In the first U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities rankings, the UMD Department of Physics was rated no. 18 worldwide:
| The University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have announced the creation of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), with the support and participation of the Research Directorate of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS). QuICS includes Physics Professor Christopher Monroe and adjunct faculty members Alexey Gorshkov, Jacob Taylor, Eite Tiesinga and Carl Williams. |  |
College faculty including Professor Eun-Suk Seo involve students in executing NASA Goddard missions.
James Olthoff, a 27-year veteran of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has been named the director of the agency's Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML). Olthoff received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland in 1985 in the area of atomic, molecular and optical physics.