Ellen Williams Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society

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Published: Monday, May 02 2016 07:51

Ellen Williams, Distinguished University Professor, has been named a foreign member of the prestigious Royal Society.

She was among 10 new foreign fellows and 50 new fellows announced on April 29 in London. The society is a fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.

Williams came to UMD in 1981 for a post-doctoral fellowship and became a full professor in 1991. At Maryland, she pioneered the use of very powerful electron scanning, tunneling microscopes to study the surface of materials like silicon at the atomic level. In 1996 Williams founded the University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, serving as its director until 2009. She served as Chief Scientist at BP from 2010-14 and on December 8, 2014, she became director at ARPA-E.

Challenges Abound for Propelling Interstellar Probes

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Published: Friday, April 29 2016 09:10

Howard Milchberg comments on the feasibility of the "starshot" interstellar probe.

This bizarre experiment is bringing us closer than ever to solving a 100-year-old cosmic mystery

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Published: Wednesday, April 27 2016 15:40

On the flanks of the Sierra Negra volcano in Central Mexico, nearly 14,000 feet above sea level, there is a giant field of water tanks. Three hundred water tanks, to be exact, occupying a space that's roughly the size of three football fields. 

Daniel A.S. D’Ippolito: October 13, 1949 — April 03, 2016

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Published: Tuesday, April 26 2016 16:21

UMD alumnus Daniel D'Ippolito, who received his PhD in plasma physics in 1975, died on April 3, 2016, in Erie, Colorado. His AIP obituary can be seen here.

Gretchen Campbell named new JQI Co-Director

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Published: Monday, April 25 2016 10:52

JQI Fellow Gretchen Campbell has been named the new NIST Co-Director of the Joint Quantum Institute, effective April 1, 2016. Campbell joined the JQI in 2009 and is also a UMD Adjunct Associate Professor and APS Fellow. In recent years she has received various accolades for her atomtronics research, including the APS Maria Goeppert-Mayer award. Campbell succeeds JQI Fellow Charles Clark, who has held the position since 2011. JQI Fellow Steven Rolston will continue as the UMD Co-Director. Rolston, on behalf of JQI, would like to thank Clark for his service. "I would particularly like to highlight Charles’ leadership and active engagement with the public in the promotion of quantum physics. The JQI will continue to benefit from his dedication." Rolston continues, "Gretchen is an outstanding research colleague and I look forward to working with her in her new role as Co-Director."