2020 News

SPS National Office has awarded Rutgers SPS Chapter Outstanding Chapter status

Dec 5, 2020

Congratulations once again to our Society of Physics Students Chapter. The SPS National Office has awarded the Rutgers SPS Chapter Outstanding Chapter status.

The SPS officers are: 

Noah Paladino, President
Skanda Rao, Vice President
Samuel Leigh, Treasurer
Beatrice Liang-Gilman, Secretary
Will Bidle, Outreach Coordinator
Georgia Sandidge, Public Relations
Shivam Patel, Event Coordinator

Congratulations to the Chapter, and particularly the Officers, on the fine work they did to earn that status.

 Advisors: Matt Buckley and Emil Yuzbashyan

• Profile(s): Buckley, Matthew, Yuzbashyan, Emil

Rutgers named a member of the PhysTEC "5+ Club"

Dec 5, 2020

Thanks to Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers has been named a member of the PhysTEC "5+ Club" for graduating five or more physics teachers in the past academic year. This puts Rutgers in the 99th percentile among institutions for physics teacher preparation. PhysTEC is a joint venture of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers dedicated to improving education of future physics teachers. See https://www.phystec.org for more info.

Rutgers is one of only eight departments receiving this distinction.  We also had the second largest number of physics teachers graduated. 

• Profile(s): Etkina, Eugenia

Blakesley Burkhart named 2020 Packard Fellow

Oct 15, 2020

Blakesley Burkhart has been named a 2020 Packard Fellow.

As described by the Packard Foundation, the Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering are among the nation's largest nongovernmental fellowships, designed to allow maximum flexibility in how the funding is used.  Since 1988, this program has supported the blue-sky thinking of scientists and engineers with the belief that their research over time will lead to new discoveries that improve people's lives and enhance our understanding of the universe.

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• Profile(s): Burkhart, Blakesley, Yuzbashyan, Emil

Joel Lebowitz to be awarded the 2021 Dannie Heineman Prize in Mathematical Physics

We are proud to announce that Distinguised Professor Joel Lebowitz has been selected to receive the 2021 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics of the American Physical Society.  The citation for the prize will read "for seminal contributions to nonequilibrium and equilibrium statistical mechanics, in particular, studies of large deviations in nonequilibrium steady states and rigorous analysis of Gibbs equilibrium ensembles."

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• Profile(s): Lebowitz, Joel L., Moore, Greg

Humna Awan receives Harvey Waterman Medal

Humna Awan received the Harvey Waterman Medal of Excellence from the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies for her Ph.D. thesis titled "Probing Dark Energy with Large Galaxy Surveys:  Systematics & Mitigation," which was advised by Prof. Eric Gawiser.

This is the second-highest award given to a graduate student at the entire university.

Humna just started a Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics Postdoctoral Fellowship at U. Michigan.

• Profile(s): Awan, Humna, Gawiser, Eric

Jolie Cizewski awarded APS award

Jolie Cizewski has been awarded the 2020 American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics Mentoring Award.

The award states  that Jolie was selected "For her exceptional commitment to undergraduate and graduate education which has had an enormous and continued impact on the lives of first-generation college students, women in physics, graduate students and early career scientists."

• Profile(s): Cizewski, Jolie A.

PRL Cover image from Rutgers article by Singh, Kim, Rabe and Vanderbilt.

A key figure from the Physical Review Letter "Engineering Weyl phases and nonlinear Hall Effects in Td-MoTe2" by Sobhit Singh, Jinwoong Kim, Karin M. Rabe and David Vanderbilt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 046402 (2020), was chosen by PRL as the issue's cover image.

• Profile(s): Rabe, Karin M., Vanderbilt, David

Greg Moore, Geraldine Cochran elected APS Fellows

Sept 28, 2020
We are pleased to announce that two of our faculty members have been elected 2020 Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS).  Fellowship in the APS is a distinct honor signifying recognition by one's professional peers.  Each year, < 0.5% of the Society's membership is recognized by election to the status of APS Fellow.

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• Profile(s): Cochran, Geraldine L, Moore, Greg

Brenna Flaugher receives distinguished scientist distinction

Brenna Flaugher, who graduated under Prof Tom Devlin around 1989, received distinguished scientist distinction from Fermilab.

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Eva Andrei receives Moore Foundation EPiQS Award

Professor Eva Andrei has been named a new investigator in the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) initiative of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.  This grant is one of only 20 awards made in this second wave of the EPiQS program. 

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• Profile(s): Andrei, Eva Y.

Physics department members contribute to battle against COVID-19

Department members Bill Schneider, Paul Pickard, John Doroshenko, and Jak Chakhalian are running 3D printers around the clock to produce protective face shields to be distributed to those on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19. 

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• Profile(s): Chakhalian, Jak, Clark, Steven, Doroshenko, John, Jacques, Pieter F., Pickard, Paul, Spotwood, Jerrell

Greg Moore Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

It was just announced that NHETC member Prof. Greg Moore was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

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• Profile(s): Moore, Greg

Two groups receive inaugural awards from NSF for time on Frontera

Two groups from Physics & Astronomy receive inaugural awards from NSF for time on Frontera: The world's most powerful supercomputer for academic research.

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• Profile(s): Brooks, Alyson M., Haule, Kristjan, Vanderbilt, David

Daniel Seleznev awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Graduate Student Daniel Seleznev, who is working with David Vanderbilt, has been awarded a prestigious 3-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. 

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• Profile(s): Seleznev, Daniel, Vanderbilt, David

Kristjan Haule awarded 2020 Simons Fellowship

Kristjan Haule is one of only eight individuals around the country receiving a 2020 Simons Fellowship in the field of Theoretical Physics. 

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• Profile(s): Haule, Kristjan

Tom Holoien named an Einstein Fellow

Former Astrophysics major Tom Holoien has been named an Einstein Fellow.  This prestigious award is one of only 24 Einstein, Hubble, and Sagan Fellows awarded by NASA's Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). 

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Noah Paladino wins Goldwater Scholarship

Physics Major Noah Paladino, Class of '21, has won a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, which this year was given to fewer than 400 students across the entire nation majoring in the natural sciences, math, or engineering. 

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Seongshik Oh receives MURI award

Seongshik (Sean) Oh has received a highly competitive MURI (multidisciplinary university research initiative) award from the Department of Defense, jointly with a team of scientists from 6 other institutions. 

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• Profile(s): Oh, Seongshik

Angela Coe selected for 2020 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Graduate student Angela Coe, who works with Eva Andrei, was selected for the 2020 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. 

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Jed Pixley receives prestigious NSF CAREER Award

 Jed Pixley of the CMT group has won a prestigious NSF CAREER Award.  This award is given in support of early career development activities, with special emphasis on integrating research and education.   

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• Profile(s): Pixley, Jedediah H.

Eric Gawiser elected to the APS Panel on Public Affairs

Eric Gawiser has been elected to the APS Panel on Public Affairs for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2020. This body makes recommendations on APS public affairs activities on topics including physics and society, energy, the environment, and national security.  

Congratulations Eric!!

• Profile(s): Gawiser, Eric