The Board of Visitors Awards and CMNS Awards was presented at the college's Academic Festival on May 2, 2014, in the James A. Yorke Rotunda. Award recipients from Physics include Christopher Monroe - BOV Distinguished Faculty Award, Carter Hall - Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Lorraine DeSalvo - Dean's Outstanding Employee Award.
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The University of Maryland’s new Physical Sciences Complex is an instant architectural landmark with its shimmering elliptical atrium, and with its official opening on April 23, 2014, the state-of-the-art research building is poised to become a landmark of scientific achievement.
Designed to create ideal conditions for scientific innovation—precision in the laboratory and freewheeling conversation in the corridors—the Physical Sciences Complex is one of the largest building projects in the university’s history. Constructed with a $115.7 million contribution from the state of Maryland and $10.3 million from the federal government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the 160,000-square-foot building houses nearly 50 laboratories, more than half of which were constructed to the most stringent technical standards.
This gives the university one of the nation’s largest expanses of top-quality research space, which already is attracting top scientists who will collaborate on groundbreaking discoveries about the universe, quantum science and the battle against disease. Occupying the new space are the university’s physics and astronomy departments; the interdisciplinary Institute for Physical Science and Technology; and the Joint Quantum Institute, a partnership between NIST and UMD.
“The partnership between NIST and the University of Maryland, going back some 40 years now, is one of our oldest, longest running, and most productive collaborations, but the new Physical Sciences Complex is a new high. We’re very pleased to have played in part in the creation of this outstanding research facility,” said Patrick Gallagher, director of NIST and undersecretary of commerce for standards and technology.
The capabilities of the Physical Sciences Complex will enhance UMD’s leadership in theoretical, experimental and applied quantum science research, placing the university firmly at the leading edge of what is likely to be the next great scientific revolution.
“The yellow brick road in cutting-edge fields like quantum science now leads to College Park,” says UMD President Wallace Loh. “Our faculty are now demonstrating the feasibility of quantum computing, and with these advanced facilities, they will have the tools and new partnerships to develop the concept.”
Fifteen years in the planning, and designed with extensive input from faculty members in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, the facility reflects the university’s commitment to collaborative research of the highest technical standards. Construction began in 2010.
“The new Physical Sciences Complex is a key component of our university's strategy to work across disciplines and with federal and state partners to create the innovations of tomorrow and educate the next generation of science and technology leaders,” says Jayanth Banavar, dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.
Today’s experiments in quantum science and other technically demanding fields require precise control over conditions such as temperature, humidity and vibration. To accomplish this, the Physical Sciences Complex is built of reinforced concrete, which is stronger than steel. Laboratories’ temperatures are controlled to within .5 degree Celsius (.9 degree Fahrenheit); humidity is controlled to within 1 percent; and laboratory walls are isolated to minimize vibrations.
Two levels of underground laboratories, as much as 55 feet below the building’s plaza, were designed for researchers working with atoms and lasers and were built to the exacting standards of NIST’s Advanced Measurement Laboratory, one of the most sophisticated labs in the world for quantum physics research. The underground setting minimizes vibrations, electromagnetic variations and radiofrequency interference. To further reduce the chance of interference with delicate instruments, telephone connections are fiber optic and electrical wiring is carried through special insulated conduits. Anti-static flooring helps control static electricity.
The Physical Sciences Complex’s most striking architectural feature is a wide elliptical atrium. Shaped to reflect the orbits of planets and stars, the atrium soars through all four above-ground levels. The ellipse is lined with 953 panes of clear and red glass in a checkerboard pattern and opens the building up to the sky, flooding interior spaces with light. Corridors around the ellipse are extra wide and furnished with comfortable armchairs and couches to serve as gathering places for students and faculty.
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The use of natural light is among the design features that earned the building Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Other features include energy-efficient fixtures, materials that come from rapidly renewable resources or include recycled content, reduced water use, a green roof, and plantings that capture stormwater runoff from paved surfaces and filter it into the soil.
At the base of the ellipse, the Gluckstern Garden honors the memory of Robert L. Gluckstern, who was a UMD physicist and former chancellor of the University of Maryland (this position is now called president). The glass-walled lobby has a café and views of the garden and the plaza surrounding the building.
University officials hoped the new facility would boost recruitment of leading scientists, and this is already proving true. This year two top experimental condensed matter physicists joined the Joint Quantum Institute, which also has recruited a higher number of promising young graduate students to attend UMD this fall than in years past.
The building is also attracting stars of a different kind. Its striking architecture earned it a role in an upcoming episode of “Veep,” the Emmy-award-winning HBO comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, which airs April 27, 2014.
--University of Maryland/College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences--
Media contact: Heather Dewar, 301-405-9267, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Watch a video highlighting the grand opening celebration: http://youtu.be/aSA8YfLNcAY
Watch the full grand opening celebration: http://youtu.be/MHCuaLZq4z8
University President Wallace D. Loh’s spring video message was filmed in the PSC:
http://www.president.umd.edu/multimedia/spring2014message.cfm
Learn more about the Physical Sciences Complex: http://cmns.umd.edu/psc
Two Nobel Prize winning physicists, including a 2013 Nobel laureate who predicted the Higgs boson, and the physicists who discovered quarks and “color,” were among the distinguished speakers at an April 11-12, 2014 University of Maryland symposium highlighting discoveries that sparked a physics revolution.
The sold-out event, "50 Years of Quarks & Color" recounted how our understanding of quarks has evolved since their discovery in 1964. The discovery of quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, deepened our understanding of particle physics. This discovery and the concept that quarks carry different “colors,” or charges that explain their strong interactions, led to The Standard Model of Particle Physics, which explains what the world is and what holds it together. The symposium also highlighted future directions of particle physics research that will ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of nature.
In addition to Nobel laureates François Englert and Frank Wilczek, featured speakers included University of Maryland Physics Professor O.W. (Wally) Greenberg, who proposed that quarks have “color” charges; George Zweig, who proposed the existence of quarks; and Robbert Dijkgraff, director of the Institute for Advanced Study. More than a dozen other history-making physicists spoke at the event, which ran from 8:30 a.m. April 11 through 6:30 p.m. April 12 at College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 3501 University Blvd., East Hyattsville, MD 20783.
Visit, http://ter.ps/58g, for the the full story.
Geoffrey Ji has been awarded a scholarship by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, which encourages students to pursue advanced study and careers in the sciences, engineering and mathematics. He is among the 283 students selected from 1,166 students nominated nationally this year. Ji—who is majoring in physics, mathematics, economics and computer science—has been conducting quantum science research for two years in the laboratory of Chris Monroe, Bice Zorn Professor of Physics.
“Geoffrey has almost single-handedly outfitted advanced digital and analog electronic control circuits, in addition to writing impressive computer code that will soon be adopted by most of our other projects,” said Monroe.
Ji also conducted theoretical nuclear physics research with Paulo Bedaque, associate professor of physics, which resulted in co-authorship of a peer-reviewed publication in the journal Physical Review D. He is a member of the UMD Honors College and plans to pursue a doctoral degree.
