Upadhyaya, Arpita
Biography
Arpita Upadhyaya received her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, and then worked at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT before being awarded an MIT Pappalardo Fellowship in the Department of Physics. She spent a year in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at UNC Chapel Hill before joining the UMD faculty in 2006. She received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2008, and was promoted to associate professor in 2014. Her research uses quantitative imaging, biophysical measurements and computational analysis to study cellular mechanics and the physical forces that enable a cell to sense and respond to its physical environment, in particular cells of the immune system and cancer cells.
Research
Research:
Centers & Institutes: Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Maryland Biophysics Program;Maryland NanoCenter
Waks, Edo
Biography
Edo Waks received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University while working with Professor Yoshihisa Yamamoto in the area of quantum optics and quantum information. After graduating, he became a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, working with Professor Jelena Vuckovic in the Ginzton Laboratory on nanophotonic implementations of quantum information processing, before joining the ECE Department as assistant professor for the Fall 2006 semester. He received his B.S. and M.S. from the Electrical Engineering Department at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.
Waks is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellow and was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, at Stanford. He won the Department of Central Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellowship Award sponsored by the Army Research and Development Activity, which funded his postdoctoral research. He received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1996-1999), and the William Huggins Award for Outstanding Achievement in Computer and Electrical Engineering, from Johns Hopkins University (1995). He holds appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Reasearch in Electronics and Applied Physics
Research
Research Areas:
- Application of photonic crystals to quantum information processing
- Use of photonic crystals for practical tools in optical telecommunication and sensing
- Atomic, Molecular & Optical
- Quantum Science and Technology
Notable Publications:
Centers & Institutes: Joint Quantum Institute, Quantum Technology Center
News
- UMD Researchers Included in New NSF Quantum Initiatives
- UMD Leads New $25M NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation
- UMD to Lead $1M NSF Project to Develop a Quantum Network to Interconnect Quantum Computers
- Semiconductor Quantum Transistor Opens the Door for Photon-based Computing
- New Hole-Punched Crystal Clears a Path for Quantum Light
- Five UMD Physicists Elected APS Fellows
Wellstood, Frederick
Biography
Fred Wellstood received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoctoral appointment there before accepting a faculty position at UMD. He is a member of the Quantum Materials Center and the Joint Quantum Institute. He has served as the Department’s Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education, and was a key player in planning the new Physical Sciences Complex at UMD. His work is in experimental superconductivity, including quantum computing and 3D magnetic imaging using SQUIDs.
Research
Research:
Research Projects:
- Quantum computing using superconducting devices
- Scanning SQUID Microscopy
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Joint Quantum Institute;Physics Frontier Center
Teaching
- Physics 107: Light, Perception, Photography & Visual Phenomena Laboratory
- Physics 260: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetism
- Physics 261: Vibrations, Waves, Heat, Electricity & Magnetims: Laboratory
- Physics 271: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity & Modern Physics: Laboratory
- Physics 275: Experimental Physics I
- Physics 276: Experimental Physics II
- Physics 375: Experimental Physics III: Electromagnetic Waves, Optics and Modern Physics
Williams, Ellen
Biography
Distinguished University Professor Ellen Williams earned her B.S. in 1976 from Michigan State University and her Ph.D. in 1981 from the California Institute of Technology. Her research interests are in surface chemistry and nanotechnology. She founded the University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and served as its Director from 1996 through 2009. She served as Chief Scientist at BP from 2010-14, and as Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) from 2014 until early 2017.
Research
Research Area:
Research Projects:
- Surface Physics
- Nanoelectronic materials
- Experimental statistical mechanics
- Flexible electronics
Centers & Institutes: Quantum Materials Center; Institute for Physical Science & Technology; Materials Research Science & Engineering Center
Teaching
- Physics 662: Intersections of Technology and Policy in Modernizing the Energy System
- PLCY699B Intersections of Technology and Policy: Modernizing the Energy System
- Physics 662: Intersections of Technology and Policy
News
- Ellen Williams Named Director of ESSIC
- Ellen Williams Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Ellen Williams Returns to UMD
- Ellen Williams Named Caltech Distinguished Alumna
- Ellen Williams Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society
- Ellen Williams Interviewed in Scientific American
- Ellen Williams Nominated to Key Administration Post
Yakovenko, Victor
Biography
Victor Yakovenko is a Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was a recipient of the prestigious David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. He is a theoretical physicist with more than 35 years of research experience in studying electronic properties of various materials. In addition, he joined the emergent econophysics movement around year 2000 by publishing his first econophysics paper. Over the next twenty years, his ideas became increasingly popular and initiated an expanding wave of follow-up papers by many researchers around the world. The work of Yakovenko has also been covered in popular media, such as the New York Times Magazine, American Scientist, New Scientist, Australian Financial Review, Science magazine and the UK Engineering and Technology Magazine. Yakovenko has given about 150 invited talks on this subject. He received his M.S. in Physics and Engineering from the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow in 1987, where he was also employed as Research Scientist. In 1991 he began a Postdoc at the Department of Physics, Rutgers University. In 1993 he joined the University of Marlyland, College Park as Assistant Professor and became Associate Professor in 1999 and Full Professor in 2004.
Research
Research:
Centers & Institutes: Condensed Matter Theory Center; Joint Quantum Institute; Physics Frontier Center
Teaching
- Physics 270: Electrodynamics, Light, Relativity and Modern Physics
- Physics 402: Quantum Physics II
- Physics 411: Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism
- Physics 601: Theoretical Dynamics
- Physics 613: Quantum and Statistical Physics II
- Physics 622: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics I
- Physics 623: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics II
- Physics 625: Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics
