Commencement 2022 - 2023

A group of graduates in cap and gown holding diplomas

The Physics department celebrated its 2022-2023 graduates with a diploma ceremony on Sunday, May 14 at the Love Auditorium & Hall of Science, following Duke's main commencement event

The program included a celebratory lunch and a welcome address by Professor Steffen Bass, Chair of the Physics department. Following the welcome address, Professors Ayana Arce, Director of Undergraduate Studies, John Mercer, Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies and Mark Kruse, Director of Graduate Studies, presented diplomas to all graduates with a degree in Physics.

Group in graduation caps and gowns showing off their diplomas
First Majors in Physics

Andrew Forrester

Pranav Charvu*

Pavani Jairam*

William Klein

Mathew Wai-Lung Mammen

Zachary Benjamin McCarthy

Ricardo Adrián Méndez**

Bridget Catherine Sidwell

Michael Topper

Vatsal Varma

Brandon Matthew Weiss*

Second Majors in Physics

Henry Burns

Riley Fisher

Erin Liu

Joshua Aaron Rabinowitz

First Majors in Biophysics

Alex Romine

Ray Zhang

Second Major in Biophysics

Eddie Kong

Minors in Physics

Peter Alfonsi

Jiqing Fan

Easop Lee

Jun Heng Lor

Aditya Paul

Michaela Sylvia

Graduation with Distinction in Physics

* Graduation with distinction: Requires a significant thesis with originality and thesis defense. 

**Graduation with High Distinction: Highest Honor in Physics. Requires a thesis comparable to papers in peer reviewed journals and unanimous support from thesis committee members.

Pranav Charvu: Graduation with Distinction (Advisor: Daniel Scolnic) — ATLAS Transient Survey Light Curve Release and Analysis

Pavani Jairam: Graduation with Distinction (Advisor: Kate Scholberg) — Using SNEWPY to Analyze Neutrinos from the Black Hole Formation Stage

Ricardo Adrián Méndez: Graduation with High Distinction (Advisor: Mark Kruse) — Searches for Top-philic Resonances at ATLAS

Brandon Matthew Weiss: Graduation with Distinction (Advisor: Kate Scholberg) - Supernova Neutrino Directionality

7 hooded Ph.D. graduates holding their diplomas
Masters of Arts in Physics

Charles Prior

Doctor of Philosophy in Physics

Summer 2022

Dr. Wenkai Fan

Dr. Hanqing Liu

Dr. Collin Malone

Fall 2022

Dr. Peibo An

Dr. Tianyu Dai

Dr. Zhubing Jia

Dr. Achint Kumar

Dr. Qiang Miao

Dr. Lingfei Zhao

Spring 2023

Dr. Erin Conley

Dr. Xiaoqing Li

Dr. Emily Phillips Longley

Dr. Brodie Popovic

Dr. James Wheeler

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation in Physics

Peibo An: [Advisor: Phillip Barbeau] – Studies of the Electron Neutrino Charged-current Interaction on 127I

Erin Conley: [Advisor: Kate Scholberg] – The Low-Energy Charged-Current Electron Neutrino Cross Section on Argon at the Spallation Neutron Source

Tianyu Dai: [Advisor: Steffen Bass] – Light parton energy loss in a hard-soft factorized approach

Wenaki Fan: [Advisor: Steffen Bass] – Multi-Stage Heavy Quark Transport in Ultra-Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

Zhubing Jia: [Advisor: Kenneth Ray Brown] – Quantum Information Processing with Spin and Motional States of Trapped Ions

Achint Kumar: [Advisor: Henry Greenside] – Joint Data Modelling with Variational Autoencoders

Xiaoqing Li: [Advisor: Warren Warren] – Boosting SABRE signal in Various Ways

Hanqing Liu: [Advisor: Shailesh Chandrasekharan] – Quantum Critical Phenomena of Relativistic Fermions in 1+1d and 2+1d

Emily Phillips Longley: [Advisor: Chris Walter] – Weak Lensing Analysis with Precursor LSS

Collin Malone: [Advisor: Calvin Howell] – Photodisintegration of the Triton and Supporting Experiments

Qiang Miao: [Advisor: Thomas Barthel] – Eigenstate entanglement scaling and quantum simulation of many-body systems by entanglement ren

Brodie Popovic: [Advisor: Daniel Scolnic] – Spectroscopy is dead, and we have killed it: SNIa Cosmology with Photometrically Confirmed Samples

James Wheeler: [Advisor: Hubert Bray] – Investigations on Black Holes, Cosmic Censorship, and Scalar Field Dark Matter Cosmology

Lingfei Zhao: [Advisor: Gleb Finkelstein] – Andreev conversion in the quantum Hall regime