Remembering and Giving Back

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Category: Department News

Published: Wednesday, February 04 2026 01:40

It’s been more than 30 years, but Jeff Saul (M.S. ’91, Ph.D. ’98, physics) still remembers the week that changed his life.

“I guess I must have been in the right place at the right time, because that week started with Joe Redish becoming my advisor, then, the same week, I had my first date with Joy—who’s now my wife—and I got my first teaching job,” Saul recalled. “That week changed everything.”Jeff Saul and Joe Redish

At the time, Saul was a physics graduate student at the University of Maryland, looking forward to a career teaching college-level physics. The late Physics Professor Joe Redish, a nuclear theorist who became an internationally recognized expert in physics education research, became Saul’s mentor and friend and made him part of the new Maryland Physics Education Research Group (PERG).

“It was great to work for Joe. It was exciting and fun,” Saul recalled. “For me, it was the first time I was working in a physics lab where everything just sort of clicked.”

In their work, Saul and Redish and the rest of the founding Maryland PERG group members (Richard Steinberg, Michael Wittmann, Mel Sabella, and Bao Lei) conducted research on students’ physics learning, developed new assessment strategies, and explored innovative, activity-based approaches to teaching college-level physics. As they developed strategies to make physics education less lecture-driven and more interactive, Saul and Redish operated on the same wavelength—in more ways than one.

“If you saw the two of them together, you could see the connection,” recalled Saul’s wife, Joy Watnik-Saul. “They both had the beards, and they both had the round glasses. And they both wore that same kind of fedora-type hat. So, people would sometimes call Jeff a ‘Mini Joe.’ Joe was just a really important part of Jeff’s life and his whole career.”

For Saul, Redish’s mentorship and their work in physics education research became the inspiration for a decades-long career as a teacher, advocate, innovator in physics and STEM education, and physics faculty member at the University of Central Florida, Florida International University and the University of New Mexico. Now retired, Saul is committed to paying that life-changing UMD physics experience forward.

“I knew I wanted to make a contribution that would last longer than me,” Saul explained. “I want physics education research to continue at Maryland, and I want Maryland to continue working at making physics more fun and more accessible and helping students get more out of it.”

Now, Saul and his wife are doing their part by making a planned gift to Forward: The University of Maryland Campaign for the Fearless, a $2.5 billion initiative that officially launched in November 2025 to accelerate advances in research, education and science.Joy Watnik-Saul and Jeff Saul

“Joe Redish was one of the pioneers of physics education research – the recognition that if we want to improve the teaching of physics, it needs to be done by physicists, treating it as a science.  This has since broadened throughout the sciences as discipline-based science education research,” Physics Chair Steven Rolston explained.  “This gift from Jeff and Joy emphasizes the outsized impact of Joe’s work and helps continue the tradition here at UMD.”

The Sauls’ generous gift will establish the Dr. Jeff Saul and Joy Watnik-Saul Endowed Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in Physics.

“It’s a fellowship for graduate students doing physics education research,” Saul explained, “and the fact that there's a fellowship for that helps increase the prestige of the field, and it helps attract good graduate students to continue to work in the field.”

To support physics undergraduates interested in physics education, they will also establish the Dr. Jeff Saul and Joy Watnik-Saul Endowed Undergraduate Student Support Fund in Physics.

“The undergraduate scholarship is for a student doing physics education research,” Saul said. “The idea is to get students interested in this field and keep them going forward.”

The Sauls’ gift also includes a contribution to name a collaboration room in the Physical Sciences Complex in memory of Redish.

“A research group really should have its own space and its own conference room where they can get together and talk, and I remember that being part of an active group was a big part of being at Maryland, working on a lot of different things, sharing ideas and really being a team,” Saul said. “And I thought, what a great way to memorialize Joe as well.”

The Sauls’ commitment is also part of the Bequest Legacy Challenge, an incentive program that provides an immediate cash match for donors who document new or increased planned giving commitments to the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. The Sauls hope their gift can inspire others to do the same thing.

“I'm happy we’re able to make a lasting difference for another generation of students,” Saul said.

Saul says he’ll never forget the many ways that UMD changed his life. Now, it’s all about giving back.

“I owe my career to the University of Maryland, and the people who mentored me and worked with me,” he reflected. “This is a way that I can continue to make a difference and give something back.”

Written by Leslie Miller

How Physics Powers EA’s Next-Gen Video Games

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Category: Department News

Published: Wednesday, February 04 2026 01:40

What does quantum research have to do with video game graphics? Well, nothing—at least not directly, according to William Donnelly (Ph.D. '12, physics). Donnelly conducted quantum entanglement and gravity research for his dissertation at the University of Maryland and is now a senior rendering researcher at Electronic Arts (EA)—the video game company behind hit franchises including The Sims, Battlefield, Star Wars: Battlefront, Need for Speed and the EA Sports titles. William Donnelly

He works in EA’s Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division (SEED), which houses roughly 60 researchers working on bringing digital characters to life, using machine learning for game AI and content creation, and developing novel real-time graphics & physics techniques. Donnelly is part of SEED’s Future Graphics team, which works on next-generation computer graphics and breakthrough physics simulation.

“Our goal is to push forward the state of the art in electronic entertainment,” he said.

His team’s recent projects include developing advanced techniques to denoise graphics and to animate cloth and fluids—and some of their tools have already been incorporated into EA’s titles and its game engine, Frostbite.

Although Donnelly noted that there are no direct applications from his theoretical physics research to his computer graphics work now, he doesn’t regret studying physics—far from it.

In his work at EA, Donnelly often uses the skills he developed in writing and presenting research. He also uses techniques from theoretical physics, such as heat kernel methods used to solve heat equations, in his work on generative artificial intelligence and computer graphics.

“You’re never sure how useful these things will be in the ‘real’ world,” he said. “But ultimately, they’re invaluable.”

On a fundamental level, Donnelly said that physics is at the core of creating video games. To create a realistic or believable virtual reality, game designers must have a deep understanding of the rules that govern the physical realm.

“To make cool gamelike simulations, you really have to understand how the world works,” he explained. “All of my experience at UMD translated extremely well to the work that I do now.”

From computer graphics to physics and back again

SEED isn’t Donnelly’s first stint working in computer science. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

As an undergraduate student in the early 2000s, he interned at computer graphics companies—including NVIDIA—where he published his first scientific papers on graphics processing units. These were brand-new technologies at the time, so Donnelly invented and demonstrated new techniques to make the best use of them.

One of his early publications, titled “Variance shadow maps,” was a “big hit,” he said. The technique he proposed, which provides a solution for a problem called shadow map aliasing, rapidly spread through the gaming industry and appeared in published games.

But around this time, Donnelly began pondering deeply about the inner workings of the world. He took coursework in quantum mechanics, quantum information and general relativity, and he was captivated by problems at the forefront of quantum gravity.

He debated between pursuing a Ph.D. in computer graphics and a Ph.D. in physics and opted for the latter, enrolling at UMD, where his dissertation focused on quantum entanglement, black hole entropy and quantum gravity. After graduating, he spent nine years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Waterloo; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo.

Still, he left the door open to return to computer graphics. And although he found quantum physics “fascinating, deep, mysterious and worthwhile,” he never particularly enjoyed academia. So, he pivoted to industry and joined SEED in 2021.

‘Computer rendering is actually a physics problem’

Although there are no direct ties between Donnelly’s quantum research and his computer graphics work, his broader physics education helps in his current role.

“If you want to make a character jump, you have to know how a body moves under gravity. To simulate smoke, it’s important to understand not only the underlying physics of fluids, but also how light interacts with the material,” he explained. “There’s a lot of math and physics involved.”

In addition to mechanics, computer rendering, which involves translating a 3D geometry description to pixels on a screen, applies concepts in optics.

“Computer rendering is actually a physics problem,” he said. “You actually have to solve equations of light transport. You have to study how the light from the sun and other sources bounces around and makes it into your eye.”

One of Donnelly’s biggest achievements so far is improving how programs solve light transport equations to reduce noise in renderings. Effectively, the new technology hides noise generated during the graphics rendering process by pushing it into sensory spaces that humans can’t perceive. He and his collaborators published the technique in May 2024 in the Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, and it has already been incorporated into EA’s Frostbite game engine.

That’s what Donnelly enjoys most about his career in industry compared with academic research in theoretical physics—how rapidly new findings get applied.

“I love that things go straight into the real world. You know it works because it instantly looks more real or better,” he said. “You immediately get feedback—60 frames per second worth of it.”

Written by Jason P. Dinh

Air Force Veteran Rekindles His Passion for Science at UMD

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Category: Department News

Published: Wednesday, February 04 2026 01:40

Morgan Smith (B.S. ’25, physics) wasn’t your typical undergraduate student. Before he even began his undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland at age 29, he’d traveled the United States and dedicated six years to serving his country in the military.

After graduating high school in 2010, Smith worked various odd jobs then spent two years traveling around the country, from Colorado to Florida to northern Virginia, where he enrolled in community college and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He spent the next six years in the military as a cryptologic language analyst, helping the intelligence community with Arabic translation and communication. But he always had goals beyond his service.Morgan Smith

Growing up near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith dreamed of becoming an aerospace engineer. As a kid, he built remote-controlled airplanes with his friends and read books about everything from rocket ships to the Wright brothers. He won a prize in his high school science fair for a project analyzing airfoil shapes using a wind tunnel.

“My goal was to return to my scientific passions,” he said.

Now, after completing his physics degree and a minor in computer science at UMD, Smith works at NASA as a software engineer, tying together his interests in science and public service.

“What’s most rewarding to me is working toward a mission that is aligned with expanding humanity’s knowledge,” he said, “in bettering society and solving the puzzles necessary to do that.”

A career takes flight

You might think that an airman with a passion for planes would work in aeronautics for the Air Force, but that wasn’t the case for Smith.

“I wanted to gain a good skill while I was enlisted,” he said.

For him, that meant mastering a foreign language.

Smith earned an associate’s degree in Arabic language and foreign literature from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. While enlisted, he also earned an associate’s degree in intelligence studies and technology from the Community College of the Air Force and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Arizona State University.

He reached the rank of technical sergeant-select and spent his days translating documents and communications. Then, more than five years into his career, COVID-19 happened.

“Suddenly, I had a lot of time to think and evaluate where I’ve been. I remembered how much passion and joy I got in my science classes, especially physics,” he said. “Physics encompasses so much of the science about our universe. In high school, I liked it because I thought that planes were cool. But as I got older, I began to realize that, actually, the whole universe is cool.”

So, Smith reoriented his career toward science. It wasn’t easy, since he had forgotten quite a bit of math during his time in the Air Force.

“It took a lot of personal time and dedication to get those skills back. I actually used Khan Academy,” he said, laughing.

But his efforts paid off when he was admitted to UMD for the fall of 2021.

Sticking the landing at UMD

Smith didn’t find it unusual to be an undergraduate student in his 30s; instead, he says it was an asset.

“Being a little older and assured in what I was doing and having learned from past experiences, I was able to be disciplined and hopefully provide mentorship and direction to other students,” Smith said.

One of his most rewarding experiences was designing hands-on lab lessons for quantum science and technology courses under the mentorship of Alicia Kollár, a Chesapeake Assistant Professor of Physics Endowed Chair, and Alessandro Restelli, an associate research scientist at the Joint Quantum Institute. The lessons, which he designed in collaboration with the Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation, introduced students to the tools used in real-world quantum science, such as interferometers and vector network analyzers.

In 2023, Smith joined the NASA Pathways program, which is designed as a pipeline to full-time employment with the space agency. At NASA, he works on a variety of computing initiatives, including encryption, containerization and satellite telemetry. One of his current projects uses machine learning to determine whether anomalies detected by satellites are nefarious actors or otherwise warrant further investigation.

Whether he is learning coding languages or new physics concepts, Smith believes his experience mastering foreign languages helps.

“Learning all these different programming languages on the fly was definitely linked to being able to learn foreign languages,” he said. “It’s all about picking up patterns.”

Smith continues to exercise that muscle in his free time. He’s learning Japanese and even took up two Japanese forms of martial arts. He trains in karate and a traditional weapons art called Katori Shinto Ryu, which involves swords and bo staffs, practicing daily and formally training three times a week.

As he navigates his career in science, he believes his ability to learn on the fly will be a great asset. And wherever that career takes him, he wants to ensure that his work benefits society.

“As you grow older, you think a little more about the world and your place in it,” he said. “So having values and a mission aligned with what I believe in is hugely important to me.”

Written by Jason P. Dinh

Conducting Quantum Experiments in the ‘Coolest’ Lab on Campus

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Category: Department News

Published: Tuesday, February 03 2026 01:40

When University of Maryland physics Ph.D. candidate Yanda Geng tells people he works at the ‘coolest’ lab on campus, he’s not exaggerating. In his laboratory at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), atoms are cooled to 100 nanokelvin—about one billionth of a degree above absolute zero and roughly 1,000 times colder than the quantum systems used in superconducting quantum computers.Yanda Geng at work in the lab. Credit: Rahul Shrestha

In these extreme conditions, something bizarre happens. Atoms stop acting like individual particles and instead merge into a single quantum blob called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). BECs contain millions of atoms that behave according to quantum mechanics rather than classical physics, and they reveal quantum dynamics on a scale large enough to observe without the extreme difficulty of studying single atoms or photons. 

“Simply put, we use laser cooling and trapping techniques to cool atoms down to a very cold temperature, changing the atoms into a different type of matter,” Geng said. 

Advised by Adjunct Professor of Physics Ian Spielman and Associate Vice President for Quantum Research and Education Gretchen Campbell, Geng used microwaves to split the BEC into two different superfluids—liquids that flow without friction. 

“Unlike regular fluids that eventually stop moving because of friction, superfluids can flow forever,” Geng explained. “For example, if you have superfluid in a bucket and rotate that bucket, the superfluid inside won’t follow the bucket because it doesn’t really ‘feel’ the motion of the wall.” 

Like oil and water, these two superfluids cannot mix. But Geng and postdoctoral researcher Junheng Tao discovered interesting swirling patterns as they pushed the superfluids together—the distinctive mushroom-shaped plumes were eerily similar to what happens when galaxies collide, volcanoes erupt or nuclear fusion occurs. Called the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI), this phenomenon had been observed in classical fluids before, but never in superfluids.

“I remember quite distinctly when this data was presented at group meeting: it was a surprise,” noted Spielman. “Several of the cold atom students had been talking with me about measuring fluid dynamical instabilities for some time, but the first RTI data was taken in secret on a weekend, and neither Gretchen nor I knew it was coming!”

For Geng, the findings confirm something profound about the universe: some laws of physics are so fundamental that they work the same everywhere, from cosmic scales to the quantum realm. Finding the same patterns in the quantum world and the everyday world helps scientists understand where the rules of classical physics end and where unique quantum behaviors begin. Geng and the team published the discovery in the journal Sciences Advances in August 2025. 

“It’s kind of amazing to see that this [Rayleigh-Taylor instability] is everywhere, and that the ingredients you need to make it happen aren’t that difficult to put together,” Geng noted. “It’s a pattern with extremely simple origins, something you can find in countless other systems under countless different conditions.”

The journey to cold atom physics

Growing up, Geng was inspired by his uncle, a high-energy physicist, to pursue fundamental questions about how the universe works. After earning his undergraduate degree in physics at Nanjing University in 2020, Geng began looking for graduate schools with atomic physics programs. UMD quickly became a top choice.

“UMD was really a dream school because of its collaboration with [the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology] through JQI,” Geng recalled. “I was happy to accept an offer from UMD. Even when a Berkeley professor during my search warned that what I was interested in—ultracold neutral atoms—was ‘really difficult physics,’ I was more confident than ever that this is what I want to do.”

When he began working with Spielman and Campbell in his second year, Geng inherited an experiment from previous students that quickly needed major repairs and upgrades. The experiment itself was a marvel of complexity: four laser tables spanning a 20-foot-by-30-foot lab, requiring expertise in optics, vacuum systems, electronics and even plumbing for the water-cooling system. Everything was controlled by Python programs and code largely written by Geng himself, drawing on the programming skills he learned in high school.

“You have to make sure all subsystems work, and they have to all work at the same time. For the first two years, I worked to optimize each component to achieve the reliability needed for publishable research,” Geng said.

Advocacy in academia

Over the years, Geng has also embraced a leadership role, serving on the department’s Graduate Student Committee, where he organized outreach and social events to help bridge communication gaps between students and faculty members. Geng is particularly committed to supporting new graduate students studying cold atomic physics, emphasizing both the immense challenges and rewards in the field. 

“I remember how I was when I first started here,” Geng explained. “Having some guidance about what to expect as a graduate researcher in cold atomic physics would have really helped me, so I try to pass along my experiences about things like how to interact with a PI and how to be patient with projects. It’s my goal to be transparent and give everyone a realistic picture of what academic research environments can look like.” 

As he approaches his graduation, Geng plans to continue doing research that makes an impact beyond the lab.

“I want to see my work directly connected to people’s lives,” Geng said. “Even though my research is very fundamental, what I’ve found is actually very universal in some ways. I like fundamental research that explores the secrets of the universe, but I’m also interested in photonics applications like with biosensors or precision measurement work like atomic clocks—research that can potentially change people’s lives.”

Written by Georgia Jiang