- All News & Features
-
- Search News & Features
-
- Physics Grad Kate Miller Featured in Physics in Your Future APS Brochure
- Gravitational waves: U-M physicists involved in second detection
- The Hunt for Dark Matter Continues: PandaX Reaches World’s Best Sensitivity
- Stars Burning Strangely Make Life in the Multiverse More Likely
- Physics Professor Gordon Kane Awarded 2017 APS J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics
- U-M Astrophysicist Katherine Freese Explains the Search for the Universe’s ‘Dark Stars’
- New Dwarf Planet Solar System’s 2nd Most Distant
- Physicist David Gerdes and Team Find New Dwarf Planet In Our Solar System
- Professor Keith Riles – Member of LIGO Team
- Researchers Invent New Material that can Switch Between Being Hard and Soft
- The 2017 Physics Commencement Live Event
- Physics Professors Receive MURI Grant
- Alec Josaitis Recently Awarded International Institute and Rackham Graduate School Individual Research Fellowship
- Dr. Priyashree Roy Earns 2016 Jefferson Science Associates (JSA) Thesis Prize
- LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves for Third Time
- U-M Physics Alum Alex Nitz Helps Detect Colliding Black Holes in Space
- Professor Henriette Elvang Selected for a College of Literature, Science, and Arts John Dewey Award
- Professor Gordon Kane Quoted in "Yearning for New Physics at CERN, in a Post-Higgs Way"
- Professor Rachel Goldman and Team Develop Technique which Could Boost Efficiency of LED Lighting by 50 Percent and May Pave the Way for Invisibility Cloaking Devices
- Dark Energy Survey reveals most accurate measurement of dark matter structure in the universe
- Professor David Gerdes Featured in USA Today Solar Eclipse Article
- U-M Physics Research Fellow Bachana Lomsadze and Professor Steven Cundiff Develop Novel Spectroscopy Technique that Could Revolutionize Chemical Detection
- Kip S. Thorne, Winner of 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, Has U-M Physics Connections
- LIGO and Virgo Make First Detection of Gravitational Waves Produced By Colliding Neutron Stars
- Leinweber Foundation Gives $8M for Physics Center in U-M Department of Physics
- Four U-M Physics Faculty Named Fellows
- Michigan Fireball Meteor Registers As Quake: Astrophysicist David Gerdes Quoted
- Professor Fred Adams Quoted in Science News Article
- A Modern Rutherford Experiment: Scientists Use Known Energy Neutrinos to Study Nucleus
- It's Givin' Me Excitations: U-M Study Uncovers First Steps of Photosynthesis
- UM Astrophysicist David Gerdes and Team in the Hunt for Planet 9
- U-M Physics Professor Franco Nori Makes 2017 Highly Cited Researchers List
- U-M Society of Physics Students Talk STEM and More
- The 2018 Physics Commencement Live Event
- Professor Timothy McKay Reveals His Science Journey in Recent Podcast
- Physics Students Tali Khain and Noah McNeal Awarded Goldwater Scholarships
- Homer A. Neal 1942-2018
- The Higgs Boson Reveals Its Love for the Top Quark
- Physics Rev E Celebrates 'Milestone Articles' of Physics Faculty
- Physics Graduate Benjamin Isaacoff Awarded Optical Society of America's Guenther Congressional Fellowship
- Professor Katherine Freese and Team's Hunt for Dark Matter Turns to Ancient Minerals
- Professor Benjamin Safdi Awarded DOE’s Early Career Award
- Professor Christine Aidala Serves on National Academy Committee Endorsing Science Case for Electron-Ion Collider
- U-M Physicist Lu Li Cracks Code on Material that Works as Both Conductor, Insulator
- U-M Physicist Wins Nobel Prize
- New Physics Faculty Member Dominika Zgid
- Astrophysicist Katherine Freese Quoted in Astronomy Magazine
- Physicist Jennifer Ogilvie and Team Are Shedding New Light on Photosynthesis
- Professors Hui Deng and Mack Kira Named 2019 Fellows of the Optical Society
- Four Physics Faculty Named 2018 Fellows of the American Physical Society
- Four Physics Faculty Awarded American Physical Society Honors
- Gas-Detecting Laser Device Gets an Upgrade
- U-M Physicists Roberto Merlin, Meredith Henstridge and Team Develop Small Device that Bends Light to Generate New Radiation
- Physics Alum Larry Curtiss and Faculty Advisors Devised Contraption That Lead to Fiber Optics
- Michigan Physics Welcomes LSA Collegiate Postdoctoral Fellow Camille Avestruz
- Support Michigan Physics on Giving Blueday!
- Physicist Timothy Chupp Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- U-M Physics Senior Noah McNeal Awarded Marshall Scholarship
- Astrophysicist Katherine Freese and Colleague’s Latest Theory About Dark Stars Made Astronomy Magazine's Cover Story
- First Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Fellows Named by Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics
- Physics Graduate Student Awarded 2018-2019 Rackham International Student Fellowship
- Professor David Gerdes Named Next Physics Department Chair
- Three U-M Physicists Make Highly Cited Researchers 2018 List
- State of Michigan Governor Declares February 28, 2019: Chirped Pulse Amplification Day
- Physicist Dragan Huterer Receives Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award
- Physicist Sharon Glotzer Elected to National Academy of Engineering
- Professor Rachel Goldman Elected Vice Chair of Division of Materials Physics
- Physicist Liuyan Zhao Awarded NSF CAREER Award
- Physicist Henriette Elvang Awarded Thurnau Professorship
- Physics Senior Sophie Barterian Earns Prestigious Luce Scholarship
- Electric Dipole Moments and the Search for the Origin of Matter
- Three Physics Graduate Students Named Recipients of 2019-2020 Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship
- Professor Christine Aidala receives Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Italy
- Professor August Evrard's Problem Roulette Tool Recently Awarded Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize
- Five U-M Physics Faculty Recently Promoted
- Professor Steven Cundiff Discusses Quantum Information Science at the White House
- Professor Stephen Forrest named Henry Russel Lecturer for 2020
- Physicist Roy Clarke and International Team Devise Way to Show How Common Elements Can Make a More Energy-Secure Future
- Professor Jens-Christian Meiners Receives Grant to Tackle the Bends
- Graduate Student Summer Fellows Named by Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics
- Professor Christine Aidala Wins Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
- U-M Physics Professor Wins Fundamental Physics Innovation Award
- 2019 U-M Physics Graduate Wins American Physical Society LeRoy Apker Award
- Pushing boundaries: Nobel prize winner on science literacy and lasers
- DESI opens its 5,000 eyes to capture the colors of the cosmos
- Team at U-M Sheds Light on New Electromagnetic Ordering
- LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Detector Moved Nearly a Mile Underground
- Support Michigan Physics on Giving Blueday
- Six U-M Physics Students Awarded Competitive National Fellowships
- Professor Liuyan Zhao Wins Prestigious Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) Award
- Two Graduate Students Awarded Prestigious Department of Energy Fellowships
- Electron-Ion Collider, a New Nuclear Physics Facility, to Be Built at Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Physicist David Gerdes Quoted in Michigan News Article Regarding How COVID-19 Disrupts Research Projects
- Physicist Ben Safdi and Research Team Provide Another Twist in the Dark Matter Story
- U-M Physics Faculty Member Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Professor Xiaoming Mao Awarded $7.5M Grant to Bring Metamaterial to Life
- Now Complete, Telescope Instrument is Poised to Begin Its Search for Answers About Dark Energy
- Celebrating Our Undergraduate Awardees
- Celebrating Our Graduate Awardees
- U-M Senior’s COVID-19 Data Model Reaches CDC
- Physics Grad Student Rory Fitzpatrick and Professor Josh Spitz Shed Light on Electron Neutrino Interactions
- Professors Bjoern Penning and Marcelle Soares-Santos Highlighted in Physics Today Article
- U-M Physics Awarded $7.1 Million on Project to Upgrade the ATLAS Experiment
- When Dancers and Aliens Overlap
- Physicist David Lubensky and Team Determine Stress Fibers Help Cells Keep Their Shape—and May Also Regulate Size, During Development
- "Physics: A Resounding Legacy" - A Tribute to Patron Norman E. Barnett
- Physics Professor Joshua Spitz, Graduate Student Johnathon Jordan, and Research Team Propose Using Ancient Minerals from Deep within Earth’s Crust to Measure Cosmic Radiation
- U-M Physics Professors Byron Roe and Joshua Spitz Part of Collaboration to Search for New Physics
- Physics Grad Student Christopher Dessert Part of Team Researching X-Rays from Neutron Stars Which Could Lead to Discovery of New Particle
- Assistant Professor Liuyan Zhao Awarded a Prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship
- Assistant Professor Marcelle Soares-Santos Named 2021 Cottrell Scholar
- U-M Physicists Part of Study that Finds Unexpected Antimatter Asymmetry in the Proton
- Physics Graduate Student Kevin Napier is Lead Author on New Paper Casting Doubt on ‘Planet Nine’
- Physics Undergraduate Jiani Fei Proposes Solution to Quantum Field Theory Problem
- Physicists Hui Deng, Steve Forrest, and Research Team Discover “Egg Carton” Quantum Dot Array Could Lead to Ultralow Power Devices
- U-M Physics Group Led by Professor Tim Chupp Joins in Announcement of Stronger Evidence of New Physics Revealed by Fermilab's Muon g-2 Experiment
- U-M Physics Professors Roberto Merlin, Gregory Tarlé, and Graduate Student Noah Green Help Create Novel Optical Physics Method to Measure the Expansion of the Universe
- Physicist Christine Aidala Featured in LSA Magazine’s Spring 2021 Edition
- Dr. Melissa Hutcheson, Professor Myron Campbell and Research Team Find Possible Deviation from the Standard Model of Physics
- U-M Physics Professor Lu Li, Dr. Kuan-Wen Chen, Dr. Ziji Xiang and Research Teams Reveal a New State of Matter in Kondo Insulator
- Physicist Jennifer Ogilvie, Assistant Research Scientist Yin Song, and Researchers Trace Path of Light in Photosynthesis
-
-
- Celebrating our 2021 Undergraduate Awardees
- Dark Energy Survey Releases Most Precise Look at Universe's Evolution
- Celebrating our 2021 Graduate Awardees!
- Physics Collegiate Fellow Eric Spanton Talks ‘Weird Science’
- An Inconstant Hubble Constant? U-M Research Suggests Fix to Cosmological Cornerstone
- ATLAS Provided the First Observation of the Triboson WWW Process
- 1985 Nobel laureate Klaus von Klitzing gives 29th annual Ta-You Wu lecture
- The Wow Moment, Remote
- MicroBooNE Experiment’s First Results Show No Hint of a Sterile Neutrino
- Magnets with a Twist: U-M Physics Researchers Liuyan Zhao and Her Team Engineer Magnetic Complexity into Atomically Thin Magnets
- Dr. Melissa Hutcheson Wins APS Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Dissertation Award in Experimental Particle Physics
- UM Physicists Michael Schubnell, Gregory Tarlé and Team Part of Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Which Creates Largest 3D Map of the Cosmos
- Michigan Physics graduate Students Make Key Contributions to Experimental Results
- U-M Physics Researcher Co-Chairs Ballistic Missile Defense Report
- Congratulations to Physicist David Lubensky Awarded a 2022 Simons Fellowship
- Please Donate Today (March 17) to the Undergraduate Support Fund for Giving Blueday!
- What’s Inside a Black Hole? U-M Physicist Enrico Rinaldi Uses Quantum Computing, Machine Learning to Find Out
- Dr. Sangmin Choi Recipient of Honorable Mention in Rackham’s 2021 ProQuest Dissertation Awards
- U-M Physics Alum Lia Merminga Appointed Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
- Physics and Astronomy Senior Anna Simpson One of Five Students to Win Prestigious 2022 Goldwater Scholarship!
- Congratulations to Mark Newman on His Election to the Royal Society
- U-M Renames Randall Laboratory Addition After Pioneering Physicist Homer A. Neal
- Congratulations to Anna Simpson, U-M's 2022 Astronaut Scholar!
- Michigan Physics Welcomes Jalen Rose Leadership Academy Scholars to Ann Arbor Campus
- Successful Startup of Particle Detector Aims to Pin Down Dark Matter
- U-M Researchers Untangle the Physics of High-Temperature Superconductors
- Live From the International Space Station, It’s Saturday Morning Physics
- A team of researchers—Robert McGehee and Aaron Pierce of U-M Physics and Gilly Elor of Johannes Gutenberg University—proposed a new candidate for dark matter: HYPER, or “HighlY Interactive ParticlE Relics.”
- A Special Thank You to Navy Captain Josh Cassada and to NASA!
- Physicist Gregory Tarlé and Team, Find First Observational Evidence Linking Black Holes to Dark Energy
- Support Michigan Physics on Giving Blueday!
- $18M to advance materials research for quantum computing, sustainable plastics and more
- Michigan Physicists and Collaborators New Muon Result Explores Uncharted Territory in Search for New Physics
- U-M Physicist Joshua Spitz Receives 2023 Experimental Physics Investigator Award
- The Universe Caught Suppressing Cosmic Structure Growth
- U-M Collaboration to Receive DOE Grant to Diversify Physics
- Five Physics Researchers From U-M Named American Physical Society Fellows
- Thank You for Your Help Supporting Women in Physics!
- It Happened at Michigan — ‘You’ve got to be excellent’
- Physics Student Sanil Mittal awarded STEM Research Career Award!
- U-M Astronomer: Get to the path of April's total solar eclipse
- Thank You for Supporting Michigan Physics on Giving Blueday!
- U-M Physics Department Franco Nori Named 2024 Charles Hard Townes Medal Recipient
- U-M Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics Mark Newman Named 2024 Leo P. Kadanoff Prize Recipient
- A New Measurement of the Expansion History of the Universe
- Physics Ph.D. Candidate and Professor Honored with Willie Hobbs Moore Awards
- U-M study: Using ‘tweezers’ to control active fluids
- Muscle machine: How water controls the speed of muscle contraction
- LZ experiment sets new record in search for dark matter
- Mining for Neutrinos, and for Cosmic Answers - Featuring U-M Alumni Bryan Ramson
- U-M Researcher Greg Tarlé and Colleagues Find Mounting Evidence for Dark Energy from Black Holes
- Physics Chair David Gerdes Named Dean of CWRU's College of Arts and Sciences
- New DESI results weigh in on gravity
- “Giving Tuesday” Fundraiser returns on December 3rd!
- All Events
- Special Lectures
- K-12 Programs
- Saturday Morning Physics
- Seminars & Colloquia
Winter 2021 was certainly a semester to remember. Everyone was dealing with the difficulties of an ongoing global pandemic while starting to see hope on the horizon that things might be able to return to a semblance of normal with the introduction of vaccines. Despite the challenging circumstances, our students showed grit and determination while many went above and beyond in their academic careers.
In a normal semester, the past few weeks would have been spent celebrating better weather, graduation, and the end of the semester. Part of the celebration for our department is the recognition of our undergraduate awardees at our department graduation and awards ceremony. Although we would prefer to celebrate in person, we wanted to be sure to highlight the outstanding achievements of our award winners. There were a number of outstanding applicants and nominees for the awards, and the decisions were difficult, but these students, selected by the undergraduate awards committee, rose to the top.
The department has a number of awards that are given to undergraduates for a variety of reasons. The first student we would like to recognize are the winners of the Ralph B. Bodine Award, Anna Simpson and Laura Zichi. The Bodine Award is given to a sophomore student (or students) with proven academic ability. Anna’s application for this award was supported by Professor David Gerdes while Laura was supported by Professor Liuyan Zhao. Among her many qualities, the letter of recommendation submitted on Anna’s behalf highlights the software tools she developed as well as her desire to engage in active research. Laura was commended for her Python coding skills and adaptability with remote research.
The next awardees that we’d like to recognize are the winners of the William L. Williams Thesis Award, Jiani Fei and Luc LePottier. Jiani’s thesis is entitled A Probe into Propagators and Luc’s thesis is Using Machine Learning for Model-Independent New Physics Discovery at the Large Hadron Collider. This award is given to a senior student or students who submits an outstanding senior thesis exemplifying the ability to pose a question, investigate it, and find an answer. Jiani spent time during her undergraduate career working with Professor Emanuel Gull on her research, which focused on condensed matter theory. Together they were published as an editor’s suggestion in Physical Review Letters with Jiani being listed as the first author. Luc worked with Professor Christine Aidala for two academic years and focused on machine learning. He also spent time working at CERN in Geneva.
The department is fortunate to have numerous exemplary students. Additional outstanding students we want to recognize are Daphne Blumin and MaryKate Bossard, the recipients of Patrick Dahlin Memorial Award, is given to a physics major or majors showing great promise. Daphne was nominated for the award by Professor Tom Schwarz, who worked with her for two years as an undergraduate researcher in the ATLAS group where she helped to build muon drift tube detectors. MaryKate was nominated by Professor Bing Zhou. MaryKate worked with the ATLAS group on multiple projects and her recommendation highlighted her use of Python programming in her study of high-energy physics.
Sabrina Corsetti and Jiaheng He were the students awarded the Wirt and Mary Cornwell Prize. This prize is awarded to a student or students honoring research or other contributions to the department. Sabrina was nominated by Professor Tom Schwarz has been involved in research with the department for the past three years. Her research includes studying abroad at CERN and working on the installation of the muon spectrometer at the ATLAS experiment as well as working with the ATLAS group here at the University of Michigan. Jiaheng was nominated by Professor Rachel Goldman with whom he’s worked for multiple years. His research involved working on a project including understanding the limitations of p-type doping of GaN.
The Walter W. Wada Award is given to a member of the physics community that has looked for ways to build community, increase cultural understanding, and promote respect for diversity within the department. The winner of this award was this year was Kevin Zvonarek. He was nominated by multiple people including Professors Roy Clarke and Leopoldo Pando Zayas as well as the president of the Society of Physics Students (SPS), Grant Weldon. Some of the many qualities for which he was nominated include serving as an SPS liaison to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee as well as taking on an outreach initiative with a high school in Detroit, which has been hailed as a big success.
The department is fortunate to be able to offer a number of awards. Jiadong Liu was the recipient of the Otho Lyle Tiffany and Mary Lois Tiffany Fellowship this year. His application for this award was supported by Professor Jianming Qian. The Tiffany Fellowship is awarded to a non-graduating student who shows promise and progress in their academic efforts. Jiadong has consistently been a high academic achiever. His academic path has taken him through multiple honors courses.
In addition to all of the department awards, the C. Wilbur Peters Chapter Service Award is given to a member of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) in recognition of their contributions to the chapter. This year, based on nominations from fellow SPS members, the recipient of the award is Grant Weldon. Among his many qualifications, Grant’s willingness to help other students and commitment to outreach were highlighted among his multiple nominations.
Each of these students has demonstrated excellence across a variety of areas such as academics, research, and outreach. We are fortunate that they chose our department and know that they have bright futures ahead. We’d like to offer you best wishes, congratulations, and every success as you move forward with your academic, career, and personal goals. Go Blue!