Manucharyan Cited by DARPA

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Published: Thursday, 24 August 2017 12:54

Vladimir Manucharyan has received a 2017 Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Prof. Manucharyan's proposal, "Multi-terminal hybrid semiconductor/superconductor junctions", is aimed at developing devices to serve as robust building blocks of a topological quantum computer and act as test beds for topological effects predicted in exotic materials.

Dr. Manucharyan, the Alford Ward Assistant Professor of Physics, received his Ph.D. in 2010 from Yale Univerity and was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University before his 2014 arrival at UMD, where he is a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute and a member of the Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials. In 2015, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship and NSF CAREER Award. 

Moment of Reflection with Bowie State University: August 30

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Published: Wednesday, 23 August 2017 11:35

Please join us as the University of Maryland and Bowie State University jointly observe a moment of reflection on August 30 at 12:05 pm. Together we will pause in silence for one minute to honor and remember the life of Second Lt. Richard Collins III.

Antonsen Named Distinguished University Professor

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Published: Thursday, 27 July 2017 12:54

Professor Tom Antonsen has been named a University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor. This designation is the campus’ highest academic honor, reserved for those whose scholarly achievements “have brought distinction to the University of Maryland.”  He was cited for fundamental contributions to the related fields of plasma physics, charged particle beam research, and nonlinear dynamics.

Prof. Antonsen, who received his PhD at Cornell University, joined the University of Maryland in 1984 and currently holds appointments in the Department of Physics, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP).  In 2016, he received the John R. Pierce Award for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics “for contributions to the theory of charged particle beam generation and the development of computational design tools for fast and slow wave devices.” He is a fellow of the American Physical Society. 

 Distinguished University Professors in the Department of Physics

Promotions and Appointments Effective July 1, 2017

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Published: Wednesday, 26 July 2017 12:54

Kaustubh Agashe, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, is a particle theorist who was recently named a Fermilab Distinguished Scholar. Dr. Agashe researches mathematical extensions to the Standard Model, making theoretical predictions that can be tested experimentally in settings including the Large Hadron Collider and future accelerator facilities.

Carter Hall, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, researches neutrinos and dark matter. He has worked on the Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO-200), and the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) detector, and is the new spokesperson for the LZ Dark Matter Experiment, based in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in the former Homestead gold mine in South Dakota.

Peter Shawhan, who was promoted to the rank of Professor, works on the LIGO experiment based in Louisiana and in Washington state. In recent years, LIGO made major news by confirming the existence of gravitational waves and thereby validating Einstein’s theory of relativity. Prof. Shawhan is also the Chair of the American Physical Society’s Division of Gravitational Physics.

Sylvester James “Jim” Gates Jr. has been appointed a College Park Professor. Gates joined the UMD faculty in 1984, and in the ensuing decades became an internationally-known advocate of science education. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the National Medal of Science. He is now the Co-Director of the Presidential Scholars Program at Brown University.

Sergio Picozzi, who was promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer, received his Ph.D. in Physics from Southern Illinois University. Dr. Picozzi had appointments at American, George Washington and Catholic universities before joining UMD in 2012.

David Clarke was promoted to the rank of Assistant Research Scientist. He received his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, and his research focuses on the design, analysis, and manipulation of topological phases of matter for applications in quantum information processing.

Cornelius Griggs was promoted to the rank of Assistant Research Scientist. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame, and works on advancing the techniques of superconducting gravity gradiometry and its applications, such as earlier detection of earthquakes.

Greg Jenkins was promoted to the rank of Associate Research Scientist. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, and studies the magneto-optical studies of Dirac and Weyl semimetals.

Hyunsoo Kim was promoted to the rank of Assistant Research Scientist. Kim received his Ph.D. at Iowa State University, and works in the development and application of very low-temperature instrumentation for the study of the electronic properties of novel materials.

Norbert Linke was promoted to the rank of Assistant Research Scientist. Dr. Linke received his Ph.D. at the University of Oxford, and at UMD was part of the team that realized the first programmable quantum computer based on five Ytterbium ions.

New Members of the Department of Physics

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Published: Sunday, 02 July 2017 12:54

Four assistant professors have recently joined UMD Physics.

Maissam Barkeshli received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Afterward, he was a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft's Station Q at UC Santa Barbara. He works on several topics in complex quantum many-body phenomena and is a member of the Condensed Matter Theory Center and Joint Quantum Institute.  

Brian Swingle received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and held postdoctoral positions at Harvard University, the It from Qubit Simons Collaboration and Stanford University. He researches quantum information and is a member of the Condensed Matter Theory Center, the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science and the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics.

Zohreh Davoudi received her Ph.D. at the University of Washington and recently completed a postdoctoral appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She studies strongly-interacting systems of hadrons and nuclei, using analytical and computational methods such as effective field theories and lattice quantum chromodynamics. She will be a member of the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics and hold a joint appointment at Brookhaven National Lab through the Riken Fellowship program.

Anson Hook will begin in the spring semester of 2018, after completing a postdoctoral appointment at Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. in 2012. He has also held a postdoctoral appointment at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Hook researches the extent to which exotic field theory phenomena can be used to solve existing problems in particle physics. He will be a member of the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics.

In addition, two members of the Department of Engineering and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP) now hold appointments in Physics.

Associate Professor Mohammad Hafezi received his Ph.D. at Harvard University. His interests include the theoretical and experimental investigation of strongly-correlated systems and topological physics, nanophotonics and optomechanics, and hybrid quantum systems. He is a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute.

Professor Edo Waks received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He researches nanoscale photonic and semiconductor devices for applications in quantum computation, communication, and sensing. He is a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute.