Tag: Department of Physics and Astronomy


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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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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‘God Particle’ Scientist Visits UA

A&S professors research Higgs boson, particle physics in ongoing experiment From the September 2013 Desktop News | One of the scientists who discovered the “God particle” visited UA August 28 to discuss the milestone discovery. Dr. Albert de Roeck, a scientist on the research team that recently discovered the Higgs boson — aka the “God particle” — spoke about the discovery, and ongoing research, at an event sponsored by the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The standard model of particle physics was […]

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College Students Earn Fellowships

Three Students with Ties to the College Are NSF Graduate Research Fellows From the May 2013 Desktop News | More than 13,000 graduate students applied for the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Seven of those selected represented The University of Alabama and three of those have ties to the College of Arts and Sciences. Jennifer S. Anders, a graduate student in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Jordyn L. Johnson, a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, were selected […]

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Mystery of Multiplicity

Series celebrates diversity of perspectives in the liberal arts, across the University The College of Arts and Sciences is home to 22 academic divisions, 100 programs of study, 534 faculty members, and 9,250 students. That’s a lot of specialties, personalities, and interests — and Creative Campus’s Object X discussion series wants to celebrate them. By drawing together faculty and students from the College’s many academic divisions, Creative Campus hopes to “highlight the multiplicity of perspectives present in our daily lives.” […]

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