For awardees, the funding supports laboratory equipment, graduate student stipends and scholarships, and other expenses critical to ongoing and planned investigational studies.

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Chiorini Receives 2015 Undergraduate Summer Research Travel and Educational Enrichment Award from CMNS Alumni Network

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Category: Department News

Published: Wednesday, May 13 2015 09:04

Sutton Chiorini, a junior geology and physics double major, is one of five recipients to receive an Undergraduate Summer Research Travel and Educational Enrichment Award from the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences (CMNS) Alumni Network. Recipients will receive awards raging from $500 to $2000 to help defray costs related to conducting research or traveling to field courses, conferences or other summer activities that enhance or expand the student's educational and professional development.

Chiorini is a College Park Scholar interested in mapping fault structures to better understand how they respond to stress from mining or hydraulic fracturing. She will use the award toward a six-week summer research program at the University of Tokyo. There, she will study earthquake faulting mechanisms or earthquake prediction using seismic data.

For the full list of award recipients visit, http://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/2861

Sylvester James Gates to Speak at College’s Spring Commencement

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Category: Department News

Published: Tuesday, May 12 2015 11:33

Sylvester James Gates, Jr. will speak at the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences Spring 2015 Commencement. The event will be held in the Xfinity Center on May 22 at 12:30 p.m.

Gates is a Distinguished University Professor, University System of Maryland Regents Professor and John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. Also an affiliate mathematics professor, Gates is known for his pioneering work in supersymmetry and supergravity, areas closely related to string theory.

Born in Tampa, Florida, Gates earned two Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and mathematics and his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1984, Gates co-authored Superspace, or One thousand and one lessons in supersymmetry, the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry, and joined the faculty at Maryland as an associate professor. Four years later, he became the first African American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major U.S. research university.

The author of more than 200 research papers and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Gates has been featured in dozens of video documentaries, including five in 2015. For his contribution to science and research, he received the National Medal of Science from President Obama in 2013. Gates serves on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the National Commission on Forensic Science, and the Maryland State Board of Education. He is a strong advocate for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

Gates’ twin son and daughter—biological sciences major Sylvester James Gates III and mathematics and physics double major Delilah Elizabeth Abney Gates—are both graduating this spring.

Xiangdong Ji Joint 2015 Outstanding Nuclear Physicist Recipient

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Category: Department News

Published: Monday, May 11 2015 15:57

Jefferson Science Associates, JSA, announced the selection of Xiangdong Ji and Anatoly Radyushkin, Old Dominion University, as joint recipients of the 2015 Outstanding Nuclear Physicist Award for their seminal roles in the development of Generalized Parton Distributions and the identification of associated experimental observables via Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering.

Professor Ji, who also serves as Director of the Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, leads the PandaX experiment. He held post doctoral positions at CalTech and MIT and was on the MIT faculty before joining UMD in 1996. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society. Ji's previous awards include: 2014 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award; 2010 National 1000-Talent Expert, China; and, 2003 recipient of the Outstanding Overseas Young Chinese Scientist award from the National Science Foundation of China.

The Outstanding Nuclear Physicist award, which recognizes an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions in experimental and/or theoretical research related to the nuclear physics program at Jefferson Lab. It will be presented in June during a ceremony at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, VA.