Blake High School Students Publish Paper with Professor James Gates

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Published: Monday, March 23 2009 16:09

James Hubert Blake High School students James Gonzales and James Parker recently became “published” authors in theoretical physics as coauthors of 4D, N = 1 Supersymmetry Genomics (I), which is a mathematically derived supersymetric relationship between specific particles.

Mr.Gonzales and Mr. Parker participated in the Student Summer Theoretical Physics Research Session (SSTPRS) at the University of Maryland with Dr. James Gates Jr. - John S. Toll Professor & Director of Center for String & Particle Theory.

Twelve students from Maryland and the University of Iowa cooperated in the research on string theory for two months during the summer. During the first month the students learned advanced math concepts from Dr. Gates and then applied these concepts to their research during the second month.

Both Blake students worked diligently and made a valuable contribution to the research and where the only high school students to coauthor the article. Mr. Parker said “it was a great learning experience to work with Dr. Gates”.

Their paper can be viewed at http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3830.  ArXiv is the premiere website in the world where each day the world’s community of theoretical physicists publicize their work.

UM Research Posts Recovery Act Info

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Published: Thursday, March 19 2009 13:53

Please bookmark the campus Recovery Act Information page:

www.umresearch.umd.edu/recovery

and the departmental page:

http://umdphysics.umd.edu/index.php/services/2009-stimulus-information.html

Robert Gluckstern: 1924 - 2008

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Published: Friday, December 19 2008 15:22

Bob Gluckstern passed away December 17, 2008.

Bob was a brilliant physicist and superb administrator. He received his PhD from MIT in 1948, was a postdoc/assistant professor/associate professor at Yale until 1964, and a Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as Chair of the Physics Department for 5 years, and Provost until 1975. He was Chancellor here (the same position is called President now) from 1975 to 1982, when he stepped down to return to full-time teaching and research. He did research in many fields, from early work in coulomb scattering, nucleon scattering, relativistic electrodynamics, to more recent work in accelerator theory and non- linear dynamics. As an aside, he was a long time participant in the Maryland Choir. As another aside, Bob once wrote a paper on how to calculate the uncertainties in the measurement of the curvature (and hence the momentum) of charged tracks in magnetic fields due to multiple scattering and measurement errors. This paper had a huge impact in the field of particle physics.

Bob was an extraordinary physicist who had a pure and deep understanding of the material. In the past few years, true to form, Bob played an important role in the Slawsky clinic. He really enjoyed having contact with the students. Indeed, while Chancellor, he was also a TA in Physics and Math (assisting both Jordan Goodman and Vic Korenman). He was a superb teacher and human being to the end, and he fought a hard fight with cancer. We will miss him, his rich New Yawk accent, his good nature, his perspective, his brilliance, and his friendship.

--Drew Baden, Chair
Obituary in The Washington Post.

Nicholas Hadley Elected Fellow of AAAS

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Published: Thursday, December 18 2008 15:45

Nicholas Hadley, Professor and Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

This year 486 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, 14 February from 8 to 10 a.m. at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago.

As part of the Section on Physics, Dr. Hadley was elected as an AAAS Fellow for his leadership role in the discovery of the top quark and his contributions to searches for phenomena beyond the standard model of particle physics.

Dr. Hadley joined the University of Maryland as an Associate Professor in 1988. He is an experimental physicist working in the field of High Energy Physics (HEP). Skilled in the development and construction of detectors for the primary observation of charged and neutral particles, he has been very successful in data analysis and physics interpretation of HEP data. He did important work at Brookhaven on rare decays of “strange” particles, published the first paper at the Fermilab Dzero experiment on “leptoquarks,” and spearheaded the analysis efforts at Dzero that led to the discovery of the top quark at Dzero in 1995. He is internationally recognized for his many important leadership roles in the large collaboration of physicists and technical personnel that constitute an active HEP physics experiment, having been on the program advisory committees of Brookhaven and Fermilab, among other leadership positions

The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association’s 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with nominee’s institution) , or by the AAAS chief executive officer. For more information regarding the non-profit AAAS, visit www.aaas.org .

Dorland Awarded the 2008 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship

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Published: Friday, November 21 2008 12:59

Associate Professor Bill Dorland was awarded the 2008 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, which recognizes outstanding personal effort and expertise in physics, and dedicated service to the UMD Department of Physics . The Fellowship, established in 2001, honors Dr. Richard A. Ferrell, a deeply-respected physicist who joined the University in 1953, served 40 years, and remained active in the department even after his retirement. Dr. Ferrell died in 2005 at his nearby University Park home.

Dorland is a member of Maryland’s Plasma Physics research group, which US News and World Report ranked No. 2 in the nation. He has been a principal investigator for $8 million in research grants and is also the current Director of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics.

In January, he will begin serving as the University Honors Director. For more information, please see, “Award Winning Physicist to Lead Honors Program,” on page 5 of The Advisor.