Buonanno and Banavar are Added to the APS Outstanding Referees List

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, February 08 2013 14:29

Alessandra Buonanno and Jayanth Banavar are among the new Outstanding Referees selected by the editors of the APS journals. Initiated in 2008, the highly selective Outstanding Referee program recognizes scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals. Selections are based on two decades of records on the number, quality and timeliness of referee reports.

The full list of Outstanding Referees is located at, http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees

Roald Sagdeev Interviewed by NPR's Daniel Zwerdling

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Category: Department News

Published: Thursday, January 31 2013 00:00

“The Day I Said ‘Nyet!’ to Gorbachev… and Other Life Tales of a Famous Soviet Scientist”

Distinguished University of Maryland Professor Roald Z. Sagdeev discussed “The Day I Said ‘Nyet!’ to Gorbachev… and Other Life Tales of a Famous Soviet Scientist” with journalist Daniel Zwerdling on February 7, 2013 at the Marriott Conference Center on the UMD campus. Sagdeev ran the Soviet space program and advised Soviet leaders on the nuclear arms race. He spoke about love, communism, physics and the end of the Soviet Union with Daniel Zwerdling, an award-winning correspondent and investigative journalist with National Public Radio. 

Jim Gates Receives National Medal of Science, Regents Professorship

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Category: Department News

Published: Monday, December 31 2012 00:00

President Obama presented the National Medal of Science to Professor Sylvester James "Jim" Gates Jr. on Friday, Feb. 1.

Gates, the John S. Toll Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for String & Particle Theory, is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and the Maryland State Board of Education. In addition to his seminal work in supersymmetry, supergravity and string theory, Professor Gates is a well-known advocate for science and science education here and abroad. He has been a frequent guest on NOVA productions on PBS and a featured presenter at the World Science Festivals. He has delivered the annual Karplus Lecture to the National Science Teachers Association and has received the Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The National Medal--the nation's highest award in science--was established in 1959 and is administered by the National Science Foundation.

In addition, Professor Gates was recently named a University System of Maryland Regents Professor.

For more images from the Friday medal ceremony, see the links below.

Credit: Ryan K Morris/National Science & Technology Medals Foundation

Washington Examiner photos

Getty Images

CRI

Yahoo/Reuters

UMD Physics Efforts Cited Among 2012's Most Important

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Category: Department News

Published: Monday, December 24 2012 00:00

Physics World's compilation of the year's biggest discoveries included the work of several UMD physicists. The highest-rated discovery was that of the Higgs particle reported by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN. Professors Drew Baden, Sarah Eno, Nick Hadley and Andris Skuja are all collaborators on CMS, and have made significant contributions in the building, running, and analysis of the data. Professor Alberto Belloni will join the department from ATLAS in January, and will become the fifth faculty member on CMS, an international collaboration.

One of the next highest-rated discoveries was attributed to Leo Kouwenhoven and colleagues at Delft University for confirmation of the Majorana fermion, closely following a prediction by Sankar Das Sarma and UMD/JQI colleagues in 2010.

The BaBar experiment's discovery of time-reversal invariance in the quark sector also made the top-10 list. Professors Hassan Jawahery and Doug Roberts played key roles on BaBar, another large international experiment using electron-positron beams at SLAC. Jawahery served as the physics analysis coordinator and later as spokesperson (overall leader) of the experiment.

The Dec. 21 edition of Science named the Higgs boson as the year's top discovery and also cited the importance of the Majorana fermion.