News

UMass physicist Stéphane Willocq appointed as Spokesperson of the ATLAS experiment at CERN, the world's largest particle physics collaboration with over 5000 members from all over the world.  He has previously served as the physics coordinator and the deputy spokesperson of the experiment.  Congratulations, Stéphane, on this recognition!

Physics faculty colleague Rafael Lopes Coelho de Sa was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.  He is a high energy experimentalist whose research ranges from analysis to hardware development on the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Congratulations, Rafael! 

Brokk Toggerson, senior lecturer in Physics, was awarded the 2024 Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching.  The Manning prize recognizes exceptional contributions to teaching across the University of Massachusetts system, with one recipient annually from each of the five campuses.  Toggerson distinguished himself for his many contributions to the teaching of the introductory sequence in Physics to life science majors, with many innovations in scaling up active-learning pedagogies to large audiences.

Physics colleague Chris Ertl was recognized with a CNS outstanding staff award.  The award recognizes not only his work in organizing the lecture support infrastructure in the Physics department, but also several years of building up our capacity as a department to teach online, hybrid and flex courses.  Chris has himself developed and taught several courses, and also supported graduate students and faculty as they deliver online courses which include both lecture and laboratory content. These courses have grown greatly in enrollment over the last years and have become a significant part of

Chen Wang's research group has implemented and characterized a new effective form of non-reciprocity in a quantum circuit.The research, published in Science Advances, includes graduate students Ying-ying Wang and Sean van Geldern, and also former undergraduate student Thomas Connolly. The new technique allows a tunable degree of shared one-way access to stored quantum information.

Physics faculty Shubha Tewari was the lead organizer of a new outreach event  at the annual March meeting of the American Physical Society meeting entitled Squishy Science Sunday. Over six hundred members of the public attended.

Physics faculty Shubha Tewari was the lead organizer of a new outreach event at the annual March meeting of the American Physical Society meeting entitled Squishy Science Sunday. The event featured demos, hands-on activities and popular talks. Over six hundred children, parents and other interested members of the public attended. The annual meeting draws over 10,000

Muldrow Etheredge, a graduate student in Physics, has been recognized with a KITP Graduate Fellowship for the Spring 2024 semester.

Assistant Professor Varghese Mathai, specializing in Physics, has been granted a prestigious CAREER award by the Fluid Mechanics division of the National Science Foundation.

Dante Lamenza Naylor, a senior majoring in Physics, has been honored with the UMass Rising Researcher award.