Assistant Professor Zohreh Davoudi has been honored with the 2018 Kenneth G. Wilson Award for Excellence in Lattice Field Theory during the 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory held July 22–28 at Michigan State University. Davoudi was cited for her fundamental contributions to lattice field theory in a finite volume that are essential for performing lattice simulations of complex systems.

The annual award is named after Nobel Laureate Ken Wilson (1936-2013), who founded lattice gauge theory in 1974, permitting such theories to be studied numerically using powerful computers. Established in 2011, the award recognizes outstanding lattice field theorists who are within seven years of completing the Ph.D., and consists of a modest monetary prize and an invitation to give a plenary talk at the next symposium on lattice field theory.

Davoudi’s significant contributions to formulating the path between quantities obtained in numerical simulations of lattice field theory in a finite spacetime and the physical observables have advanced the few-body frontier in lattice field theory. The cited work paved the road towards obtaining important quantities in particle and nuclear physics, such as two and three-body scattering amplitudes, bound-state properties, electromagnetic structure of hadrons and nuclei, coupled-channel scattering and reaction rates.

Davoudi received her Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics at the University of Washington, and held a postdoctoral position at the Center for Theoretical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining UMD in 2017. She studies how complex systems of hadrons and nuclei emerge from fundamental interactions of nature using a combination of analytical and computational methods.

Photo courtesy of Lattice 2018. Christine Davies, University of Glasgow (left) Zohreh Davoudi, University of Maryland (right).

Michelle Girvan, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, works in the emerging area of network science, which focuses on complex connectivity patterns among interacting units and joins physics with the domains of mathematics, biology, environmental studies, economics, sociology, and psychology, among others. Her analysis of networks helps explain developments in settings as diverse as gene encoding and the nation’s electric grid. Girvan received her Ph.D. in 2004 from Cornell University, and has held appointments at the Santa Fe Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study. She holds a joint appointment in the Institute for Physical Sciences and Technology. In 2017 she received the Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Min Ouyang, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, is a member of the Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials. His experiments at the juncture of physics and chemistry involve creating novel and complex nanomaterials via the bottom-up synthetic strategy and understanding nanoscale physics by using ultrafast and single photon optics, with potential applications ranging from quantum information processing to thermal management fabrics. He received his Ph.D. in 2001 from Harvard University and did postdoctoral work at the University of California in Santa Barbara before joining UMD. Among his honors are an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, an NSF Career Award, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award and a Scialog Fellowship from the Research Corporation.

Ayush Gupta, who was promoted to the rank of Associate Research Professor, works in physics education research, developing new materials and teaching practices to help students gain greater competence with disciplinary content and practice. He has contributed to the articulation and modeling of the contextual dynamics of core disciplinary practices in STEM such as mathematical sense-making and tinkering. In another thread of work, he has contributed to modeling how cultural practices influence the creation of more/less inclusive experiences for STEM students. His work has also introduced novel models for how engineering students think about ethics and social responsibility, connecting cognitive theories with social theory and ideas from Science and Technology Studies. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from this campus, and is also a Keystone Instructor in the Clark School of Engineering.

Ivan Burenkov has been promoted to Assistant Research Scientist. He received his Ph.D. in 2012 from Moscow State University, and has been a postdoctoral researcher with Adjunct Professor Alan Migdall since 2015. His interests include quantum enhanced measurements for advanced optical communication, bio-medical applications and photon frequency conversion

Nicholas Butch, who was a Rolfe Glover Postdoctoral Fellow in CNAM from 2008-11, was promoted to Adjunct Associate Professor. In addition, three other NIST scientists now have appointments in the department: Thomas Purdy and Michael Zwolak as Adjunct Assistant Professors, and Sergey Polyakov as Adjunct Associate Professor.

UMD graduate student Jack Wimberley is one of two recipients of the 2018 Ph.D. thesis awards given by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) collaboration at CERN. These awards recognize students for excellent theses and additional work over and above the central thesis topic that has made an exceptional contribution to the LHCb.  The LHCb collaboration is made up of about 800 physicists from 79 institutions in 16 countries.  

Wimberley’s work explores a possible discrepancy in the Standard Model illuminated by analyzing the decay of rare particles. It was published in Physical Review Letters and highlighted in the October 13, 2017 CERN Courier.

The Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation awarded two students from the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences with $15,000 scholarships for the 2018-2019 school year. This year’s scholars are physics graduate student Zachary Eldredge and chemistry graduate student Matthew Thum.

Congratulations to Assistant Research Professor Chandra Turpen for receiving the 2018 Women of Influence Award.  Established in 1977 by the President’s Commission on Women’s Issues, this award recognizes achievements of outstanding women on campus. 

Dr. Turpen received her Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Colorado, specializing in Physics Education Research.   As an Assistant Research Professor in the physics department at UMD, Turpen works with the Physics Education Research Group. Her work includes the design and research contexts for learning in higher education.  She uses perspectives of anthropology, psychology and the learning sciences. 

At UMD, she directs the Learning Assistant program which is focused on recruiting and preparing exceptional science majors for teaching careers.  This program allows students to collaborate, interact and problem solve.  She also leads an Introductory Physics course for Life Science (IPLS).