From the June 2015 Desktop News | A team of international scientists, including a pair of physicists from The University of Alabama, resumed efforts this week near Geneva, Switzerland, to use tiny particles to answer big questions – really big – like how the universe works. Drs. Conor Henderson and Paolo Rumerio, assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, are working much of the summer at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator. Located at the European […]
Tag: Department of Physics and Astronomy
Woman Physicist of the Month
From the February 2015 Desktop News | Dr. Dawn Williams, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been named the February 2015 Woman Physicist of the Month by the American Physical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Physics. The committee recognizes each month exceptional female physicists who have positively affected other individuals’ lives and careers. The award is open to research physicists, students, instructors or any women doing physics-related work. Recipients are featured on the […]
Physicist Awarded NSF CAREER Award
From the January 2015 Desktop News | Dr. Claudia Mewes, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and UA’s Center for Materials for Information Technology, has received a $500,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The CAREER Award is NSF’s most prestigious recognition of top-performing young scientists beginning their careers. Mewes’s research focuses on theoretical condensed matter physics, more specifically spintronics, which aims to use the electron spin in addition to its electric charge to develop highly […]
Physics Student to Intern at U.S. DOE
From the December 2014 edition of Desktop News | Marissa Leshnov, a third-year physics student in the College, has been selected for the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Leshnov will be one of 100 undergraduate students interning at one of 13 DOE laboratories during spring 2015. Her work for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, will focus on developing biofuels – alternative transportation fluids derived from organic matter. The 16-week program […]
Mills Lecture Is Nov. 13
From the November 2014 edition of Desktop News | University of Alabama alumnus and chief scientist of Raytheon Ktech, Dr. R. Michael Dowe Jr., will present the Helen Crow Mills and John Carroll Mills Lecture on Nov. 13. Dowe, who studied physics while at UA, will discuss “A Career in Physics and National Security,” and how his education prepared him for his decade-long career in the Army and his subsequent work in the defense research and development industry. The lecture […]
Queen of Carbon Science to Speak at UA
Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus, an internationally known physicist and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present a colloquium, “Graphene for Enhancement of Raman Effect” at The University of Alabama Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 3:45 p.m. in room 227 of Gallalee Hall. The talk is free and open to the public. Dresselhaus is noted for her work in the thermal transport of naonstructures and the study of phonon and electronic-phonons. Phonons play a major role in condensed matter’s physical properties, such as […]
Star Light, Star Bright
Head to Moundville for Public Nights The astronomy group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy kicks off the monthly Public Nights series this Friday, September 26, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Moundville Archaeological Park, where they will set up telescopes for the public to view the night sky. Each Public Night focuses on different parts of the universe. The first event will focus on seeing clusters of stars and nebulae. A 20-inch Dobsonian telescope and a 10-inch […]
Invisible “Dark Matter”
From the September 2014 edition of Desktop News | Three University of Alabama physicists are among dozens of researchers planning and developing a new international search for dark matter – an invisible material that scientists believe makes up roughly 27 percent of the universe’s mass. Drs. Andreas Piepke, Jerry Busenitz and Ion Stancu, all professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, are University representatives on the project, which is being managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. UA scientists […]
Students Win Goldwater, Hollings, Truman Scholarships
From the May 2014 Desktop News | Five College of Arts and Sciences students recently won prestigious national awards, helping UA to rank once again among the top universities with students selected. Of the eight UA students winning awards, two students from the College were named Goldwater Scholars, two were named Hollings Scholars, and one was named a Truman Scholar. Brian Goodell, a chemical engineering and physics major from Plattsburgh, N.Y., and Lynda Truong, a chemistry major from Grand Prairie, […]
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Researchers Publish on Recent Neutrino Observation
Department of Physics and Astronomy researchers were part of the exciting recent announcement of the scientific observation of 28 very high-energy particle events. These events were the first solid evidence for astrophysical neutrinos which were captured with cosmic accelerators at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a particle detector buried in the Antarctic ice. Details of the research appeared in Science last month. Co-authors on the paper included Dr. Patrick Toale, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. Pavel […]
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