Virtual Open House

UMD Department of Physics
2025 Prospective Graduate Student
Virtual Open House - March 12, 2025

Welcome to the Physics Department's Virtual Open House. Congratulations on being accepted into the Physics Graduate Program! 

We look forward to sharing the excitement of our graduate program with each of you. We are a welcoming and inclusive environment for all community members. Our agenda includes overviews of our department, chats with faculty and graduate students, links to information about our graduate program, research areas, campus, and more. To understand the dynamic character of our department, please read about students, faculty, staff and alumni in our recent newsletters.

Virtual Open House Schedule:  

Morning (Learn about our program - see links and videos)

Check out the links below to learn more about our program. Here you will find videos of faculty and students as well as research posters, lab tour videos, and more!

In addition to getting to know our program, please check out our amazing campus.  Also, we are located near many exciting venues in the dynamic Washington, DC Metro area.

Afternoon (Learn more about our program and chat with faculty and graduate students)

Please check your email for a spreadsheet of links for the virtual Open House events.

Posters, slides, virtual lab tours, and websites from faculty regarding their work and groups:

• • Dr. Kaustubh Agashe
  • Dr. Joseph Britton     website
  • Dr. Gretchen Campbell      
  • Dr. Andrew Childs
  • Dr. Charles Clark
  • Dr. Jim Drake 
  • Dr. Michelle Girvan, Dr. Edward Ott 
  • Dr. Jordan Goodman     
  • Dr. Alexey Gorshkov
  • Dr. Michael Gullans
  • Dr. Alicia Kollár   JQI Seminar 
  • Dr. Howard Milchberg 
  • Dr. Yifei Mo      more from the Mo lab
  • Dr. Chris Palmer
  • Dr. Jay Sau     poster
  • Dr. Peter Shawhan poster
  • Dr. Peter Shawhan, Dr. Jacob Taylor  
  • Dr. Raman Sundrum
  • Dr. Victor Yakovenko    website
  • Dr. Kartik Srinivasan    JQI Seminar 
  • Dr. Arpita Upadhyaya
  • Dr. Ron Walsworth JQI Seminar  
  • Dr. Eun-Suk Seo

Additional Useful Information:

How to reach out to individual faculty:  
Faculty Directory Page 

How to reach out to individual graduate students:
Graduate Student Directory Page 

Research Areas being explored at UMD:
Research Area Page 

Student Groups: 
Graduate Student Committee 
Mental Health Task Force - more information here 
Physicists of Underrepresented Genders

Program Information: 
Qualifying Exam 
Timeline for Graduate Studies in Physics 

Contact Information: 
Tom Cohen, Associate Chair for Graduate Studies 
Josiland Chambers, Graduate Coordinator
Donna Hammer, Director of Education

Recent Department Newsletters

Pathway to Physics PhD (P³)

University of Maryland (UMD) & Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS)

Pre-Application, Fall 2024 

Priority Institutions

Email questions to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Graduate Student Organizations

Graduate Student Committee

Mental Health Task Force

The Graduate Student Committee is an elected group of 7 graduate students who work with the Physics Department to improve the graduate student experience.  

What We've Done

Advisor Award

The advisor award was established to recognize outstanding advisors. After soliciting nominations, we organized a selection committee comprised of faculty, alumni, and researchers. The 2015 advisor award was presented to Professor Adil Hassam.

Peer Mentoring Program

The mentoring program pairs first year graduate students with returning graduate students to foster guidance and supportive friendships through one-on-one mentorship, community networking, and social media. We have reached over 50 graduate students!

Prospective Student Activities

We plan activities for prospective students during the Admitted Student Open House, including lab tours, evening activities, and a day trip around Washington, DC.

TA Mutual Expectations Agreement

We developed a mutual expectations agreement based on TA and instructor feedback to facilitate productive discussions between TAs and instructors.

Mental Health Task Force

The Physics Department’s Mental Health Task Force is a group of graduate students within the physics department who aim to build a departmental culture that encourages communication about mental health and de-stigmatizes mental health issues. To do this, we collect data on physics graduate student mental health, communicate the results to the community, and form recommendations for the department.

UMD Physics Grad Student Guide

What We Do 

Each year near the end of the spring semester, the task force administers a survey to physics graduate students that aims to qualitatively and quantitatively assess various aspects of mental health by including clinical inventories, free response questions, and more. This work is encouraged by the physics department and approved by UMD’s Internal Review Board. We will be giving the fifth annual survey in spring 2020. Our work includes collaboration with various stakeholders within the physics department, including faculty, administrators, and GradComm. In addition, we have recently expanded to give the survey to the astronomy department, requiring collaboration with that department’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee as well as the astronomy faculty.