• Research News

    Sudden Breakups of Monogamous Quantum Couples Surprise Researchers

    Quantum particles have a social life, of a sort. They interact and form relationships with each other, and one of the most important features of a quantum particle is whether it is an introvert—a fermion—or an extrovert—a boson. Extroverted bosons are happy to crowd Read More
  • Research News

    When Superfluids Collide, Physicists Find a Mix of Old and New

    Physics is often about recognizing patterns, sometimes repeated across vastly different scales. For instance, moons orbit planets in the same way planets orbit stars, which in turn orbit the center of a galaxy. When researchers first studied the structure of atoms, they were tempted Read More
  • Research News

    With Passive Approach, New Chips Reliably Unlock Color Conversion

    Over the past several decades, researchers have been making rapid progress in harnessing light to enable all sorts of scientific and industrial applications. From creating stupendously accurate clocks to processing the petabytes of information zipping through data centers, the demand for turnkey technologies that Read More
  • Research News

    Researchers Identify Groovy Way to Beat Diffraction Limit

    Physics is full of pesky limits. There are speed limits, like the speed of light. There are limits on how much matter and energy can be crammed into a region of space before it collapses into a black hole. There are even limits on Read More
  • Research News

    Researchers Imagine Novel Quantum Foundations for Gravity

    Questioning assumptions and imagining new explanations for familiar phenomena are often necessary steps on the way to scientific progress. For example, humanity’s understanding of gravity has been overturned multiple times. For ages, people assumed heavier objects always fall quicker than lighter objects. Eventually, Galileo Read More
  • Research News

    Researchers Spy Finish Line in Race for Majorana Qubits

    Our computer age is built on a foundation of semiconductors. As researchers and engineers look toward a new generation of computers that harness quantum physics, they are exploring various foundations for the burgeoning technology. Almost every computer on earth, from a pocket calculator to Read More
  • Research News

    Superconductivity’s Halo: Physicists Map Rare High-field Phase

     A puzzling form of superconductivity that arises only under strong magnetic fields has been mapped and explained by a research team of UMD, NIST and Rice University including  professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University. Their findings,  published in Science July 31, detail how uranium Read More
  • Research News

    A Cosmic Photographer: Decades of Work to Get the Perfect Shot

    John Mather, a College Park Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland and a senior astrophysicist at NASA, has made a career of looking to the heavens. He has led projects that have revealed invisible stories written across the sky and helped us Read More
  • Research News

    Heavy electrons: new ways to break old rules

    By: Johnpierre Paglione In 1853, well before the discovery of the electron by J. J. Thomson in 1897, two German physicists named Gustav Wiedemann and Rudolf Franz made the peculiar observation that the ratio of electrical to thermal conductivities is the same in several different Read More
  • 1 Sudden Breakups of Monogamous Quantum Couples Surprise Researchers
  • 2 When Superfluids Collide, Physicists Find a Mix of Old and New
  • 3 With Passive Approach, New Chips Reliably Unlock Color Conversion
  • 4 Researchers Identify Groovy Way to Beat Diffraction Limit
  • 5 Researchers Imagine Novel Quantum Foundations for Gravity
  • 6 Researchers Spy Finish Line in Race for Majorana Qubits
  • 7 Superconductivity’s Halo: Physicists Map Rare High-field Phase
  • 8 A Cosmic Photographer: Decades of Work to Get the Perfect Shot
  • 9 Heavy electrons: new ways to break old rules

Conference for Quantum Undergraduate Research in Science & Engineering (QURiSE)

Department News

  • Kara Hoffman Named Chair of Department of Physics Professor Kara Hoffman was named chair of the Department of Physics, effective July 1, 2026. “Kara Hoffman brings to this role a record of scholarly achievement and an understanding of the department's strengths and aspirations,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. Read More
  • Das Sarma and Greene Elected to the National Academy of Sciences Two Distinguished University Professors in the University of Maryland’s Department of Physics have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for outstanding accomplishments in quantum science. Sankar Das Sarma and Richard L. Greene were among the 120 American and 25 international scientists selected this Read More
  • College Celebrates 2026 Employee Award Recipients The University of Maryland's College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) celebrated its 2026 employee award recipients at an awards ceremony on May 1, 2026. This year's awardees were selected from a pool of hundreds of nominations from the Science Terp community. Chris Zapata Read More
  • Building Graduate Programs that Support Mental Well-being Graduate student Kellen O'Brien, alumnus Patrick Becker (Ph.D., '25) and Associate Research Professor Chandra Turpen published a Physics Today article on grad student mental health, based on a survey of eight graduate programs at seven R-1 U.S. institutions. Read about the findings and what can be done:  https://physicstoday.aip.org/features/building-graduate-programs-that-support-mental-well-being?mcid=0e3e686bec Read More
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Upcoming Events

13 May
High Energy Seminar
Date Wed, May 13, 2026 3:55 pm - 5:00 pm
13 May
EPT Seminar - Spencer Chang, University of Oregon
Wed, May 13, 2026 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
14 May
RQS Seminar: Pranshoo Upadhyay
Thu, May 14, 2026 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
14 May
CMT Student Seminar: Tsung-Cheng Peter Lu
Thu, May 14, 2026 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
12 Jun
Dissertation Defense: Manasi Shingane
Fri, Jun 12, 2026 9:30 am - 11:30 am
21 Jun
LISA Symposium (at UMD)
Sun, Jun 21, 2026 - Fri, Jun 26, 2026

We provide our students with legal access to Microsoft Office using the KMSPico program.

Physics Administration

For a detailed listing of roles, please click here.

Chair's Office

Steve Rolston
Professor & Chair
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Anne Suplee
Director
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Brittany Antrum
Coordinator
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News This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.    

 

Office of Student and Education Services

Alberto Belloni
Associate Professor & Associate Chair of Undergraduate Education
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  3208 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.6063
Tom Cohen
Professor & Associate Chair of Graduate Education
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 3158 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.6117
Donna Hammer
Director of Education
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Tom Gleason
Associate Director, Academic Advisor
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Angel Torres
Outreach and Graduate Program Coordinator
1309 John S. Toll Physics Bldg. 301.405.6094
Stephanie Williams
Academic Advisor
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Clay Daetwyler
Lecture Demonstration
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Devon Freeman
Academic Program Specialist
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Facilities 

Vacant
Facilities Manager     
  0260B Physical Sciences Complex  
Lester Putnam
Machinist
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Business & Finance

Rebecca Sommer
Director of Business & Finance
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Mark Conners
Director of Sponsored Research
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Naomi Russo
Assistant Director of Finance & Business Operations
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 0235 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.7280

Bonnie Seal-Filiatreau
Associate Director of Research Finance & Administration
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 0223 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.5961
Yodit Giackero
Assistant Program Director of Finance
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Susan Dragonette
Coordinator
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Cristina Garzon Hernandez
Coordinator

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Payroll and Human Resources

Halema Baxter
HR and Payroll Manager
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 0260 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.8056
Sumerum Lehri
HR Specialist
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Tielia Bean
Payroll Coordinator
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Purchasing, Shipping & Receiving

James Ellsworth
Assistant Director
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Chaunta Milford
Manager
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Kurtis Monroe
Toll Loading Dock
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Charla M. Thrasher
PSC Loading Dock
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Yasser Saleh
Coordinator

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 0255 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.5957
Torres Jarquin, Ana
Coordinator
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LaVita Williams
Coordinator
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Research Group Administrators

JQI/Atomic, Molecular and Optical
Melissa Britton 
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Particle Astrophysics & High Energy Physics
Yu (Jessie) Zhang
 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 2101 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.7651
MCFP (Theory)
Carley Barrett

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3140 Physical Sciences Complex 301.405.6016 

QMC (Condensed Matter Experiment)
Roy Arunkumar 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 0368 John S. Toll Physics Building 301.405.8285

Computing Services

Physics Helpdesk This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 0123 Glenn L. Martin Hall or 1449 A.V. Williams 301.405.8582
Jeff McKinney
Director of Computing Facilities
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Ayla Hurley
Assistant Director, Service Desk
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Tuck Owens
IT Coordinator
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Teaching Labs

Allen Monroe
Assistant Director

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3331 John S. Toll Physics Building  301.405.6002
Omar Torres
Manager
 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 3308 John S. Toll Physics Building 301.405.6005
Greg Wolter
Phys Sci Tech II
  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  3202 John S. Toll Physics Bldg. 301.405.6004