We proudly recognize members of our community who recently garnered major honors, began new positions and more.

Faculty and Staff 
Students
  • Ezra Bregin was quoted in a Diamondback article about adapting to online classes. 
  • Aaron Green quoted in a Diamondback article about peer counseling.  
  • Will Heffernan was quoted in a Washington Post story about classes in a pandemic. 
  • Tsung-Sheng Huang received the Kapo-Barwick Award.
  • Brandon Johnson's band was featured in the Diamondback. 
  • Daniel Levy spoke to the Diamondback about starting his UMD experience at home.
  • Venkata Sai Saketh Muddu received the Richard and Anna Iskraut Scholarship.
  • Alireza Seif, with Mohammad Hafezi and Chris Jarzynski, published a Nature Physics cover story that was also highlighted at Phys.Org
  • Yukari Yamauchi received a graduate fellowship to conduct research at Jefferson Lab.
  • Ina Flood, Yonatan Gazit, Scott Hurwitz, Emily Jiang, Zachary Metzler, Anthony Munson, Dhruvit Patel, Nathan Zimmerberg, Batoul Banihashemi, Joseph Hayden, Shams Mehdi, Deepak Sathyan, Jiashen Tang and Shuyang Wang were honored as exceptional TAs with the Ralph Myers Awards.
Alumni
Department Notes 
  • The US News Best Global Universities index rated the department #9 in physics among US universities and #13 in the world.  
  • The University of Maryland chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has won an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. This is the eighth time the chapter has been recognized for its excellence as a top-tier student-led physical sciences organization, a designation given to only 15 percent of all SPS chapters..The SPS chapter is advised by Donna Hammer and is led by student officers.
  • UMD will lead a $1 million NSF effort to connect quantum computers.
  • Joe Weber's pioneering ideas were cited in an Inverse magazine article about LIGO.
In Memoriam

Tom McIlrath of IPST died in December at the age of 82. In addition to a long and successful career in atomic and laser physics at Maryland and in collaboration with colleagues at NIST, he served as the APS Treasurer from 1997-2006, overseeing the successful transition of APS journals from primarily print to an electronic base, a significant service to our community.

Michael Moses, (M.S. '77) died in January at the age of 67. After serving as a computer scientist for the U.S. Army, Moses worked for Raytheon and for NASA's Chandra project.