It’s Time to Change the STEM Philosophy

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Published: Wednesday, May 25 2016 10:20

S. James Gates Jr. speaks during a panel at the U.S. News STEM Solutions Conference.

Undergraduate Sydney Robinson Awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship

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Published: Monday, May 23 2016 13:39

Sydney Robinson, a rising junior double majoring in physics and French, was awarded the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study abroad. The competitive program provides fully funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences over a period of seven to 10 weeks.

Robinson will travel to Lucknow, India, to study Urdu, a language spoken in northern India and Pakistan. Robinson hopes to build new relationships, experience a new culture and connect with family members.

“I think the most important part of adapting to new cultures and situations is to ask questions and be open to whatever answers you may receive, even if they are not what you expected,” says Robinson.

With language skills in English, French and Urdu, Robinson hopes to facilitate a research and training exchange between students at the National Centre for Physics in Pakistan and students at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, headquartered in Switzerland.

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UMD Gemstone Team TESLA Attend 2016 IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference

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Published: Friday, May 13 2016 13:16

University of Maryland Gemstone Team TESLA had a very successful time at the 2016 IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference May 5-6, 2016 in Aveiro, Portugal. This international conference brought together the leading experts in the emerging technology of providing wireless power to everything from TV remotes and cell phones to electric vehicles. Three of the 10 team members are physics majors: Scott Roman, Tyler Grover and Ben Philip. Roman and Frank Cangialosi represented the team at the conference. Both gave invited talks, and with their mentor Steven M. Anlage, presented a poster on their concept for a wireless power transfer system based on time-reversed electromagnetic waves. Anlage, a Professor of Physics, a member of CNAM and a Faculty Affiliate in ECE, was recently named a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.

Gemstone Team TESLA has spent the last three years investigating basic questions related to a radical new method to deliver wireless power to devices in an enclosed environment. Their idea is to harness the time-reversal properties of wave propagation to deliver microwave energy to a precise location in space. This energy is then rectified and used to power the device. Team TESLA has carried out a series of experiments and simulations to show that this technology is feasible, and they have developed new ideas to overcome some of the challenges that the technology faces.

The talks (and associated papers and US patent applications) were:

Time Reversed Electromagnetic Wave Propagation as a Novel Method of Wireless Power Transfer, by Frank Cangialosi, Tyler Grover, Patrick Healey, Tim Furman, Andrew Simon, Steven M. Anlage. This work has resulted in an invention disclosure PS-2016-011 made to the UMD Office of Technology Commercialization on 14 February, 2016. “Method of Delivering Power to a Moving Target Wirelessly via Electromagnetic Time Reversal”. A provisional US Patent Application was filed on 25 April, 2016, Application No.: 62/327,346.

Selective Collapse of Nonlinear Time Reversed Electromagnetic Waves, by Scott Roman, Rahul Gogna, Steven Anlage. This work has resulted in an invention disclosure PS-2016-012 made to the UMD Office of Technology Commercialization on 14 February, 2016. “Selective Collapse of Nonlinear Time Reversed Electromagnetic Waves”. A provisional US Patent Application was filed on 25 April, 2016, Application No.: 62/327,349.

The poster presentation was entitled Time-Reversed Electromagnetic Wave Propagation as a Novel Method of Wireless Power Transfer, by Frank Cangialosi, Anu Challa, Tim Furman, Tyler Grover, Patrick Healey, Ben Philip, Scott Roman, Andrew Simon, Liangcheng Tao, and Alex Tabatabai. The associated paper won the Best Paper Award for the entire conference (about 200 submissions). The award includes a framed certificate, a book from Cambridge University Press, and a €400 cash award.

The Department of Physics announces promotions and appointments effective July 1, 2016

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Published: Tuesday, May 10 2016 08:47

Ian Appelbaum, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, joined UMD Physics in 2008. His experimental and theoretical research focuses on semiconductor device physics including spin-polarized electron transport and relaxation mechanisms, electronic properties of two-dimensional semiconductors, and novel phenomena in topological materials. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and won the 2011 Outstanding Young Scientist award of the Maryland Academy of Sciences.

Zackaria Chacko, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, is a theoretical physicist and a founding member of the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics (MCFP). His research interests lie in elementary particle physics, the field that studies the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions. The primary focus of Professor Chacko's research is the study of new theories that can explain some of the puzzles of the current Standard Model of particle physics, and that can be tested by current or upcoming experiments. He received his PhD at this University, where he received the Pelczar Award for Outstanding Graduate Study.

Chris Jarzynski, currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of IPST, will hold a joint appointment with Physics. He received his PhD in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and works on nonequilibrium behavior and computational methods for estimating thermodynamic properties. He is a Distinguished University Professor, and was recently elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lennard Fisk, ​a member of the National Academy of Sciences and former NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, has been appointed a College Park Professor. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1992 and its Exceptional Public Service Medal in 2008. He is the Thomas M. Donahue Distinguished University Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan.

Distinguished University Professor Christopher Monroe Elected to National Academy of Sciences

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Published: Tuesday, May 03 2016 15:06

University of Maryland Physics Professor Christopher Monroe has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Monroe is also a Distinguished University Professor, the Bice Zorn Professor of Physics, and a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science.

Monroe is one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected in 2016, joining a select group of 2,291 scientists around the country recognized for their influential research and elected by their peers. Monroe is a scientific leader in trapping atomic ions and using their quantum properties for novel information processing tasks.

After graduating from MIT, Monroe earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado. From 1992 until 2000, he worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, where he helped demonstrate the first quantum logic gate and pioneered the use of atoms for quantum memory devices. From 2000 until he joined UMD in 2007, Monroe was a faculty member at the University of Michigan.

In 2008, Monroe’s group produced quantum entanglement between two widely separated atoms and for the first time teleported quantum information between matter separated by a large distance. Since 2009, his group has used ultrafast laser pulses for speedy quantum entanglement operations, pioneered the use of trapped ions for quantum simulations of many-body models related to quantum magnetism, and has proposed and taken the first steps toward creating a large-scale, reconfigurable and modular quantum computer. He recently co-authored a feature article in Scientific American on the promise of modular quantum computing systems.

Monroe is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Arthur Schawlow Prize in Laser Science from the American Physical Society, the I.I. Rabi Prize from the American Physical Society, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the International Quantum Communication Award, and the CMNS Board of Visitors Distinguished Faculty Award.