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Faculty, Staff, Student and Alumni Awards & Notes

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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.

A Physics Career Along the Path Less Traveled

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Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

Michelle Girvan’s career defies easy categorization. Currently a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, very little of her research would be immediately recognizable to a physics traditionalist. Instead, she applies her physics training to tackle discipline-spanning scientific questions that range from social relationships and cancer genetics to artificial intelligence (AI). 

When asked how she identifies herself to new colleagues, a thoughtful smile crossed her face as she pondered a reply.GirvanMichelle Girvan

“That’s a very interesting question. I often say I’m a physics professor who does applied mathematics. It’s a broader umbrella that allows me to work on nearly any problem, as long as I focus on the math that underlies it,” explained Girvan, who also has joint appointments in UMD’s Institute for Physical Science and Technology and Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics. “But I still think of myself as a physicist, because physicists seek simple, cohesive explanations for complex phenomena. I’m still looking for those overarching organizing principles, even if I’m applying them to biological or social problems.”

Girvan is quick to point out that, while her approach may be nontraditional, she’s far from alone. She notes a recent meeting of the American Physical Society that featured sessions on neural networks, gene regulation and econophysics—a relatively new field that applies physical theories and methodologies to the study of economics. The common thread among these scientists, Girvan said, is that they tackle their research by first asking, “How would a physicist solve this problem?”

“I think we need more of that,” Girvan added. “A physicist’s perspective might help identify patterns and phenomena that can go unnoticed by others who focus on fine-scale details.”

Girvan’s unorthodox path began during her undergraduate studies in physics and math at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where a course in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences first introduced her to the concepts of chaos, nonlinear dynamics and complexity. From there, she went to Cornell University to pursue her Ph.D. with applied mathematician Steven Strogatz, then on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute, where she now holds an external faculty position. 

During her first stint at the Santa Fe Institute, she co-developed the well-known Girvan-Newman algorithm in collaboration with Mark Newman, now at the University of Michigan. They published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. Broadly stated, the algorithm helps to identify relationships, connections and groupings in networks that might not be readily apparent. 

“If you were to apply the algorithm to a social media network, for example, you might logically expect to find people divided into strong social or professional groups. Among scientists, you’d expect physicists to be grouped with other physicists, biologists with biologists, and so on,” Girvan said. “Our algorithm can also help identify interesting deviations from these expected norms.”  

The Girvan-Newman algorithm can also be applied to the recommendation systems used by online retailers and streaming entertainment services like Netflix and Spotify, Girvan noted. 

“If you link two movies together, in terms of the frequency they’re watched by the same person, the algorithm can uncover groupings that might not be obvious,” Girvan said. “Action movie fans interested in science fiction might also like a third kind of movie you wouldn’t expect.”

Girvan joined UMD in 2007, drawn in no small part by the university’s strong tradition in nonlinear dynamics. She has collaborated frequently with many researchers across campus, including two world-renowned experts: Distinguished University Professors Edward Ott and James Yorke, both well known for their landmark publications in chaos theory and other aspects of nonlinear dynamics. 

Here at UMD, Girvan has applied the tools and philosophical framework of physics to investigate questions in ecology, genetics, development, cancer biology, neuroscience, social networks, machine learning and more. At the moment, she is highly interested in the interface between the human brain and artificial neural networks. 

“Living in this age of rapid advancements in AI, I want to know how our understanding of the human brain, at an abstract level, can help us develop more effective AI methodologies,” Girvan said. 

Girvan is also pursuing approaches for integrating knowledge-based models derived from physics with knowledge-free AI models. 

“So many successes in AI and machine learning have come from ‘black box’ approaches—you throw a lot of data at an AI system and it learns how to make predictions. But these black-box models don’t help us understand the natural world any better,” Girvan said. “By incorporating what we already know about the underlying physics, we can build hybrid systems that combine knowledge-based approaches and knowledge-free approaches, enabling more accurate predictions that also give us new insights into how the world works.” 

Girvan also has a strong interest in training the next generation of discipline-defying researchers. She currently serves as the principal investigator for COMBINE: Computation and Mathematics for Biological Networks, UMD’s National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Research Traineeship (NRT) program in network biology. The program immerses graduate students in research and training that integrates tools from physics, mathematics and computer science to gain deeper insights into the principles that govern living systems. 

“We’re interested in students who want to solve life science problems where network structure matters, from neurological to ecological networks,” Girvan said. “We brought in a diverse group of faculty from a wide range of disciplines to help with the effort. We have about two and a half years of NSF funding left, so we’re looking into other ways to keep it going.”

While her career path as a physicist may play fast and loose with tradition, Girvan isn’t opposed to all time-honored conventions. In her free time, she participates in one of the oldest sporting endeavors known: equestrian competition. 

“I have some of my best thoughts after I’m done riding,” Girvan mused. “I feel like it takes me out of the local landscape where I’m stuck on the small problems and clears any blockages I might have in my head.”

Written by Matthew Wright

Listen to Michelle Girvan discuss how artificial intelligence can help predict chaotic behavior. 

 

Recent Alumnus Zachary Eldredge Studies Solar Energy as ORISE Fellow

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Published: Friday, January 17 2020 02:56

As a student, Zachary Eldredge (Ph.D. ’19, physics) examined the use of quantum mechanics to improve measurements.

“If you nEldredge 2020Zach Eldredge. Photo by Faye Levine.eed to know the difference in some quantity between two points, a common method is to measure the quantity at each point and then subtract,” Eldredge explained. “Instead, we developed methods to measure the difference directly. Our methods are more accurate because we only measure once, not twice.”

After graduating last May, Eldredge took this expertise and his strong physics foundation to the Department of Energy’s Solar Technologies Office, which aims to make solar energy less expensive and more accessible and increase the amount of renewable energy in the United States. He spent seven months working in the office as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellow and is now a technology manager.

“The process of how technologies progress from lab science to usable products is really interesting to me and was important to my quantum research, as quantum technology is trying to make that same leap at the moment,” he said. “In addition, physics has been a wonderful foundation. A good physics education prepares you to pick out the relevant patterns and generalize knowledge really quickly, and it's been a great help in giving me the background to get up to speed on all kinds of other technologies.”

Eldredge knew early on in his studies that he was interested in finding a science policy job to align with his interests in climate, renewable energy and technology development. 

“I really wanted to shift gears from my academic work into something more climate focused, and the ORISE fellowship provided a great opportunity.”

During his time at Maryland, Eldredge co-authored nine publications, including three first-author papers published in the journals Physical Review A and Physical Review Letters. 

“I’m proud to say that two of Zach’s papers are the highlights of my own research over the past few years,” said Alexey Gorshkov, Eldredge’s advisor who is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Physics and a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “In fact, these two papers are so promising that we filed patents for the corresponding ideas, all having to do with the harnessing of the peculiarities of quantum mechanics for technologies such as powerful computing, secure communication and superior sensing.”

In addition to his work in the lab, Eldredge served as president of the social activism group Science for the People UMD and as a member of the Graduate Student Government. 

“Not only is Zach an excellent physicist, he was also an excellent citizen of the department,” said Steve Rolston, professor of physics and department chair. “He was one of the most active members of our self-organized graduate student committee, which strives to make graduate school as positive an experience as possible.” 

Eldredge also participated in public outreach activities, such as the American Physical Society’s Congressional Visits Day, the USA Science & Engineering Festival, and UMD’s Maryland Day. 

“I felt I had a duty as a publicly funded scientist at a major public university to reach out and talk to people, because the knowledge I gained there belongs to everyone,” Eldredge said. “When we discover amazing things, it is on us to communicate about them to the public.”


Written by Chelsea Torres

Fifth Edition of “Exploring Quantum Physics” to Launch on Coursera

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Published: Tuesday, January 14 2020 08:55

Charles Clark and Victor Galitski will launch the fifth edition of their Coursera class on quantum physics Jan. 20, 2020. Alireza Parhizkar, a UMD graduate student will serve as teaching assistant.

“The course begins by establishing the conceptual grounds of quantum mechanics and promises an exciting journey,” says Parhizkar, who joined Galitski’s research group in the summer of 2019. “It fulfills this promise by immersing the learner in advanced subjects of quantum physics, like superconductivity and path integrals, and illustrating them with colorful exercises.”   coursera cats bannerTwo JQI Fellows will launch the fifth edition of "Exploring Quantum Physics" on Coursera Jan. 20. (Credit: Anna Bogatin)

The free course, titled “Exploring Quantum Physics,” explains topics in quantum physics at a level appropriate for an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student. The previous four editions had a total of about 100,000 enrollees, with roughly 2,000 people completing the course. “That’s a good number for a massive open online course, or MOOC,” says Clark, who is an Adjunct Professor of Physics, a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), and a Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Clark adds that the new edition of the course has a revised grading system as well as updated homework and exam questions.

“Exploring Quantum Physics” consists of eight weeks of video lectures, with a number of five- to fifteen-minute videos per week. The videos include voluntary ungraded quizzes, which automatically pause the presentation so that students have an opportunity to answer relevant questions. There are also weekly homework assignments—some will include reading historical papers by influential early quantum scientists such as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr—as well as a final exam. “We tried to strike a balance between providing a historical perspective on the early development of quantum physics and modern concepts,” says Galitski, who holds the Chesapeake Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Maryland (UMD).

An advantage of MOOCs is that the course material is available to anyone, including some students who are younger than traditional undergraduates. Khadija Niazi and her twin brother Muhammad, who grew up in Pakistan, were 13 years old when they enrolled in an earlier edition of the course. Khadija, who once spoke about her experience with MOOCs at the World Economic Forum, says that she “thoroughly enjoyed that course [e]specially because of the peer's help and Charles Clark's constant help and encouragement in the forums.” Before beginning the quantum physics course, the twins had completed some introductory physics classes on the site and learned some calculus from videos on YouTube. Muhammad says that they wanted “to get a taste of what lies ahead.”

Both Niazi siblings stayed in contact with Clark after completing the class. Muhammad, who went on to publish his first experimental physics paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science when he was 16, says he will probably take the new edition of the course to solidify his understanding of the content.

Michael Winer, a physics graduate student at UMD, took an earlier edition of the course when he was a 10th grader at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland because he hoped to do physics research over the summer. “By far the greatest thing that came out of my taking the course was that I contacted professor Galitski and did research with him for two summers,” Winer says. “This was my first real research experience, and taught me a lot about the scientific process.” That work led Winer to win the Intel Science Talent Search competition in 2015, earning him a prize of $150,000 and a meeting with President Obama.

“Exploring Quantum Physics” is now open for enrollment. To learn more about the course and to see a detailed syllabus, please visit the landing page at Coursera.

Original story by by Jillian Kunze

Physics in Florence

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Published: Friday, December 13 2019 14:35

As part of the University of Maryland’s Education Abroad program, eligible students are welcome to apply for the the Physics in Florence semester, held at the International Studies Institute (ISI). Prof. Luis Orozco has been responsible for the program, which enrolled 12 students in the Fall of 2019. The curriculum includes three physics classes, an Italian language course, and an elective such as studio art, art history, history and political science, Italian language and literature, international business, and interdisciplinary studies in the humanities.  

One of this fall’s highlights was a visit to the Biblioteca Nazionale, located near the ISI.  Orozco and the students were able to see several of Galileo's original documents, including his log of experiments with inclined planes, his drawings of Jupiter's moons, and his watercolor of the moon's phases.

Another trip was to Geneva, where the students visited CERN. At the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, UMD postdoc Markus Seidel gave the students a tour of the detector, and graduate student Nathan Evetts of the University of British Columbia explained the workings of the Antiproton Ring. 

David Reitze, director of the U.S. gravitational observatory (LIGO), helped arrange a visit to the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) near Pisa. Valerio Boschi hosted the students and explained the Virgo instrument and its interaction with the two LIGO interferometers in Louisiana and Washington state. After Boschi provided an extensive tour, EGO director Stavros Katsanevas met the students and discussed the current and future physics goals of EGO. 

Near the end of the term, students visited the Galileo Museum, in the Palazzo Castellani near their ISI classes.  The museum houses intriguing scientific instruments, including those of the Medici and the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Examples include sextants, astrolabes, solar clocks, globes of various orientations, thermometers, telescopes, vacuum pumps and a Ptolemaic mechanical model showing the universe rotating around the earth.  Maps from the 16th century show remarkable accuracy, particularly for the east coast of North America and both sides of South America. Explorers Amerigo Vespucci and Giovanni da Verrazano were both natives of Florence.

At the center of the museum, the Galileo room highlights his contributions to mechanics with a reproduction of one of the inclined plane machines that he used to measure the relationship between time and distance under acceleration. There are also good references to his astronomical observations, with one of the original lenses of his telescope in place.

On a painted table of chemical affinities, the class spotted a symbol that looks like an h bar (ℏ, or Planck’s constant). Having learned about Planck’s constant in class, the students wondered about the symbol’s origin. Orozco found that it was originally a sickle, and that it had stood for lead in alchemy and for Saturn in astrology. Why had Planck called it h? Orozco found that it may reference Hilfsgröße, which is the concept of a “helpful quantity.” This helpful quantity has opened a new world of understanding, much as Galileo did when he found that the distance traveled in fixed time intervals on his inclined plane is proportional to odd numbers (1,3,5,7, etc.)—a classical and early lesson in physics.

For further information about Physics in Florence, contact Lindsey Sitler, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Trips to the Biblioteca Nazionale,CERN, EGO and the Galileo Museum are shown in these photos by Adam Dirccam, Anthony Giuffre, Stefano Baldassarri, Sean Markey and Cameron Moneypenny.

 

 

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