Anne Suplee
Biography
Will Fox joined the Department of Physics in January 2025, and is affiliated with the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics. He received his B.A. in Physics from Princeton University and Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to the University of Maryland, he was Principal Research Physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and a Lecturer in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Between his finishing his undergraduate degree and starting graduate school, he worked for a year teaching math and physics at a high school in Kathmandu, Nepal. His research is in high-energy-density plasma physics and plasma astrophysics. He received the Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics in 2019, and the John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the APS Division of Plasma Physics in 2020.
Research
Research Area:
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics
Biography
Kasra Sardashti joined the University of Maryland in 2024 as an Assistant Professor of Physics and a Principal Investigator at the Laboratory for Physical Sciences. Before UMD, Kasra was an Assistant Professor of Physics & ECE at Clemson University. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC San Diego in 2016. Afterward, he was a Research Scientist at the Center for Quantum Phenomena at New York University.
Kasra’s research group, the Laboratory for Band Engineering of Quantum Systems (LaBEQs), works on a wide range of projects that aim to demonstrate high-performance solid-state electronics for quantum information processing, sensing, and communication. Since its establishment in 2021, the group has enjoyed support from multiple federal funding agencies including NSF, DOE, AFOSR, and DARPA. Kasra is also a recipient of the 2021 ORAU Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Hybrid superconductor-semiconductor quantum bits
- Epitaxial superconducting heterostructures for quantum computing devices
- Engineering low-loss materials for coherent superconducting electronics
Centers & Institutes: Laboratory for Physical Sciences; Quantum Materials Center
Biography
Maria Mukhina received a PhD degree in Optics (2013) from ITMO University (Saint Petersburg, Russia) where she investigated the physics of anisotropic and chiral nanocrystals. This work was supported by the Scholarship of the President of the Russian Federation for Young Scientists and Graduate Students. In 2016, Dr. Mukhina started her postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University where she worked on intracellular force sensing as applied to the mechanics of chromosomes. Dr. Mukhina joined UMD Physics as an assistant professor in 2024. Her research relies on nanobiotechnology, materials science, and new microscopy techniques to elucidate the mechanics of the genome.
Research
Dr. Mukhina’s lab is interested in how cells use mechanical energy to operate and regulate subcellular structures consisting of millions of molecules. These structures generate, transduce, and respond to mechanical forces and strains that originate at the individual molecules and scale up to microns. To access this information, the lab develops intracellular force nanoprobes with quantitative optical readout, in vivo force-generating apparatus, in situ mechano-molecular controls, and novel adaptations of super-resolution imaging to be used in a synergistic combination. They apply these tools to elucidate the biochemistry-agnostic mechanisms of a number of pathways where piconewton forces are thought to be important. The special focus is on the pathways that cells use to distribute regulatory information and orchestrate global transitions between different functional architectures of the genome, both physiological and pathological.Research Area: Biophysics
Biography
News
- A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle
- Finding the Beauty in Physics
- (Possibly) Breaking the Standard Model, One Lepton-universality-violating Decay at a Time
- UMD Team Leads a New Test of Universality of Leptons at the LHCb Experiment
- UMD Physicists Contribute to New B Meson Finding
- LHCb Experiment Discovers CP Violation in the Charm Quark System
Biography
Brian Clark works on particle astrophysics, specifically high-energy neutrino astronomy. He received his PhD from The Ohio State University in 2019, where he was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. At OSU, he worked on the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) experiment, which seeks to observe the highest energy neutrinos (above 10 PeV) through the radio detection technique. He worked on all aspects of the experiment, spanning data analysis, simulation, and detector development, including a deployment to the South Pole. After completing his PhD, he became a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at Michigan State University. At MSU, he expanded his experimental efforts to include the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. His current efforts include work on ARA, IceCube, and next generation observatories like the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) and IceCube-Gen2. He currently serves as co-convener of the IceCube Diffuse Neutrino Group and as analysis co-coordinator for ARA.
Research
Research Areas:
Research Projects:
- Ice-Cube
- ARA
Centers & Institutes: Joint Space-Science Institute
Biography
Nathan Schine received his B.A. in physics from Williams College in 2013 and his Ph.D. in 2019 from the University of Chicago. There, he worked with Jonathan Simon to create strongly-interacting topological materials made of light. Nathan then joined the lab of Adam Kaufman at JILA as an NRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow where he developed a state-of-the-art strontium tweezer array apparatus for investigations of ultra-coherent optical atomic clocks, quantum information processing, and many-body physics. In the fall of 2022, Nathan joined the faculty at the University of Maryland. His group focuses on the intersection of controlled coherent dynamics and engineered dissipation in quantum systems, implemented by interfacing a neutral atom array with an optical cavity.
Biography
Aaron Sternbach earned a B.A. degree in physics from Boston University where he investigated metamaterial assisted light-induced phase transitions. After studying at the University of California San Diego, Dr. Sternbach moved to Columbia University where he received a Ph.D in 2020. His thesis concerns the dynamics of quantum materials, investigated with ultrafast nano optical experimental methods. He was awarded the Townes Fellowship for his thesis work in 2019. After his thesis work he served as a Energy Frontiers Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University until 2023. He will begin an Assistant Professorship at the University of Maryland in 2024. Dr. Sternbach's interests include the physics of optically driven Quantum Materials.
Research
The Sternbach lab adapts and uses optical technologies to explore the physics of quantum materials. Nano-optical probes enable a spatial resolution of about 10 nanometers from the far to near infrared (0.1-500 THz). These probes are used to explore phenomena including naturally occurring nano or mesoscale inhomogeneities. The momentum afforded by these probes is also leveraged to explore hybrid light-matter ‘polaritons’, which can propagate in, or at interfaces with, select quantum materials with sub-diffraction limited confinement. These techniques are used with pulsed light sources to explore transient states and interrogate non-linear properties of quantum matter.Research Areas:
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center
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Biography
Sasha Philippov graduated with a M.S. in "applied physics and mathematics" with highest honors from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 2012, and received his Ph.D. in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University in 2017. He works on the theory and modeling of plasmas around black holes and neutron stars. Recent focus of the group was on understanding (a) mechanisms of coherent radio emission from neutron stars (including Fast Radio Bursts); (b) flares from accreting black holes and merging neutron stars, (c) particle acceleration in black hole-powered jets. These ongoing efforts contribute to interpreting the observed signatures of black holes and neutron stars using first-principles physics.
Biography
Chris got his BS in Astronomy and Mathematics from the University of Southern California in 2007. Then he took a relatively short drive to University of California - San Diego for his PhD. He split his time (almost exactly in half) between San Diego and CERN where he worked on the CMS experiment and was fortunate to work directly on the Higgs boson discovery in the Higgs boson to two photons analysis during LHC's Run 1. After receiving his PhD in 2014, he became a Postdoctoral Researcher at Princeton University during LHC's Run 2.
While there he was a contributor to precision luminosity measurements, the observation of the Higgs boson decay to bottom quarks, and High Luminosity LHC outer tracker upgrades. Now Chris is further pursuing understanding underlying features of the Higgs boson via searches with two Higgs boson signatures.
Publications:
- Terahertz Antenna Impedance Matched to a Graphene Photodetector
- Editorial: RNA world hypothesis and the origin of life: Astrochemistry perspective
- Titan's ionospheric chemistry, fullerenes, oxygen, galactic cosmic rays and the formation of exobiological molecules on and within its surfaces and lakes
Biography
Ronald Walsworth earned his B.S. in Physics from Duke University and his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University. His research interests are in developing precision measurement tools and applying them to diverse problems across the physical and life sciences. Walsworth is the recipient of the Francis Pipkin Award in Precision Measurements from the American Physical Society; the Smithsonian Institution Exceptional Service Award; and the Duke University Faculty Scholar Award. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and serves as a Distinguished Traveling Lecturer for the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society. Walsworth is also a Minta Martin Professor in the UMD Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Founding Director of the Quantum Technology Center.
Biography
Alicia Kollár received her B.A. in Physics from Princeton University in 2010 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2016. In her doctoral studies with Benjamin Lev, she worked on the design and construction of a multimode cavity-BEC apparatus to study superradiant self-organization. She was awarded a Princeton Materials Science Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2017 to work with Andrew Houck on quantum simulation of solid-state physics using circuit QED lattices. Her research will focus on using novel coplanar waveguide lattice techniques and graph theory to design and realize microwave photonic crystals with unusual structures such as gapped flat bands and spatial curvature. She will combine these structures with multimode/waveguide circuit QED to engineer quantum simulators of lattice and spin models.
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publications:
- A. J. Kollár, M. Fitzpatrick, A. A. Houck, Hyperbolic Lattices in Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics, arXiv:1802.09549.
- V. D. Vaidya, Y. Guo, R. M. Kroeze, K. E. Ballantine, A. J. Kollár, J. Keeling, B. L. Lev, Tunable- range, photon-mediated atomic interactions in multimode cavity QED, Physical Review X, 8, 011002 (2018), arXiv:1708.08933.
- A. J. Kollár, A. T. Papageorge, K. Baumann, V. D. Vaidya, Y. Guo, J. Keeling, B. L. Lev, Supermode-Density-Wave-Polariton Condensation, Nature Communications, 8, 14386 (2017), arXiv:1606.04127.
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute, Quantum Technology Center
News
- New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction
- Alicia Kollár Bridges Abstract Math with Realities of the Lab
- Kollár Receives CAREER Award
- Kollár Receives Air Force Young Investigator Grant
- Mind and Space Bending Physics on a Convenient Chip
- Enhancing Simulations of Curved Space with Qubits
- UMD Leads New $25M NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation
- Alicia Kollár Joins UMD Physics
- University of Maryland Launches Quantum Technology Center
- QTC, NRL Announce New Partnership
Biography
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publications:
- G. Ciezarek et al. “A Challenge to Lepton Universality in B Meson Decays”. Nature 546 (2017), 227–233. http://arxiv.org/abs/1703.01766
- CMS Collaboration. “Search for Supersymmetry in pp Collisions at the Single-Lepton Final State Using the Sum of Masses of Large-Radius Jets”. Phys. Rev. Lett. 119.15 (2017), 151802. http://arxiv.org/abs/1705.04673
- BABAR Collaboration. “Evidence for an excess of B→ D(*)τν decays”. Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 (2012), 101802. http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.5442
News
- A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle
- Manuel Franco Sevilla Receives Junior Faculty Award
- (Possibly) Breaking the Standard Model, One Lepton-universality-violating Decay at a Time
- Beyond Higgs: The Search for New Particles That Could Solve Mysteries of the Universe
- UMD Team Leads a New Test of Universality of Leptons at the LHCb Experiment
- Intriguing New Result Announced by the LHCb Experiment at CERN
- UMD Physicists Contribute to New B Meson Finding
- LHCb Experiment Discovers CP Violation in the Charm Quark System
- Manuel Franco Sevilla Joins UMD Physics
Biography
Anson Hook obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2012. Afterwards, he did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Advanced Study and Stanford. He joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2018. Hook works in theoretical particle physics. He focuses on theories beyond the standard model (model building), analyzing the signatures of these new theories at current experiments (phenomenology) and designing new experiments to look for evidence of dark matter.
Biography
- Simons Emmy Noether Faculty Research Fellowship (2024)
- Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2019)
- Department of Energy's Early Career Award (2019)
- Kenneth Wilson Award in Lattice Gauge Theory (2018)
Research
Research Area:
Research goals include:
1) Developing and applying effective field theories and lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD) technique aiming at: i) A reliable determination of nuclear and hypernuclear few-body interactions to supplement experimental nuclear-physics programs worldwide, such as the facility for rare isotope beams (FRIB), and to refine studies of extreme astrophysical environment, such as the interior of neutron stars. ii) Constraining hadronic contributions to Standard Model and beyond-the-Standard Model processes, with an impact on both low-energy nuclear physics and high-energy particle physics research, removing some of the long-standing uncertainties in reactions such as those occurring in sun or in fusion research facilities, the cross section of various dark-matter candidates scattering off heavy nuclei in experiments, and the rate of exotic processes such as the neutrinoless double-beta decay.
2) Developing and benchmarking frameworks for quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories and nuclear effective field theories, in light of rapid progress in quantum-computing technologies worldwide. A long-term goal of this research is to combat the long-standing sign problem inherent in traditional Monte Carlo computations of fermionic systems (relevant for studies of dense matter in nature) and real-time dynamics of strongly-interacting matter (relevant for studies of the evolution of matter after Big Bang or after the collision of heavy nuclei in experiments). This problem can potentially be eliminated through mapping and tracking the dynamics of the systems on a quantum simulator. Both the algorithmic developments for efficient implementations of the problems on near-term and future digital quantum-computing platforms, as well as accurate engineering of Hamiltonians of controlled quantum systems for implementations on analog quantum simulators (e.g., ion-trap platforms) are pursued for benchmark problems
Centers & Institutes:
Teaching
- Physics 411: Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism
- Physics 604: Methods of Mathematical Physics
- Physics 624: Advanced Quantum Mechanics
-
Physics 798: Advanced training in QCD, effective field theories and lattice QCD I, II (Fall 2018, Spring 2019)
News
- Zohreh Davoudi Awarded Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
- Particle Physics and Quantum Simulation Collide in New Proposal
- Quantum Computers Are Starting to Simulate the World of Subatomic Particles
- UMD Leads New $25M NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation
- A Physics Career of a Thousand Steps
- Plotting the Future of Particle Physics Research
- Charting a Course Toward Quantum Simulations of Nuclear Physics
- Davoudi, Manucharyan Receive DOE Early Career Research Funding
- Zohreh Davoudi Receives 2019 Sloan Research Fellowship
- Davoudi Receives Ken Wilson Award
- New Members of the Department of Physics
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Biography
Brian Swingle received his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011. He studies the physics of quantum information especially in the context of quantum many-body systems and quantum gravity. Current interests include the emergence of gravity from entanglement, the efficient simulation of quantum many-body systems using entanglement-based methods, and the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of quantum information.
Listen to Brian describe Black holes, The ultimate cosmic whisks in the JQI podcast, Relatively Certain.
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publications:
- "Entanglement renormalization and holography" Brian Swingle. Phys. Rev. D 86, 065007 (2012).
- "Correlated topological insulators and the fractional magnetoelectric effect" B. Swingle, M. Barkeshli, J. McGreevy, and T. Senthil
Phys. Rev. B 83, 195139 (2011). - "Renormalization group constructions of topological quantum liquids and beyond" Brian Swingle and John McGreevy. Phys. Rev. B 93, 045127 (2016)
- "Holographic Complexity Equals Bulk Action?" Adam R. Brown, Daniel A. Roberts, Leonard Susskind, Brian Swingle, and Ying Zhao
Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 191301 (2016) - "Measuring the scrambling of quantum information" Brian Swingle, Gregory Bentsen, Monika Schleier-Smith, and Patrick Hayden
Phys. Rev. A 94, 040302(R) (2016)
Centers & Institutes: Condensed Matter Theory Center; Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science; Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
Biography
Victor Yakovenko is a Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was a recipient of the prestigious David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. He is a theoretical physicist with more than 35 years of research experience in studying electronic properties of various materials. In addition, he joined the emergent econophysics movement around year 2000 by publishing his first econophysics paper. Over the next twenty years, his ideas became increasingly popular and initiated an expanding wave of follow-up papers by many researchers around the world. The work of Yakovenko has also been covered in popular media, such as the New York Times Magazine, American Scientist, New Scientist, Australian Financial Review, Science magazine and the UK Engineering and Technology Magazine. Yakovenko has given about 150 invited talks on this subject. He received his M.S. in Physics and Engineering from the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow in 1987, where he was also employed as Research Scientist. In 1991 he began a Postdoc at the Department of Physics, Rutgers University. In 1993 he joined the University of Marlyland, College Park as Assistant Professor and became Associate Professor in 1999 and Full Professor in 2004.
Research
Research:
Centers & Institutes: Condensed Matter Theory Center; Joint Quantum Institute; Physics Frontier Center
Teaching
- Physics 270: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity and Modern Physics
- Physics 402: Quantum Physics II
- Physics 411: Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism
- Physics 601: Theoretical Dynamics
- Physics 613: Quantum and Statistical Physics II
- Physics 622: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics I
- Physics 623: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics II
- Physics 625: Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics
Biography
Distinguished University Professor Ellen Williams earned her B.S. in 1976 from Michigan State University and her Ph.D. in 1981 from the California Institute of Technology. Her research interests are in surface chemistry and nanotechnology. She founded the University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and served as its Director from 1996 through 2009. She served as Chief Scientist at BP from 2010-14, and as Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) from 2014 until early 2017.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Surface Physics
- Nanoelectronic materials
- Experimental statistical mechanics
- Flexible electronics
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Materials Research Science & Engineering Center
Teaching
- Physics 662: Intersections of Technology and Policy in Modernizing the Energy System
- PLCY699B Intersections of Technology and Policy: Modernizing the Energy System
- Physics 662: Intersections of Technology and Policy
News
- Ellen Williams Named Director of ESSIC
- Ellen Williams Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Ellen Williams Returns to UMD
- Ellen Williams Named Caltech Distinguished Alumna
- Ellen Williams Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society
- Ellen Williams Interviewed in Scientific American
- Ellen Williams Nominated to Key Administration Post
Biography
Fred Wellstood received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoctoral appointment there before accepting a faculty position at UMD. He is a member of the Quantum Materials Center and the Joint Quantum Institute. He has served as the Department’s Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education, and was a key player in planning the new Physical Sciences Complex at UMD. His work is in experimental superconductivity, including quantum computing and 3D magnetic imaging using SQUIDs.
Research
Research:
Research Projects:
- Quantum computing using superconducting devices
- Scanning SQUID Microscopy
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Joint Quantum Institute;Physics Frontier Center
Teaching
- Physics 107: Light, Perception, Photography & Visual Phenomena Laboratory
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 261: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetims: Laboratory
- Physics 271: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity & Modern Physics: Laboratory
- Physics 275: Experimental Physics I
- Physics 276: Experimental Physics II
- Physics 375: Experimental Physics III: Electromagnetic Waves, Optics and Modern Physics
Biography
Edo Waks received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University while working with Professor Yoshihisa Yamamoto in the area of quantum optics and quantum information. After graduating, he became a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, working with Professor Jelena Vuckovic in the Ginzton Laboratory on nanophotonic implementations of quantum information processing, before joining the ECE Department as assistant professor for the Fall 2006 semester. He received his B.S. and M.S. from the Electrical Engineering Department at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.
Waks is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellow and was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, at Stanford. He won the Department of Central Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellowship Award sponsored by the Army Research and Development Activity, which funded his postdoctoral research. He received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1996-1999), and the William Huggins Award for Outstanding Achievement in Computer and Electrical Engineering, from Johns Hopkins University (1995). He holds appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Reasearch in Electronics and Applied Physics
Research
Research Areas:
- Application of photonic crystals to quantum information processing
- Use of photonic crystals for practical tools in optical telecommunication and sensing
- Atomic, Molecular & Optical
- Quantum Science and Technology
Notable Publications:
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute, Quantum Technology Center
News
- UMD Researchers Included in New NSF Quantum Initiatives
- UMD Leads New $25M NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation
- UMD to Lead $1M NSF Project to Develop a Quantum Network to Interconnect Quantum Computers
- Semiconductor Quantum Transistor Opens the Door for Photon-based Computing
- New Hole-Punched Crystal Clears a Path for Quantum Light
- Five UMD Physicists Elected APS Fellows
Biography
Arpita Upadhyaya received her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, and then worked at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT before being awarded an MIT Pappalardo Fellowship in the Department of Physics. She spent a year in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at UNC Chapel Hill before joining the UMD faculty in 2006. She received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2008, and was promoted to associate professor in 2014. Her research uses quantitative imaging, biophysical measurements and computational analysis to study cellular mechanics and the physical forces that enable a cell to sense and respond to its physical environment, in particular cells of the immune system and cancer cells.
Research
Research:
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Maryland Biophysics Program;Maryland NanoCenter
Biography
Raman Sundrum is the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. He did his undergraduate studies at University of Sydney in Australia and received his Ph.D. from Yale University. He did his postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley, Harvard, BU and Stanford. He joined the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Johns Hopkins University in 2000, and became one of two Alumni Centennial Chairs there. In 2010, he moved to the University of Maryland. His research in particle physics and cosmology focuses on theoretical mechanisms and observable implications of extra spacetime dimensions, supersymmetry, and strongly coupled dynamics. His highest impact contribution to the field is a class of extra-dimensional models called the Randall–Sundrum models, first published in 1999 with Lisa Randall. Sundrum is a UMD Distinguished University Professor.
Biography
Greg Sullivan received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and did postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago before joining the UMD faculty in 1995. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and has been named a UMD "Rainmaker" for his prodigious research funding. He has served as the Department's Associate Chair for both Graduate Studies and for Facilities and Personnel, and has held several key leadership positions in his field of high energy physics. He has worked on the on the IceCube experiment at the South Pole, including a role as spokesperson from 2011-13. Physics World named the first observations of cosmic neutrinos by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory the 2013 Breakthrough of the Year. Dr. Sullivan is a co-recipient of the 2016 Breakthrough prize in Physics, serves on the advisory committee for the NSF directorate of geosciences, and also served on the committee of visitors for NSF Antarctic sciences.
Research:
Teaching
- Physics 104: How Things Work
- Physics 165: Introduction to Programming for the Physical Sciences
- Physics 174: Physics Laboratory Introduction
- Physics 272: Introductory Physics: Fields
- Physics 401: Quantum Physics I
- Physics 441: Introduction to Sub Atomic Physics
- Physics 474: Special Problems in Physics: Computational Physics
News
- IceCube Observes Seven Astrophysical Tau Neutrino Candidates
- Sullivan Named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
- EPS to Honor DØ, CDF Collaborations for Top Quark Detection
- UMD physicists share 2016 Breakthrough Prize
- 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Work on Neutrinos' Metamorphosis
- Greg Sullivan Selected as Ice Cube Spokesman
- IceCube Neutrinos Point to Long-Sought Cosmic Ray Accelerator
- UMD Physicists Chosen as 2010 APS Fellows
Biography
Phillip Sprangle is Professor of Electrical &Computer Engineering and Physics and is a member of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics at the University of Maryland as well as an Emeritus Scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory. Dr. Sprangle has a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell University. His current research covers a wide range of fields and includes the atmospheric propagation of high-energy lasers, laser driven accelerators, high intensity ultra-short pulse laser matter interaction and propagation physics, nonlinear optics and plasma physics. He is a fellow of the OSA, APS, IEEE and DEPS and winner of the Presidential Rank Award (2015), Advanced Accelerator Concept Prize (2014), James Clerk Maxwell Prize (2013), Fred E. Saalfeld Award (2012), Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award (2011), IEEE Plasma Science Award (2008), Sigma Xi Pure Science Award, (1994), International Free Electron Laser Prize (1991), E.O. Hulburt Science and Engineering Award (1986), two Technology Transfer Awards (1995, 2004), as well as the Top Navy Scientist and Engineer of the Year Award (2008). He has published over 300 refereed scientific articles and holds 18 US patents.
Research
Research Areas:
Research Interests:
- Free Electron Lasers
- High Energy Lasers
- Nonlinear Optics
- Laser Driven Accelerators
- Laser-Matter Interaction
- Nonlinear Plasma Physics
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics
Biography
Andris Skuja is Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has been on the faculty for more than 30 years. Dr. Skuja has extensive experience in international high-energy projects, and has worked at the DESY accelerator facility in Germany and the OPAL experiment at CERN prior to joining the Large Hadron Collider's Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration. For CMS, Dr. Skuja serves as Project Manager for the hadron calorimeter, a position that entails considerable travel and international scientific and engineering liaison.
Teaching
- Physics 103: Physics of Music Laboratory
- Physics107: Light, Perception, Photography & Visual Phenomena Laboratory
- Physics 161: General Physics: Mechanics and Particle Dynamics
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 375: Experimental Physics III: Electromagnetic Waves, Optics and Modern Physics
Biography
Peter Shawhan did graduate research in Physics at the University of Chicago, studying CP violation in neutral K meson decays, and earned his Ph.D. in 1999. He then spent seven years at Caltech as a Millikan Prize Fellow and Senior Scientist, helping to establish observing operations and data analysis for the LIGO gravitational wave detectors. As a University of Maryland Physics faculty member since 2006, Shawhan's primary research revolves around searching for gravitational wave signals from neutron stars, black holes, collapsing stars, and other extreme astrophysical sources. Detection of these elusive signals, beginning with the first spectacular event in September 2015 from a pair of merging black holes, has confirmed a prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity and is revealing the properties of gravitational-wave sources and enabling tests of the theory of gravity. Other research interests include laboratory tests of gravity and high-energy astrophysics space missions.
Research
Research Area:
Research Interests:
- Gravitational waves
- Astrophysics
- Time-domain Astronomy
- Laboratory Gravity Experiments
Centers & Institutes: Joint Space-Science Institute
Teaching
- Physics 121: Fundamentals of Physics I
- Physics 171: Introductory Physics Mechanics and Relativity
- Physics 172: Succeeding in Physics: Applications, Resources and Concepts
- Physics 270: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity & Modern Physics
- Physics 273: Introductory Physics: Waves
- Physics 375: Experimental Physics III: Electromagnetic Waves, Optics and Modern Physics
- Physics 405: Advanced Experiments
- Physics 410: Classical Mechanics
News
- Shawhan Named a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
- Shawhan Elected APS Fellow
- Peter Shawhan Awarded 2018 Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize
- Peter Shawhan Honored by USM Board of Regents
- The Chirps Heard Round the World
- Peter Shawhan Awarded the 2016 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship
Biography
Eun-Suk Seo earned her Ph.D. in 1991 from Louisiana State University. She joined UMD in 1991 and became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010. Her research focuses on cosmic ray origin, acceleration, and propagation including searches for exotic matter, such as antimatter and dark matter using direct measurements of galactic cosmic rays by flying instruments on balloons or spacecraft. Professor Seo has worked on numerous projects for the detection and characterization of cosmic rays, including four major international collaborations: ATIC (the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter), AMS (the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, intended for deployment on the International Space Station), BESS (the Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting magnet Spectrometer) and CREAM (the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass program). She is the Principal Investigator for CREAM and Co-Investigator for the others.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter ( ATIC )
- Alpha Magnet Spectrometer ( AMS )
- Balloon -borne Experiment with a Superconducting magnet Spectrometer ( BESS )
- Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass ( CREAM )
Centers & Institutes: Center for Experimental Fundamental Physics, Institute for Physical Science & Technology, Joint Space-Science Institute
Teaching
- Physics 107: Light, Perception, Photography & Visual Phenomena Laboratory
- Physics 121: Fundamentals of Physics I
- Physics 122: Fundamentals of Physics II
- Physics 141:Principles of Physics I
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 270: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity & Modern Physics
- Physics 272 & 272H: Introductory Physics: Fields
- Physics 276: Experimental Physics II
Biography
Jay Sau received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2008. He is a theoretical condensed matter physicist with a broad interest in many particle physics relevant to experiments. At present, he is predominantly interested in applying topological principles to create protected solid-state and cold-atomic systems for quantum information processing.
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publications:
- "Generic New Platform for Topological Quantum Computation Using
Semiconductor Heterostructures" Jay D. Sau, Roman M. Lutchyn, Sumanta Tewari, and S. Das Sarma. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 040502 (2010). - "A number conserving theory for topologically protected degeneracy in one-dimensional fermions" Jay D. Sau, B. I. Halperin, K. Flensberg, S. Das Sarma. Phys. Rev. B 84, 144509 (2011).
- "A proposal to probe quantum non-locality of Majorana fermions in tunneling experiments" Jay D. Sau, Brian Swingle, Sumanta Tewari. arXiv:1210.5514 (2012).
Biography
Roald Sagdeev is a UMD Distinguished University Professor Emeritus. He earned his Ph.D. in 1966 from Moscow State University and served for 15 years as director of the Space Research Institute, the Moscow-based center of the Russian space exploration program, where he holds the title of director emeritus. Prior to his work with the Soviet space exploration program, he had a distinguished career in nuclear science with international recognition for his work on the behavior of hot plasma and controlled thermonuclear fusion. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy, the Max Planck Society and the International Academy of Aeronautics. Sagdeev has received the American Astronautical Society's Carl Sagan Memorial Award, and the American Physical Society's James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics.
Biography
Steve Rolston received his B.S. in 1980 from Wesleyan University and his Ph.D. in 1986 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is currently Chair of the Department of Physics and a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Ultracold Plasmas
- Quantum Information
- Optical Lattices
- Quantum Computation
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute; Quantum Technology Center
News
- Rolston Reappointed Department Chair
- UMD Leads New $25M NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation
- Steve Rolston Named Chair of UMD Department of Physics
- Steve Rolston Comments on the Computers of our Wildest Dreams
- Steve Rolston Named Recipient of Kirwan Undergraduate Education Award
Biography
Doug Roberts received his B.S. in 1988 from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research efforts are focused on the BaBar experiment, one of the largest and most prominent experiments in the field of high energy physics. He has served as the Department's Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and currently serves as the university's Associate Dean of Undergraduate Services.
Biography
William Phillips is a Distinguished University and College Park Professor of physics. In 1997 he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize of Physics "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light."
Professor Phillips received his B.S. in 1970 from Juniata College and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow and Honorary Member of the Optical Society of America and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms
- Quantum information with single-atom qubits
- Atomic-gas Bose-Einstein condensates
- Atoms in optical lattices
- Atomic physics analogs of condensed matter systems
- Coherent deBroglie-wave atom optics
- Collisions of ultracold atoms
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Joint Quantum Institute; Physics Frontier Center
Biography
Konstantinos (Dennis) Papadopoulos holds a permanent joint appointment as Professor in the Departments of Physics and Astronomy. He is founding member and co-director of the East West Space Science Center (EWSSC) and head of the Space Plasma Physics Group. During the period 1969-1979 served as senior scientist and division consultant at the Plasma Physics Division of the Naval Research Laboratory. He specializes in Plasma Physics and Space Plasma Physics.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 1974 and a corresponding member of the International Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has received numerous scientific and publication awards, holds eight patents, serves in many national and international boards, and consults extensively with industry, government and non-profit organizations on science, technology and national security issues. In 2009 he was honored with a Festschrift; one-week international symposium in his native Greece, attended by over 100 leading scientists.
Many of his major research accomplishments are related to directing interdisciplinary, critical mass efforts that included state of the art computing to address space physics issues. During 1969 to 1979, while at NRL, he originated the concept of multi-fluid codes with self-consistent anomalous transport. These codes provided the capability to simulate the ionospheric effects of high-altitude nuclear weapon explosions. Between 1980-1986 as P.I. of NASA's STTP program, he directed the University of Maryland effort that using "hybrid codes" resolved the key physics issues of the earth's collisionless shock and of high Mach number shocks in general. During the period 1990-2003, he was the P.I. for theory and modeling in the ISTP mission, a mission that involved more than 12 satellites. He was instrumental in conceiving and promoting the $300M HAARP ionospheric heating facility located in Alaska. The facility was completed in 2003 and received DARPA award as the most innovative project of the year. During the period 2007-2013 he was P.I. of the Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) on the "Fundamental Physics Issues on Radiation Belt Dynamics and Remediation", a $ 7.5 M program that involves theory and modeling, laboratory and space experiments. He is currently co-PI of the AFOSR – MURI “Mobile HF Sources for Ionospheric Modifications” - $ 7.5 (2013-2019).
Papadopoulous has published over 280 papers in refereed scientific journals, edited two books, owns 8 US patents and presented over 160 invited lectures in National and International meetings. His work was cited over 13000 times and according to Google his h-index is 57. He has supervised 20 PhD students and over 40 post-doctoral fellows.
Research
Research Area:
Research Interests:
- The physics of high Mach number collisionless shocks
- Active experiments that use space as a non-linear plasma laboratory
- Beam-plasma instabilities including non-linear stabilization, collapse and radiation
- Anomalous transport in the laboratory and space
- Global theoretical/numerical modeling in support of space missions
- Laser-plasma interactions and applications to switching and THz radiation
He has
- Predicted the existence of spontaneous magnetic fields in laser produced plasmas.
- Introduced strong turbulence theory in beam plasma interactions, which resolved the long puzzle of type III solar radio burst propagation and emission.
- Invented in 1974 the concept of generation of ELF/VLF waves by using the nonlinear interaction of HF heaters with the ionosphere [owns patent of the effect].
- Developed models of anomalous transport and anomalous resistivity in the ionosphere.
- Introduced major computer simulations in the space community which led to the resolution of the physics of collisionless high Mach number shocks.
- Developed modern theories of Alfven's critical ionization velocity phenomena.
- Developed new switching concepts using magnetized semi-conductor plasmas.
- Developed the concept of HF driven current drive in the ionosphere.
- Developed novel antenna for injection of ELF/VLF waves in space improving the state of the art by over 30dB.
Biography
Johnpierre Paglione has seeded a world-class effort on quantum materials research at UMD, leading the collaborations of several faculty that have brought Maryland to the forefront of research on superconductivity, topological materials and strongly correlated systems. Having contributed to several fields of experimental condensed matter research through both single-crystal synthesis and ultra-low temperature transport, thermodynamic and spectroscopic exploration of novel phenomena, Paglione’s research is a blend of materials exploration and elucidation of quantum phenomena. As Director of the Maryland Quantum Materials Center, with a membership of over 100 personnel, a state-of-the-art materials synthesis facility and an extensive measurement suite, Paglione commits QMC resources to hosting the annual Fundamentals of Quantum Materials Winter School, a successful hands-on training program and basis for this work. Paglione is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and an Early Career Award from the Department of Energy, is a Materials Synthesis Fellow in the EPiQS program of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a Fellow of the Quantum Materials Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr. Paglione earned his PhD from the University of Toronto in Canada.
News
- The Many Wonders of Uranium Ditelluride
- Unconventional Superconductor Acts the Part of a Promising Quantum Computing Platform
- Johnpierre Paglione Receives $1.55M from the Moore Foundation
- Professor Johnpierre Paglione Appointed to the Editorial Board of Physical Review X
- DURIP Grants Awarded to Johnpierre Paglione and Mohammad Hafezi
- Johnpierre Paglione Named Director of CNAM
- Paglione Group Publishes High-Temperature Superconductivity Finding
- Johnpierre Paglione Awarded a Material Synthesis Investigator Award
- Paglione Appointed CIFAR Associate
- Johnpierre Paglione Receives DOE Early Career Award
Biography
Min Ouyang has a broad interest in areas that intersect emerging nanoscale condensed matter physics, materials chemistry, instrumentation development and technology applications at the nanoscale, which has led to significant scientific impacts as recognized by numerous high profile publications. He has received a number of professional awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2006), NSF CAREER award (2006), Ralph E. Powe award (2006), ONR Young Investigator award (2007), Beckman Young Investigator award (2007), University of Maryland Discovery award (2010), and Scialog Fellow of the Research Corporation (2013)
Teaching
Biography
Edward Ott earned his bachelor's degree from Cooper Union in the field of electrical engineering. He received his master's and doctoral degrees in electrophysics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. After a postdoctoral year at Cambridge University, he became a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University. He joined the University of Maryland in 1979 and is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Physics.
Professor Ott's current research is on the basic theory and applications of nonlinear dynamics. Some of his current research projects are in wave chaos, dynamics on large interconnected networks, chaotic dynamics of fluids, and weather prediction.
Professor Ott is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). He is the recipient of the APS Julius Edgar Lilienfield Prize for 2014.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Dynamics of large networks of coupled systems
- Wave chaos
- State estimation of large spatiotemporally chaotic systems
- Application of machine learning to nonlinear dynamics
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics
News
- Distinguished University Professor Ed Ott Retires
- Ott Elected to National Academy
- Researchers Create On-Demand Cold Spots to Generate Electromagnetic Cone of Silence
- Neuromorphics for Network Discovery
- Ott Elected Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea
- Ed Ott Honored with Richardson Medal and Moser Lecture
- Ed Ott in the News
- Ed Ott Awarded Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize
Biography
Luis Orozco earned his Ph.D. in 1987 from the University of Texas. His research interests are in quantum optics, precision spectroscopy and fundamental symmetries. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Quantum Optics
- Cavity QED
- Precision tests of discrete symmetries
- Francium Spectroscopy
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute; Physics Frontier Center
Biography
Christopher Monroe specializes in the isolation of individual atoms for applications in quantum information science. He earned his Ph.D. in 1992, working with Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell at the University of Colorado, helping plot the path to cooling a cloud of atoms to the Bose-Einstein condensation transition. (Wieman and Cornell succeeded in their quest for BEC in 1995, and were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work in 2001.)
From 1992-2000, Monroe worked in the NIST group of David Wineland, leading the team that demonstrated the first quantum logic gate and exploited the use of trapped atoms for the first controllable qubit demonstrations. He was awarded the I. I. Rabi Prize of the American Physical Society in 2001 for his work with trapped ions, and Wineland won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2012.
In 2000, Monroe became Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he pioneered the use of single photons to couple quantum information between atoms, and also demonstrated the first electromagnetic atom trap integrated on a semiconductor chip. From 2006-2007 was the Director of the National Science Foundation Ultrafast Optics Center at the University of Michigan. In 2007 he became the Bice Zorn Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland and a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute. In 2008, Monroe's group succeeded in producing 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 investigated the use of 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 made the first steps toward a scalable, reconfigurable, and modular quantum computer.
Monroe is a UMD Distinguished University Professor, and has received the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the American Physical Society Arthur Schawlow Prize for Laser Science. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Physics. In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Research
Research Areas:
Research Projects:
- Experimental quantum information science
- Quantum computing and quantum siumulations with trapped atomic ions
- Quantum networks with atoms and photons
- Microfabricated atom trap structures
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute; Physics Frontier Center; Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), Quantum Technology Center
Biography
Rabindra Mohapatra’s research interests include theory and phenomenology of neutrino masses, understanding the origin of parity in physics from beyond the standard model, strong CP problem, grand unification of forces and matter, nature and origin of dark matter, understanding flavor patterns of quarks and leptons using higher symmetries as well as origin of matter (“Baryogenesis”). He was one of the proponents of the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses and also a proponent of the left-right symmetric theories of weak interactions. He proposed the experimental search for neutron-anti-neutron oscillation and proposed the idea of the massless particle majoron. He has authored two books: one on supersymmetry and another on neutrino masses. He has also worked on areas that question the fundamental assumptions of quantum field theory such as possible violations of Pauli exclusion principle, breakdown of electric charge conservation and Lorentz invariance. He also works on astrophysical constraints on particle physics e.g. from supernova explosion, neutron stars etc. He is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Distinguished University Professor.
Research
Research Area:
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics; Joint Space-Science Institute
Biography
Howard Milchberg is jointly appointed to the departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and is affiliated with the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics. He received his B. Eng. in engineering physics from McMaster University and a Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University. Professor Milchberg is the recipient of an NSERC Postgraduate Fellowship, National Research Council of Canada; NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award; and both the APS John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and its Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. He is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Distinguished University Professor, and was awarded the Senior Faculty Outstanding Research Award in UMD’s Clark School of Engineering. Three of his graduate students have been recipients of APS-DPP’s Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award.
Research
Research Areas:
Research Projects:
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics; Maryland NanoCenter
News
- NSF Awards $1.6M for Laser Upgrades
- Milchberg Named Distinguished University Professor
- New Laser Experiment Spins Light Like a Merry-go-round
- Milchberg Receives APS Schawlow Prize
- UMD Lab to Become Major Laser Research Center
- Experiment Demonstrates Continuously Operating Optical Fiber Made of Thin Air
- Nearly 50-meter Laser Experiment Sets Record in Campus Hallway
- Compact Electron Accelerator Reaches New Speeds with Nothing But Light
- Research Team Describes "Somersaulting" Photons
- Pushing the Frontier of Extreme Light-Matter Interaction Research
- Plasma Guides Maintain Laser Focus
- Irving and Renee Milchberg Endowed Lecture Premiered April 16
- Milchberg Selected as 2013 OSA Fello
Biography
Wolfgang Losert obtained his PhD from City College of the City University of New York. His research is centered on dynamical properties of Complex Systems at the convergence of physics and biology. A special focus is on applications to cancer biology. Examples of dynamical processes that are often found in complex systems are pattern formation and dynamical phase transitions. The main thrust of his work on living systems is to assess how cell motion and collective behavior are affected by physical cues, in particular the topography of the surface, surface adhesivity, and cell-cell adhesion. We discovered that cell migration can be guided by nanotopography via control of the dynamics of actin waves and that cell-surface adhesion can significantly alter the intracellular and collective cell dynamics. We also developed new tools to integrate measurements of the physical properties of living systems with biomedical phenotypes, via advanced statistical and machine learning analysis of multiple types of information, most at the single cell level.
Research
Research Areas:
- AI and Physical Sciences
- Biophysics
- Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos
- BRAIN Dynamics
- Biophysics MURI
- Collective dynamics (3D imaging of rotations in dense granular matter)
Research Projects:
- Dynamics of biomaterials on micro and nanoscales
- Systems Biology - coupled mechanical and biochemical signaling pathways
- Jamming and slow flow of granular matter
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Maryland Biophysics Program; Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics; Maryland NanoCenter
News
- UMD Awarded $2 Million to Build a Quantum Biosensing Test Bed
- Insight into How Cells Get Signals from Physical Senses Could Lead to New Disease Treatments
- New Research Sheds Light on How Mesothelioma Develops
- Wolfgang Losert Elected AAAS Fellow
- Five UMD Physicists Elected APS Fellows
- Losert's Lab Designs RoboClam with Amazing Digging Powers
- Wolfgang Losert Leads a $7.5M Biophysics MURI
- Wolfgang Losert is a Challenge Grant Recipient
Biography
Chris Lobb received his B.A. in 1974 from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. in 1980 from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of the Invention of the Year Award. His teaching honors include the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Certificate of Teaching Excellence and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Quantum computing using superconducting device
- Phase transitions in superconductors
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Joint Quantum Institute;
Biography
Chuan S. Liu, a plasma theorist who studied laser plasma interaction, particularly laser acceleration of charged particles in plasmas, served in several leadership positions at the University of Maryland, including Chair of the Department of Physics, Director of the East-West Space Science Center, Director of the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs and interim Dean of the Graduate School. From 2003-06, he served as President of the National Central University of Taiwan. Upon his retirement from the University of Maryland in 2014, he accepted a three-year position at the University of Macau.
Biography
Norbert Linke is a quantum scientist working on different applications of individual trapped atomic ions. He received his undergraduate degree (Dipl. Phys.) in 2007 from the University of Ulm, Germany, working in the lab of Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler. He earned his doctoral degree (D.Phil.) in Atomic & Laser Physics in 2013 from the University of Oxford, U.K., under David Lucas. After post-doctoral work at Oxford, he joined the University of Maryland and its Joint Quantum Institute.
Research
Research Area:
- Quantum algorithm realizations
- Telecom-ready quantum networking
- Quantum simulation with individual ions
Centers and Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute, Quantum Technology Center
Biography
Daniel Lathrop received a B.A. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991. He then served at Yale University as a postdoctoral fellow, research affiliate, and lecturer, and as Assistant Professor at Emory University. He joined the University of Maryland in 1997, the year he received a Presidential Early Career Award from the National Science Foundation. Daniel Lathrop is now Professor of Physics and Professor of Geology and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. His research in the Nonlinear Dynamics group at Maryland focuses on turbulent fluid flows, geomagnetism, and experiments on superfluid helium. Dr. Lathrop served as the Director of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics from 2006 to 2012. He received the Stanley Corrsin Award in 2012 from the American Physical Society for this work in quantum fluids. He is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Turbulence
- Geophysical & Astrophysical Magnetic Fields
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics; Maryland NanoCenter
Teaching
- Physics 105: Physics for Decision Makers
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 275: Experimental Physics I
- Physics 410: Classical Mechanics
- Physics 411: Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism
- Physics 485: Electronic Circuits
- Physics 499X: Making Physics Experiments
- Physics 685: Research Electronics
News
- Lathrop and Colleagues Honored for Invention
- Lathrop Lab's Geodynamo Set for Overhaul
- Dan Lathrop Named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
- Daniel Lathrop Comments on Earth's Changing Magnetic Poles in Phys.org Article
- Lathrop Elected to APS GSNP Chair Line
- Lathrop Featured in Secrets of the Earth
- Dan Lathrop Receives 2012 Stanley Corrsin Award
Biography
Theodore Kirkpatrick earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Rockefeller University in 1981. His research work is in the general area of strongly correlated and disordered electronic systems at low temperatures. Their prime objective of this project is to understand the phase transitions and other collective phenomena in such systems. One particular goal is to further develop and apply an effective field theory that has been developed by them and which allows for a systematic treatment of electronic systems with static impurities. The methods employed to study this problem include effective field theories, renormalization group techniques, and many- body perturbation theory. Specific systems for which this project is relevant include magnets with impurities, superconductors, and doped semiconductors. The conclusions drawn from these studies will be of interest to those concerned with the electrical and magnetic properties of matter.
Biography
Kiyong Kim earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland under Prof. Howard Milchberg, and received the Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award presented by the American Physical Society. He then received a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory before joining the UMD faculty in 2008. He is a recipient of an NSF Career Award and a Department of Energy Early Career Research Award. His research centers on ultrafast lasers and optical science, including laser interaction with atoms, molecules, solids, and plasmas.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Ultrafast optical, x-ray, and terahertz science
- High-energy density laboratory plasma
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics; Maryland NanoCenter
Biography
Xiangdong Ji received his B.S. from Tongji University and his Ph.D. in 1987 from Drexel University. His research includes theoretical studies of the nucleon structure in Quantum Chromodynamics and experimental search for Dark Matter particles using liquid xenon technology. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of the 2003 Outstanding Oversea Young Chinese Scientist Award. He is a UMD Distinguished University Professor.
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publication:
- Ji, X. Gauge-invariant decomposition of nucleon spin and its spin-off. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78:610, 1997
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
Biography
Hassan Jawahery is a UMD Distinguished University Professor and the Gus T. Zorn Professor of Physics. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Tufts University in 1981. He leads the UMD research group on Flavor Physics and CP Violation. He was one of the founding members of the BaBar experiment, served as it Physics Analysis Coordinator (2001-2002), and its Spokesperson (2006-2008). He is now a member of the LHCb experiment at the LHC collider at CERN. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004 and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010.
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publication:
- B. Aubert et al (A. Jawahery with the BaBar collaboration) "Observation of CP violation in the B^0 meson system", Physical Review Letters 87, 091801(2001)
News
- A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle
- (Possibly) Breaking the Standard Model, One Lepton-universality-violating Decay at a Time
- UMD Team Leads a New Test of Universality of Leptons at the LHCb Experiment
- Intriguing New Result Announced by the LHCb Experiment at CERN
- UMD Physicists Contribute to New B Meson Finding
- LHCb Experiment Discovers CP Violation in the Charm Quark System
Biography
Ted Jacobson earned a BA at Reed College in Physics and Mathematics (1977), and a PhD at the University of Texas, Austin in Physics (1983). After postdoctoral positions at UCSB and Brandeis, he joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1988. He has had numerous research interests, including models of discrete spacetime, quantum gravity, sensitivity of Hawking radiation to short distance physics, analog condensed matter models of Hawking radiation, black hole entropy, constraints on Lorentz symmetry violation in particle physics and gravitation, and force-free plasmas. He is the recipient of a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He holds a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair position at Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada. In 2018, he was named a UMD Distinguished University Professor.
Enjoy his October 2020 public lecture on electromagnetic waves, sponsored by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Black Hole Thermodynamics
- Quantum Gravity
- Analog black holes and cosmology in Bose-Einstein condensates
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics; Joint Space-Science Institute
News
- Ted Jacobson Named Distinguished University Professor
- Ph.D. Student Batoul Banihashemi Excels at Leading the Class
- Atoms May Hum a Tune from Grand Cosmic Symphony
- Black holes may not be completely black. Stephen Hawking vindicated?
- Four UMD Physicists Named AAAS Fellows
- A Scientist Takes on Gravity
- Ted Jacobson's DST Lecture October 28th
Biography
Bei Lok Hu received his B.A. in 1967 from the University of California - Berkeley and his Ph.D. in 1972 from Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Senior Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Research
Research Areas:
Research Projects:
- Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime
- Stochastic Semiclassical Gravity
- Early Universe Quantum Processes
- Nonequilibrium Quantum Field Theory. Fluctuation Phenomena
- Foundational Issues of Quantum Mechanics, Relevance to Quantum Computing
- Theoretical Aspects of Quantum and Atom Optics
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute; Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics; Physics Frontier Center
Teaching
- Physics 106: Light, Perception, Photography & Visual Phenomena
- Physics 171: Introductory Physics Mechanics & Relativity
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 270: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity & Modern Physics
- Physics 275: Experimental Physics I
- Physics 276: Experimental Physics II
- Physics 420: Principles of Modern Physics
- Physics 475 / 675: Introduction to Relativity, Gravitation & Cosmology
Biography
Kara Hoffman received her Ph.D. at Purdue University, followed by postdoctoral appointments at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland and the University of Chicago. She joined the UMD faculty as an assistant professor in 2004, was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and professor in 2015. Recognition has included the NSF Career Award, the CMPS Board of Visitors Distinguished Junior Faculty Award, and the Purdue University physics department's Outstanding Alumna Award in 2013. Her current work is in particle astrophysics, centered on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the Askaryan Radio Array at the South Pole. Physics World named IceCube’s first observations of cosmic neutrinos the 2013 Breakthrough of the Year.
Research
Research:
Research Projects:
- IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole
- ARA: The Askaryan Radio Array
Centers & Institutes: Joint Space-Science Center
News
- IceCube Observes Seven Astrophysical Tau Neutrino Candidates
- Physics at the Edge of the World
- IceCube Neutrinos Point to Long-Sought Cosmic Ray Accelerator
- EPS to Honor DØ, CDF Collaborations for Top Quark Detection
- Kara Hoffman Receives NSF MRI-R2 Grant
- Kara Hoffman Awarded the 2009 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship
- Kara Hoffman Awarded the NSF CAREER Award
Biography
Adil Hassam is Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (Plasma Physics). Dr. Hassam received BS and MS degrees in Physics from MIT in 1974 and a Ph.D. in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University in 1978. Since then he has been a member of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics at the University of Maryland. His research has ranged from laboratory and fusion plasmas to magnetospheric and solar plasmas. His current interests are in ideal and dissipative MHD and in innovation in fusion research. He has authored or co-authored over 100 publications. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Department of Physics and an Honorable Mention for the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has served as President of the University Fusion Association (2003-4).
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Theoretical and Computational Plasma Physics of Magnetic Confinement Fusion
- Innovation in Confinement Concepts for Fusion
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics
Biography
Carter Hall received his B.S. degree summa cum laude from Virginia Tech, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was awarded the Goldhaber Prize and Wallace-Noyes Fellowship. After his postdoctoral appointment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, he joined the University of Maryland as an assistant professor in 2006. He has received a Department of Energy Early Career Award and the CMNS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. His research is on the border between nuclear and particle physics, including the EXO experiment seeking Majorana neutrinos and the LUX and LZ experiments searching for weakly interacting dark matter.
Research
Research:
Research Projects:
- Experimental nuclear physics
- Search for Majorana neutrino masses
- Search for weakly interacting dark matter
Centers & Institutes: Center for Experimental Fundamental Physics
Teaching
- Physics 165: Introduction to Programming for the Physical Sciences
- Physics 272: Introductory Physics: Fields
- Physics 273: Introcuctory Physics: Waves
- Physics 375: Experimental Physics III: Electromagnetic Waves, Optics and Modern Physics
- Physics 405: Advanced Experiments
- Physics 410: Classical Mechanics
News
- LZ Experiment Sets New Record in Search for Dark Matter
- UMD Physicists Hope to Strike Gold by Finding Dark Matter in an Old Mine
- Despite Pandemic, Physics Lab Courses Go On
- Carter Hall Named Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education
- As dark matter eludes scientists, they plan a more extensive search
- Hall Awarded the 2010 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship
- Carter Hall Receives DOE Early Career Award
Biography
Mohammad Hafezi studied for two years at Sharif University before completing his undergraduate degree at École Polytechnique in 2003. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2009. He was a senior research associate at the Joint Quantum Institute before joining the faculty of UMD. His group aims at the theoretical and experimental investigation of quantum properties of light-matter interaction, for applications in classical and quantum information processing and sensing. He received a Sloan Research Fellowship and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator award in 2015.
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute, Quantum Technology Center
News
- New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction
- Hafezi Named Simons Investigator
- Hafezi Named Finalist for 2020 Blavatnik Award
- DURIP Grants Awarded to Johnpierre Paglione and Mohammad Hafezi
- Mohammad Hafezi Receives ONR Young Investigator Award
- Manucharyan, Hafezi Receive Sloan Fellowships
Biography
Nicholas Hadley is an experimental high energy physicist. He is currently a member of the CMS experiment at CERN, where he searches for new physics at the world’s highest energy accelerator. He was one of the co-leaders of the Dzero experiment’s top group at the time of the top quark discovery. He has been a member of the Program Advisory Committees at Brookhaven, Cornell, and Fermilab, and is now a member the Canada ATLAS review committee. He served as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education in the Physics Department of the University of Maryland from 2007 to 2010.
Biography
Richard Greene is known for his many years of productive research on the physics of novel superconducting materials, at the IBM research laboratories and at the University of Maryland. He and his collaborators discovered the first known polymeric and two-dimensional organic superconductors in the 1970s. Since 1986, Dr. Greene has done extensive research on high-Tc superconductors, primarily electron-doped cuprates and iron-based materials. He has written several well-known reviews about these two superconducting systems. He was also involved in the development of the relaxation technique for specific heat measurements, a technique that is now widely used in the Quantum Design PPMS. His publications are very highly cited, with over 33,000 citations and an h-index of 96. He was the founding director of the Center for Superconductivity Research at the University of Maryland in 1989. He is a Fellow of the APS and the AAAS and the APS Dissertation Award for Experimental Condensed Matter Physics is named in his honor. In 2022, he was named a University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Cuprate high-temperature superconductors
- Iron-pnictide and related superconductors
- Search for new and practical superconductors
- Topological Insulators
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Maryland NanoCenter
Biography
Jordan Goodman is a Distinguished University Professor and the former Chair of Physics Department at the University of Maryland. His area of research, Particle Astrophysics, studies cosmic radiation to better understand the properties of elementary particles and the processes in space that produce these particles. This field blends elements of high energy physics and astrophysics. Starting with his Ph.D. work, which showed evidence for an abundance of heavy elements such as iron in high energy cosmic rays, he has worked to understand the nature of cosmic rays which hit the earth. Previously, his work has concentrated on two experimental efforts-- Milagro and IceCube. He is now the Principal Investigator and US Spokesperson of the HAWC Gamma Ray Observatory. He is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Distinguished University Professor.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- HAWC
- Milagro
- Super-K
- Ice-Cube
Centers & Institutes: Joint Space-Science Institute
News
- HAWC Finds High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emissions from Microquasar V4641 Sagittarii
- UMD Scientists Help Discover the Highest-Energy Light Coming from the Sun
- The Extraordinary Adventures of Lifelong Terp Jordan Goodman
- HAWC’s Measurement of the Highest Energy Photons Sets Limits on Violations of Relativity
- Jordan Goodman Named Winner of Yodh Prize
- The latest on HAWC and the search for high-energy gamma rays
- HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory Reveals New Look at the Very-high-energy Sky
- Jordan Goodman Receives Physics Distinguished Alumnus Award
- Das Sarma and Goodman Selected for CMNS Board of Visitors Awards
Biography
Michelle Girvan received her B.S. in 1999 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in 2003 from Cornell University. Her research combines methods from statistical mechanics, dynamical systems, and graph theory to address interdisciplinary, network-related problems. She is interested in both broad theoretical approaches to complex networks as well as specific applications, especially to information cascades, epidemiology, and genetic regulatory networks.
In a 2019 podcast, she discussed her work in chaos and artificial intelligence.
In 2022, she was named a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.
Research
Research Area:
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Biophysics Program; Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics
Teaching
- Physics 165: Introduction to Programming for the Physical Sciences
- Physics 272: Introductory Physics: Fields
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 615: Nonlinear Dynamics of Extended Systems
- Physics 798N: Data Practicum at the Intersection of the Physical, Computer and Life Sciences
News
- Michelle Girvan Named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
- Understanding and Exploring Network Epidemiology in the Time of Coronavirus
- A Physics Career Along the Path Less Traveled
- Promotions Effective July, 2018
- Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos
- Five UMD Physicists Elected APS Fellows
- Physics Professor Michelle Girvan Receives $3M NSF Grant to Train Graduate Students in Network Biology
- Mathematical models explain east-west asymmetry of jet lag recovery
Curriculum Vitae (complete publication list, professional activities, etc. ppg135)
Gravitation Wave Detection
2014 Gravitational Wave Talk (a.) (b.)
Biography
Sylvester James Gates Jr. holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science. During his decades with the UMD Department of Physics, he was named a Distinguished University Professor, University System of Maryland Regents Professor and John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. Known for his pioneering work in supersymmetry and supergravity, areas closely related to string theory, Gates was also an affiliate mathematics professor. Gates earned two Bachelor of Science degrees (in physics and mathematics) and his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1984, Gates co-authored Superspace: One Thousand and One Lessons in Supersymmetry, the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry, and joined the UMD faculty as an associate professor. Four years later, he became the first African American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major U.S. research university.
The author of more than 200 research papers and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Gates has been featured in dozens of video documentaries, including five in 2015. For his contribution to science and research, he received the National Medal of Science from President Obama in 2013. Gates has served on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the National Commission on Forensic Science, and the Maryland State Board of Education. He is a strong advocate for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. He has served as president of both the National Society of Black Physicists and the American Physical Society.
| Recipient of: | Election to the: |
| National Medal of Science (a.), (b.), (c.) Mendel Medal (a.)(b.) | American Academy of Arts & Sciences American Philosophical Society National Academy of Sciences |
PCAST Appointment by President Obama
Regents Professor Appointment by Chancellor Kirwan
Research
| Adinkra Symbol Science & Uncertainty Interview Secret Life of Jim Gates | Mathematical Perspective on Adinkras C-SPAN Q & A Interview |
Q2C Festival 2009 Talk ("Does Reality Have a Genetic Basis") (a.)
Selected Publications:
- I. Chappell II; S. J. Gates, Jr., and T. Hubsch, "Adinkra (In)Equivalence From Coxeter Group Representations: A Case Study," http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.0478
- S.J. Gates, Jr., and T. Hubsch, "On Dimensional Extension of Supersymmetry: From Worldlines to Worldsheets", http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.0722
- S.J. Gates, Jr "Symbols of Power", Physics World, Vol. 23, No 6, June 2010, pp. 34 - 39
- On Being interview: https://onbeing.org/programs/s-james-gates-uncovering-the-codes-for-reality/
Synopsis: http://rccommentary2.blogspot.com/2010/07/if-you-knew-susy.html - C.F. Doran, M.G. Faux, S.J. Gates, Jr., T. Hubsch, K.M. Iga, G.D. Landweber,
(a.) http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.0051
(b.) http://arxiv.or/abs/1108.4124
On The Higgs Boson & On SUSY:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y44ZG1RioI&feature=youtu.be
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ-V4xz_sZQ
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00n2vvj
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDXfyWIPtvY&feature=related
Science & Education Policy:
- Prepare & Inspire Report
https://nsf.gov/attachments/117803/public/2a--Prepare_and_Inspire--PCAST.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V2eP5BiFFY
Non-Scientific Essays:
Biography
Victor Galitski received his Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics under Prof. A. Larkin at the University of Minnesota after earning a Ph.D. in applied math (in a record 18 months)at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI). He joined UMD as an assistant professor in 2006. He has received a Simons Investigator Award, CMPS Board of Visitors Faculty Award, and an NSF Career Award. He recently finished translating from Russian to English a textbook, “Exploring Quantum Mechanics: A Collection of 700+ Solved Problems for Students, Lecturers, and Researchers" co-written by his grandfather, physicist V.M. Galitskii. He studies several subfields of condensed matter theory.
Research
Research:
Research Projects:
- Fluctuations in superconductors
- Statistical mechanics of lower dimensions
- Cold atom systems
- Quantum phase transitions
Centers & Institutes: Condensed Matter Theory Center; Joint Quantum Institute
News
- Repurposing Qubit Tech to Explore Exotic Superconductivity
- Embracing Uncertainty Helps Bring Order to Quantum Chaos
- Bilayer Graphene Inspires Two-Universe Cosmological Model
- Galitski Receives a Simons Foundation Award
- Victor Galitski Awarded the 2011 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship
- Victor Galitski Awarded Board of Visitors Junior Faculty Award
- Victor Galitski Awarded the NSF CAREER Award
Biography
Sarah Eno received her Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and did postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago. She has been a member of the AMY experiment at Tristan, the CDF and D0 experiments at FNAL, and the CMS experiment at the LHC. She is interested in studies of the weak force, studies of QCD using EWK vector bosons, searches for new particles, calorimeters, and radiation resistant scintillators. She is a fellow of the APS, has served on HEPAP and is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.
Biography
Ted Einstein received his B.S. in 1969 from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in 1973 from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an internationally recognized physicist addressing exciting questions in the field of theoretical condensed matter physics, especially in the area of surface physics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society and a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Distinguished Senior U.S. Scientist Award.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Physics of surfaces, complex interfaces, and nanostructures on surfaces
- Properties of vicinal surfaces
- Statistical mechanics of lower dimensions
- Indirect electronic interactions and their consequences
Centers & Institutes: Condensed Matter Theory Center; Maryland NanoCenter
News
- Sankar Das Sarma Named Highly Cited Researcher
- Das Sarma, Monroe Named 2020 Highly Cited Researchers
- CMTC Launches Blog
- PRB Highlights Work of Das Sarma and Hwang
- Sankar Das Sarma, Chris Monroe and Ian Spielman Named 2019 Highly Cited Researchers
- Sankar Das Sarma and Ian Spielman Named 2018 Highly Cited Researchers
- Das Sarma Receives Third Consecutive Honor as Influential Researcher
- CMTC to kick off annual research symposium
- Das Sarma Included on Thomson Reuter's List of Highly Cited Researchers
- Das Sarma Makes List of Highly Cited Researchers
- Das Sarma and Goodman Selected for CMNS Board of Visitors Awards
Biography
Tom Cohen is a Professor and Associate Chair in Physics. He received his A.B. in 1980 from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was an NSF Presidential Young Investigator from 1990-1995. His exceptional teaching ability has been recognized through several awards including the Celebrating Teaching Award, the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award.
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publications:
- Cohen, T.D., R.J. Furnstahl, D.K. Griegel. Quark and gluon condensates in nuclear matter. Phys. Rev. C45:1881, 1992
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
Biography
Professor Chacko 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 has made contributions to our understanding of weak scale supersymmetry, extra dimensions, grand unification, composite Higgs models, dark matter, baryogenesis and neutrino physics. Professor Chacko's work has connections to many different types of experiments, including the Large Hadron Collider, the direct and indirect detection of dark matter, precision observations of the cosmic microwave background, neutrino oscillation studies, searches for rare processes and short range tests of Newton's law of gravitation.
Biography
Alessandra Buonanno received her Ph.D. from the University of Pisa, followed by a postdoctoral work at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in France and a Richard C. Tolman Postdoctoral Prize fellowship at Caltech. Returning to France, she worked for CNRS at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris and Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie in Paris before accepting a faculty position at UMD in 2005. She received a Sloan Fellowship in 2006 and she was the William and Flora Hewlett Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2011-2012. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation, and a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute. In 2014, she accepted the position of Director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Potsdam; she remains a Research Professor at UMD. Her work spans several topics in gravitational physics, in particular theoretical and phenomenological aspects of gravitational-wave physics and astrophysics.
Research
Research:
Research Projects:
- Gravitational-wave physics
- Cosmology of the early Universe
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics; Joint Space-Science Institute
News
- Buonanno to Receive Oskar Klein Medal
- Buonanno Elected to Italian National Academy of Sciences
- Buonanno Receives Balzan Prize
- Buonanno Receives Dirac Medal
- Buonanno Elected to National Academy of Sciences
- Buonanno Receives Galileo Galilei Medal
- Professor Alessandra Buonanno Awarded the Leibniz Prize
Biography
Alberto Belloni received his B.S. in 2002 from the University of Pisa and Scuola Normale Superiore and his Ph.D. in 2007 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the CMS Collaboration at the beginning of 2013 and is involved in the upgrade of the Hadronic Calorimeter (HCAL).
Research
Research Area:
Notable Publications:
- Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC”, The ATLAS Collaboration, Phys.Lett. B716 (2012) 1-29
- Measurement of the W->lnu and Z/gamma*->ll production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7TeV with the ATLAS detector”, The ATLAS Collaboration, JHEP 1012 (2010) 060
Biography
Elizabeth Beise is a Professor of Physics and the Associate Provost for Academic Planning and Programs. She earned her B.A. in Physics from Carleton College in 1981, and her Ph.D. in Physics in 1988 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She joined UMD in 1993 after a research scientist position in the Kellogg Radiation Lab at the California Institute of Technology. Her research in experimental nuclear physics focuses on the use of electromagnetic and weak probes of the internal structure of protons, neutrons and light nuclei, and on the use of nuclear physics techniques to test fundamental symmetries of nature. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Beise is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.
Biography
Paulo Bedaque received his B.S. in 1985 from the Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil and his Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Rochester. Following this, he served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology and then at the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington. He joined the scientific staff at Lawrencey Berkeley Lab in 2001 and joined UMD in 2006. Professor Bedaque's research career has focused on the interface of nuclear physics and particle physics with an emphasis on various aspects of QCD. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Lattice field theory, Effective theories and other non-perturbative methods in Quantum Chromodynamics
- Properties of superdense matter and compact astrophysical objects
Centers & Institutes: Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
Teaching
- Physics 102:Physics of Music
- Physics 272: Introductory Physics: Fields
- Physics 371: Modern Physics
- Physics 401: Quantum Physics I
- Physics 402: Quantum Physics II
- Physics 412: Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism I
- Physics 601: Theoretical Dynamics
- Physics 603: Methods of Statistical Physics
- Physics 612: Quantum and Statistical Physics I
- Physics 747: Quantum Chromodynamics
Biography
Distinguished Physicist Jayanth R. Banavar, whose research frequently involves interdisciplinary collaboration with the life sciences, is a former dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS).
Prior to his appointment in 2011, Banavar led the Department of Physics at Pennsylvania State University for 12 years. Much of his recent work has applied the techniques of statistical physics to solve interdisciplinary problems, explaining, for example, why biological molecules tend to curl up into helices, or to explain why coral reefs support such a rich biodiversity. Frequently, the goal has been to identify an underlying mathematical principle to provide an elegant explanation of natural phenomena.
Banavar served as Distinguished Professor and George A. and Margaret M. Downsbrough Department Head of Physics at Pennsylvania State University. He received a bachelor of science with honors and a master of science in physics from Bangalore University. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh. A fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has more than 250 publications in refereed journals, 11 book chapters, a book he co-edited and three patents.
Biography
Drew Baden has worked in many aspects of high-energy physics over the past 20 years, and was part of the D0 collaboration at Fermilab which, along with the CDF team, discovered the top quark in 1995. Since the late 1990s, he has been part of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider. He and his team are specifically responsible for designing, prototyping, testing and manufacturing the "trigger" electronics for the CMS hadron calorimeter.
Biography
Thomas Antonsen graduated from Cornell University where he received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1973 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1976 and 1977, respectively. His research interests include the theory of magnetically confined plasmas, the theory and design of high power sources of coherent radiation, nonlinear dynamics in fluids, and the theory of the interaction of intense laser pulses and plasmas. He is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a fellow of the American Physical Society, Division of Plasma Physics, and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a UMD Distinguished University Professor.
Research
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Research & Applied Physics
News
- Thomas Antonsen Honored by the American Physical Society
- Researchers Create On-Demand Cold Spots to Generate Electromagnetic Cone of Silence
- Antonsen Receives IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award
- Antonsen Named Distinguished University Professor
- Thomas Antonsen Recognized by IEEE for Contributions to Vacuum Electronics
- Thomas Antonsen Named 2011 IEEE Fellow
Biography
Steven Anlage received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Quantum Materials Center at UMD, where he leads experimental research activities in superconducting metamaterials, quantum chaos, and various types of quantitative high-resolution near-field microscopy. His research focus is on the basic physics of superconducting materials (both natural and artificial) and addressing fundamental questions concerning wave propagation in complex scattering systems. He is also active in developing applications that exploit time-reversal invariance and spatial reciprocity for electromagnetic wave propagation, such as directed communication and wireless power transfer. He is a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Study of correlated-electron materials with nm-resolution near-field and far-field microwave microscopes
- Experimental investigation of the fundamental electrodynamic properties of exotic superconductors
- Investigation of quantum and classical superconducting metamaterials with novel electrodynamic properties
- Investigation of fundamental questions in quantum chaos through electromagnetic analog experiments
- Experiments on photonic topological insulators and other optical analogs of electronic systems
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Maryland NanoCenter
News
- How Does Quantum Mechanics Meet Up With Classical Physics?
- Unconventional Superconductor Acts the Part of a Promising Quantum Computing Platform
- Time Delay Acquires a New Dimension
- Researchers Create On-Demand Cold Spots to Generate Electromagnetic Cone of Silence
- Going Beyond the Anti-Laser May Enable Long-Range Wireless Power Transfer
- Anlage Named Finalist for Invention of the Year Award
- UMD Gemstone Team TESLA Attend 2016 IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference
- Steve Anlage Selected as UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
- New Material Becomes Invisible to Microwave Radiation with the Flip of a Switch
