The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW) held their annual New Horizons conference in Raleigh this year, from 26-29 of October. Prof. Mark Kruse was invited to talk about the recent Higgs discovery to a large science media-related audience. His talk was the second in a session called "What is the Universe made of" the first being on Dark Matter by Prof. Katie Freese from the University of Michigan. Prof. Kruse's talk was transcribed visually by an attending artist, Perrin Ireland (@… read more about Prof. Kruse Talks About the Higgs at Science Writers Conference »
Prof. Haiyan Gaowas invited by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) to give a plenary talk at the 84th Shuang Qing Forum on Hadronic Physics - Experimental and Theoretical Research in Beijing, November 2-4, 2012. The meeting was attended by many Chinese colleagues in high-energy nuclear and particle physics. While she was in Beijing, she witnessed the first snow of the year, and some area in the mountain accumulated over 90 cm of snow read more about Haiyan Gao Gave a Plenary Talk at NSFC Forum in Beijing »
Prof. Haiyan Gao has been on the APS council as a General Councilor since 2011. She was elected recently to serve on the APS Executive Board. As a member on the Executive Board, she will be much more involved in the business of the Society. Prof. Gao's term begins on January 1, 2013 and ends on December 31, 2014. read more about Prof. Haiyan Gao Elected to APS Executive Board »
While many in the Physics department were taking a well-earned respite from studying, teaching, and research during Fall Break, twelve intrepid graduate students traveled to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for a visit to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Together with 17 students from the Chemistry and ECE departments, they took an extensive tour of the laboratory's facilities and met with its staff, who introduced them to the wide range of research opportunities that ORNL has to offer. The students were… read more about Graduate Students Tour Oak Ridge National Lab »
Prof. Chris Walter recently gave a set of lectures introducing the physics of atmospheric neutrinos at the fourth International Summer School on Neutrino Physics (INSS2012). This school aims to train the next generation of neutrino physicists, and the curriculum covers many topics: introductions to both the Standard Model and oscillation phenomenology, accelerator and reactor neutrinos, neutrino cross sections, and neutrinos in cosmology, just to name a few. The target audience consisted of graduate… read more about Walter Lectures at the 2012 International Neutrino Summer School »
Graduate student Mia Liu was featured in the Duke Today article "Far from Durham, A Physicist Explores the Frontier" about her experience working at CERN. You can read the article online here. read more about Grad Student Liu Featured in Duke Today »
Picture yourself trying to teach high-school science to 80 students in a classroom with no equipment besides a blackboard and some desks. Then imagine that these students don’t understand English very well. That’s the situation Eric Yff (’10) found himself in as a Peace Corps volunteer. Yff recently returned home after a two-year stint in Malawi, a small country in sub-Saharan Africa near Mozambique and Zambia. Faced with designing experiments for his students in a school with no scientific materials, Yff… read more about Duke Alum Yff Teaches Science in Malawi »
A symposium to celebrate Prof. Edward Bilpuch's career as a nuclear physicist and his contributions to TUNL will be held on Friday, November 2, 2012 at the Searle Center Lecture Hall at Duke University. The symposium will open with a review of the discovery and use of isobaric analogue states in nuclear structure studies. The high-resolution experimental techniques developed by Bilpuch's group will be described, examples of their early measurements will be presented and the scientific… read more about A Symposium to Celebrate Prof. Edward Bilpuch »
Prof. Ashutosh Kotwal recently gave lectures at the Hadron Collider Physics Summer School organized jointly by CERN and Fermilab. The Summer School was attended by about 130 students, mostly from Europe and North America but some also from other continents. Kotwal's lectures focused on the history of discovery through precision measurements in the field of particle physics and the current status of precision measurements. He described how these measurements can either confirm the consistency of the Standard… read more about Kotwal Lectures at CERN-Fermilab Joint Summer School »
On October 15 Prof. Al Goshaw gave a plenary talk at the APS Frontiers in Optics meeting in Rochester (see the announcement and links to the meeting below). It turned out to be quite a hit. Goshaw arrived at the meeting passing through the crowds like a neutrino, and after his talk was stopped continually for follow up questions (a real life Higgs phenomena). Higgs Boson Researcher Al Goshaw to Speak at Frontiers in Optics 2012 Plenary Session WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2012—… read more about Goshaw Gave Talk at APS Frontiers in Optics Meeting »
Alum Nathan Kundtz ('10) who worked with Prof. David Smith was featured in an article in the Technology section of Bloomberg Businessweek. You can read the article "Nathan Kundtz's MTenna May Replace the Satellite Dish" online here. read more about Alum Kundtz Featured in Businessweek »
It was an exciting day on campus today with the announcement of Robert Lefkowitz's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Duke Today's website also has an interesting article about other connections to the prize from the people who have been at Duke, including three from Duke Physics. Please see the article "Lefkowitz: Duke's First Nobel Winner?" here. read more about Lefkowitz: Duke's First Nobel Winner? (Duke Today Article) »
The Nobel Prize in Physics was just announced. It goes to two researchers in quantum optics/quantum information science: Serge Haroche from Ecole Normale Supérieure and David Wineland from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 was awarded jointly to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems."" Professor Wineland was a plenary speaker at the last annual… read more about 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics Announced »
Prof. Haiyan Gao and collaborators from Norfolk State University, North Carolina A&T State University and Mississippi State University have been awarded recently by the National Science Foundation a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant for the construction of a cryogenic, internal hydrogen gas target for a new experiment on a precise measurement of the proton charge radius, a fundamental quantity important for both atomic and nuclear physics. The recent development of the "proton radius crisis’’… read more about Prof. Haiyan Gao and Collaborators Received an NSF MRI Award »
Prof. Berndt Mueller gave a lecture at the 34th International School of Nuclear Physics at the Center "Ettore Majorana" in Erice/Sicily, which was founded by the well known Italian physicist Antonino Zichichi. The School brought together approximately 100 young researchers and many leading scientists in the field of hot QCD matter. Mueller gave a lecture on event-by-event fluctuations in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Detailed information about the school can be found on the website… read more about Mueller Lectures at 34th International School of Nuclear Physics »
NOTE: THE "viewed online here" LINK IS BROKEN ON THE ORIGINAL SITE. NEEDS UPDATING OR REMOVAL. The Physics Department held the annual fall reception on October 4 at the Doris Duke Center. It was a fun and well-attended event with some great food. Postdoc Joshua Dijksman and graduate student Lynn Kaack took photos that can be viewed online here. read more about Fall 2012 Reception Photos »
Physics DGS assistant Donna Ruger was quoted in the DukeToday article "Rent a Swath of Duke Forest" about the Duke Forest picnic shelter rented for the annual picnic. Read the article here. read more about Ruger Quoted in DukeToday »
Prof. Warren Warren and collaborators just published a paper in Nature Physics on "Accessing long-lived nuclear singlet states between chemically equivalent spins without breaking symmetry." Read the article on Nature's website here. read more about Warren Published in Nature Physics »
Prof. David Smith has been awarded the 2013 James C. McGroddy Prize of APS for New Materials sponsored by IBM together with Drs. John B. Pendry, Imperial College and Costas M. Soukoulis, Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University. The Prize was established to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement in the science and application of new materials. It consists of $10,000 (divided equally) and a certificate with the appropriate citation. The citation that will appear on the certificate for Prof. Smith… read more about Smith Awarded 2013 McGroddy Prize for New Materials »
Prof. Edward Bilpuch, Henry W. Newson Professor Emeritus, passed away in Duke Hospital of heart failure on Sunday, September 16. Prof. Bilpuch joined the Duke Physics faculty as Assistant Professor in 1962 and succeeded Prof. Henry Newson as the Director of TUNL in 1978 until his retirement from this position in 1992. DukeToday has published a story about Prof. Bilpuch. Read it here. Former staff Maxine Stern conducted a nice interview of Prof. Bilpuch some time ago that can be viewed here… read more about Prof. Edward Bilpuch, Dead at 85 »
NOTE: PICTURES LINK BROKEN ON ORIGINAL SITE The Physics Department held its annual fall picnic on Saturday, August 25 at Duke Forest, organized by the graduate students. Thank you to Prof. Richard Palmer for taking photos at this fun event. Please see all the stills here. read more about Fall Picnic Photos »
The 2012 newsletter is here! You can read it online here and older issues here. To receive a paper copy please write to us to be added to the mailing list. read more about Duke Physics 2012 Newsletter »
“It’s unusual and exciting to build bridges between physics and engineering,” says Prof. Maiken Mikkelsen, who will be doing just that in her new position as assistant professor in the departments of physics and electrical and computer engineering. “I’ll be able to supervise students from both departments and create a very interdisciplinary group. I’m excited about it,” she says. In addition to building bridges between disciplines, she’s also helping to “build” the computer of the future—a quantum computer… read more about New Assistant Professor Maiken Mikkelsen: Using Physics to Build a Better Computer »
The Department of Physics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina invites applications and nominations for a tenure-track position at the assistant professor level in the area of experimental nuclear physics, broadly defined. Current research in the department in this area includes experiments in electroweak interactions, neutrino physics, hadron structure and nuclear astrophysics. The appointment begins in fall 2013. The successful candidate should show a strong commitment to research and teaching.… read more about Job Opening: Assistant Professor in Experimental Nuclear Physics at Duke University »
Prof. Patrick Charbonneau and collaborators have taken another crack at understanding the nature of glass. Their latest simulations show that a key theoretical assumption taken to explain the molecular structure of glass is wrong. See PNAS here and a Duke research report here. read more about Prof. Charbonneau Takes a Second Crack at Understanding Glass »
The Department of Physics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina invites applications and nominations for a tenure-track position at the assistant professor level in the area of experimental nuclear physics, broadly defined. Current research in the department in this area includes experiments in electroweak interactions, neutrino physics, hadron structure and nuclear astrophysics. The appointment begins in fall 2013. The successful candidate should show a strong commitment to research and teaching.… read more about Job Opening: Assistant Professor in Experimental Nuclear Physics at Duke University »
Graduate students Cate Marcoux and Kevin Finelli are winners of the 2012 Mary Creason Memorial Award for Undergraduate Teaching for outstanding teaching in the introductory physics laboratories at Duke University. Congratulations! read more about 2012 Mary Creason Memorial Awards »
NOTE: SOME LINKS HAVE BECOME BROKEN On July 12, Prof. Mark Kruse gave a public lecture on "Why we care about the Large Hadron Collider" to an almost full 600+ capacity auditorium in Auckland, New Zealand. The poster for the talk, and a crowd shot are shown. The lecture generated a lot of excellent questions and kept Kruse busy for quite some time afterwards! Kruse's lecture was filmed and can be viewed online here. The lecture has also appeared on some blogs including Discover Magazine (includes photos)… read more about Prof. Kruse Gives Public Talk to Packed Auditorium »
The US ATLAS Collaboration held its annual workshop at the University of Michigan on August 13-15, 2012. This meeting is used to review the status of current measurements at the Large Hadron Collider being made using data collected by the ATLAS detector. Several Duke students presented results of ATLAS research topics they have been working on during the summer of 2012: Will DiClemente, Josh Loyal, Chris Pollard and Meg Shea. The photo at right shows the… read more about Duke Undergraduate Student Wins Outstanding Research Award »
Duke University and Shangdong University (SDU) signed a five-year agreement in May 2012 to have five students annually from Taishan College at Shandong University come to Duke Physics for their junior year. Shandong University (SDU) is located in the city of Jinan, capital of Shandong province, about halfway between Beijing and Shanghai on the high-speed railway connecting the two cities. Shandong University is one of the top universities in China. Taishan College is an honors college at SDU for students in natural sciences… read more about First Group From Shandong University Arrives at Duke »