News
Nader Engheta to receive Gold Medal
Adjunct Professor of Physics and the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering Nader Engheta is to receive the Balthasar van der Pol Gold Medal of the Union Radio-Scientifique Internationale (URSI). URSI is a prestigious international scientific organization covering all aspects of the science of waves. The van der Pol Gold Medal is one of URSI's highest awards, given every 3 years.
Charlie Kane elected to National Academy
Professor Charlie Kane has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He joins 84 new members (including Scott Poethig in Penn's Biology department) and 21 foreign associates elected for 2014.
P&A Public Outreach
Physics & Astronomy department members will contribute to the Penn Science Café on Tuesday, April 29 2014 at the World Café Live Downstairs. Prof. Charlie Johnson will talk on Nano-biosensors for Cancer Detection and Bill Berner, Demo Lab Coordinator, will perform physics demonstrations among other Penn experts contributing to the West Philly Science Showcase.
Cosmic Filaments and Voids
Penn cosmologists, Prof. Bhuvnesh Jain and graduate student Joseph Clampitt, have, for the first time, determined the mass of dark matter along the filaments and voids of visible galaxies. The unexpected power of new, clever analysis techniques made the measurement possible much sooner than expected and shows surprising results. For an overview, see the Penn news release.
Charlie Kane wins Lindback Award
Charlie Kane, Class of 1965 Professor of Physics, is a winner of this year's Lindback Award. The Lindback Awards for Distinguished Teaching were established in 1961 and are the highest teaching award given by the University of Pennsylvania. Charlie won for being a "fantastic lecturer" who made the most challenging course "an absolute blast".
Administrative Leadership
Prof. Arjun Yodh has been reappointed as Director of the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM). In his first term as Director, Arjun led the highly successful renewal of the National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center grant under extremely competitive conditions.
Penn Physics outreach
Come see Penn Physics demonstrations at the Philadelphia Science Festival Carnival on May 3, 2014. The groups of Profs. Marija Drndic and Charlie Johnson invite the general public to see demonstrations on nanoscience from Penn research. The Carnival runs from 10am to 4pm and the Drndic and Johnson groups will be at a booth between 21st and 22nd on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Winner of NSF EAPSI Fellowship, Steve Gilhool
Steve Gilhool, a doctoral candidate working with Asst. Prof. Cullen Blake, was awarded an NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship for 2014. Steve's research focuses on exoplanets, low-mass stars, and the development of new algorithms for measuring stellar velocities from high-resolution infrared spectra. Steve will spend the summer at the University of Tokyo, working with data from a new spectrograph on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope.
SAS Working Group grant for Math and Physics
Prof. Antonella Grassi of Math and Prof. Mirjam Cvetic of Physics & Astronomy have received a School of Arts and Sciences Working Group grant to support interdisciplinary research. The Math and Physics departments have an extensive history of collaboration that spans the boundaries of mathematics and theoretical physics.
Evolution Cluster in the news
Answering President Amy Gutmann’s call “to address the most challenging problems through an interdisciplinary approach,”Penn’s new Evolution Cluster—officially titled the Evolution of Dynamical Processes Far from Equilibrium Cluster and led by Physics Prof. Randy Kamien—presents an innovative model for organizing research, teaching, and learning in ways that will have broad implications across the University.