Physics Department News
Physics Dept. Commencement ceremony is May 12 at 2:30 PM on the Small Hall Lawn
Anne Norrick is awarded the 2012 Rolf G. Winter Teaching Award
The gift will benefit athletic scholarships, stadium renovations and other needs.
Chris Monahan is the recipient of the 2013 JSA Postdoctoral Research Grant at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, which will provide $11,000 for his research.
It turns out that the Higgs boson looks exactly like Marc Sher always said it would, and now he's a little bummed.
Theoretical physicist Joshua Erlich can't prove that dark matter exists. Dark chocolate is another matter.
The new dome and its 14-inch computer-controlled telescope will give William & Mary much improved astronomical functionality.
A cadre of William & Mary's physicists was involved in a project that made the Physics World list of the top 10 breakthroughs for 2012.
For the College of William and Mary, PhysCon began bright and early on Wednesday morning as the eight attendees met outside of Small Hall, the College’s physics building.
This past summer, W&M Physics rising senior Patrick King was the inaugural recipient of the first Dorothy Pruitt Babcock Memorial Research Scholarship. This scholarship enabled Patrick to conduct research in theoretical particle physics along with Associate Professor Joshua Erlich.
If the ice cream cones are anything to go by, approximately 200 people attended this year’s PhysicsFest (give or take a few people that couldn’t resist going back for seconds of our fantastic liquid nitrogen ice cream, anyway).
The Special Collections Research Center in William & Mary’s Swem Library has a first edition, 1687 copy of Newton’s masterwork. It was the star attraction among a one-day exhibit of venerable scientific texts in the physics library of Small Hall.
The 2012 recipients of the annual William & Mary Alumni Association awards were honored at a banquet at the William & Mary Alumni House on Sept. 27.
A small collection of rubidium-87 atoms in Seth Aubin's Small Hall lab has reached Bose-Einstein condensation after being chilled to a level near absolute zero.
A William & Mary physicist is featured in a video explaining the latest chapter in the investigation of mysterious, flavor-shifting particles called neutrinos.
By the time you’re reading this, neutrino physicists from around the world will have descended upon Williamsburg for NuFact 2012. This workshop is unique in that it brings theorists, experimentalists and accelerator physicists together with a focus on future experiments, particularly the development of an accelerator called a neutrino factory from which the workshop derives its name.
An international workshop on neutrinos is bringing particle physicists from all over the globe to William & Mary.
Marc Sher, professor of physics at William & Mary, is a "go-to guy" on the Higgs boson.
On the verge of what could be the largest announcement in particle physics in decades, professors focusing on the Higgs boson and beyond the Standard Model weigh in on the Higgs hunt itself and the future of the field.
Zable '37 was a business visionary whose love for the College -- especially Tribe athletics -- never waned. He died of natural causes on Saturday, June 23.
William & Mary's Patricia Vahle addressed the scientific world on June 8, giving an overview of the latest news on the study of neutrinos.
The College of William & Mary was ready for the transit of Venus, if only the clouds would play nice.
It's been out with the old and in with the new for the physicists in Small Hall.
The neutrinophone has the potential to be used for communication across immense distances— including into outer space.
Physicists love to share their love of science (and sometimes even their chocolate).
Aaron Dufour, a double major in Computer Science and Physics, is this year's recipient of the Park Undergraduate Award.
At the Yorktown Elementary School Science Night W&M students and faculty impressed and amazed visitors with a variety of interactive demos organized by Prof. Irina Novikova and Prof. Wouter Deconinck, with the help of the Society of Physics Students.
Assistant professor of physics Enrico Rossi to lecture on creativity and constraint in art and science.
ON A normal day physicists from the MINERvA collaboration based at Fermilab, America’s main particle-physics facilty, near Chicago, study neutrinos in the hope of unlocking the mysteries of the universe. In their spare time, though, they decided to test an idea that is (slightly) more down to Earth.
On the Friday March 2, the last day before spring break, a group of thirteen William & Mary physics students visited the Jefferson Lab accelerator facility in a tour organized by the Society of Physics Students.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Feb. 15 - Very few people can claim being the first to see a new state of matter. Sarah Phillips wants to join those select few. Today, Phillips got one step closer to that goal when she was named the recipient of the 2012 JSA Postdoctoral Research Grant at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
On Feb. 28, the Alpha of Virginia Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa presented awards recognizing the accomplishments of Allison Oldham '13 and Professors Robert Leventhal and Barbara Watkinson.
An international team of physicists has reported the first set of observations detailing important behavior of neutrino oscillation, an accomplishment that is a necessary step to additional experiments intended to answer fundamental questions about the makeup of the universe.
The College of William & Mary made a strong showing at the Seventh Annual Graduate Student Research Forum on Feb. 16 in Charlottesville.
Ari Cukierman is the 2012 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy.
Physics Graduate students Gardner Marshall and Christopher Triola have been awarded the 2011 Rolf G. Winter Memorial Physics Graduate Student Award in recognition of excellence in teaching.
A team of William & Mary physicists has an important role in the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, a multinational collaboration to advance science's understanding of ubiquitous, yet mysterious, particles known as neutrinos.
Reinard Primulando, a Ph.D. student in the William & Mary Department of Physics, is a recipient of a Fermilab Fellowship in Theoretical Physics.
A collection of atoms in the basement of Small Hall is a million times colder than outer space. It’s one of the coldest spots in the universe, but it’s not cold enough. Yet.
Reinard Primulando, Ph.D. candidate, receives prestigious Fermilab Fellowship in Theoretical Physics.
The William & Mary group is part of a new industry-academia-government collaboration, the Virginia Nanoelectronics Center (ViNC). ViNC is based at the University of Virginia; the partnership also includes Old Dominion University.
“The building itself is always part of a physics experiment” says Keith Griffioen, professor and chair of the physics department. And in recent years, he added, Small Hall often was an unwanted part.
Physics Students represent the department at recent Undergraduate Symposium.
Gene Tracy, the Chancellor Professor of Physics, will serve as the interim Dean of Arts & Sciences at the College of William & Mary, effective July 1, 2011.
This video, produced by the Virginia Council of Graduate Schools, highlights the value of graduate research at William and Mary and across the Commonwealth.
William and Mary students win gold and bronze at "The University Physics Competition," an international contest for undergraduate students.
Two William & Mary scientists working in the laboratory of R. A. Lukaszew recently were recognized at the 57th International Symposium of the American Vacuum Society.
William and Mary celebrates the laser with lectures, demonstrations, a treasure hunt and lots of liquid-nitrogen chilled ice cream.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded the College of William and Mary $500,000 to study various aspects of using wild aquatic algae as both biofuel feedstock and as a medium for helping to clean contaminated waterways.
A team of students and faculty launch an experimental algae-cultivation flume in Lake Matoaka. It's an initiative of the Chesapeake Algae Project (ChAP), whose goal is to generate algae-based biofuel.
Keith Bechtol, wins his first marathon
The Department of Physics held their graduation ceremony outside on the Millington Lawn on Sunday, May 16, 2010
Francesca Fornasini, Class of 2010 received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Astrophysics
9th Annual Graduate Symposium- Nate Phillips and Jonathan Skuza win awards.
We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser. First event will be a photo contest.
Physics graduate students participate in the Fifth Annual Graduate Student Research Forum held in Richmond, Virgina.
Physics Majors participated in the 2010 Undergraduate Symposium on Friday, February 26th.
Professor J. Dirk Walecka, Emeritus, gave one of the keynote speeches at the 25th Anniversary of Jefferson Lab.
Jeremy Weeden is awarded the 2009 Rolf G. Winter Teaching Award
In the battle for the paddle, Physics Professor David Armstrong outlasts the competition.
The College of William & Mary and its Virginia Institute of Marine Science formed a collaborative research initiative to investigate producing biofuel from algae growing naturally in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Experimental High Energy Group at W&M are highlighted in Fermilab Today.
Sylvia Stout, business manager for the Physics Department, is to be honored for 40 years of service at William & Mary's annual Employee Appreciation Day luncheon.
The Solar Cells on the Roof of Small team is investigating a key sustainability question.
You can't feel them, but neutrinos are passing through your body in large numbers. They have no charge and very low mass, but their scientific value is priceless.
Andrew Leister, Class of 2009, receives the Don Edward Harrison Jr. Award for Excellence in Physics. Francesca Fornasini and Virginia Forstall, Class of 2010, share the E. Gary Clark Memorial Scholarship.
Douglas Dean was this year's recipient of the Alumni Prize for undergraduate research in Physics.
Graduate students from different disciplines in Arts & Sciences come together once each year to unite in a display of intellectual firepower.
On Feb. 10, six graduate students from the College of William and Mary participated in the fourth annual Graduate Student Research Forum, held at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.
Professor of Physics John Michael Finn, passed away suddenly in the early hours of Saturday Jan. 31.
This building project is the first renovation of this 1964 facility.
William and Mary's theoretical physicists are anticipating the arrival of data that just may prove them wrong.
Professor Griffioen, Chair of the Physics Department presents Graduate Student Brian Glover the 2008 Rolf G. Winter Memorial Physics Graduate Student Scholarship Award.
Nate Phillips and Crystal Bertoncini win awards at Old Dominion University's 5th Annual Research Expo
Ashwin Rastogi '08 has won the prestigious Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy for 2008.
As in comedy, the secrets to acing the physics GRE are timing and a sense of the ridiculous.
Ashwin Rastogi, a junior math/physics major, has been named as one of 2007-08 Goldwater Scholars.
Physics graduate student Kelly A. Kluttz has been awarded the 2007 Rolf G. Winter Memorial Physics Graduate Student Award in recognition of excellence in teaching.
At the 2007 American Physical Society April Meeting, five Jefferson Lab researchers were announced as recipients of 2006 APS Fellowships.
A physics professor at the College of William and Mary recently was awarded $500,000 to buy a new computer cluster to study the qualities of piezoelectrics—materials that convert energy from one form to another.
M. Patrick McCormick, who received his doctorate in physics from the College in 1967, has been named a Virginia Outstanding Scientist for 2007 by the governor's office and the Science Museum of Virginia.
Robert Welsh approaches the inner workings of the notorious German Enigma machine with the same innate curiosity that drove him as a young boy to disassemble assorted gizmos to see how they functioned.
Jan Chaloupka, assistant professor of physics, recently delivered remarks during the commencement ceremony of the physics department. We asked if he would write a piece for the News based on that speech. The following essay is the result. —Ed.
When Professor Griffieon asked me to deliver a speech at the physics department commencement ceremony, I was, I admit, a bit hesitant.
E. Gary Clark Memorial Scholarship - (awarded to a junior) SPRING
Three William and Mary students, two of them Math majors, received Goldwater Scholarships in 2006.
Erlich's paper outlines the modeling of quantum chromodynamics
Physicists have a problem. They are stuck with a stereotype. In this, the World Year of Physics 2005, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the creation of three seminal papers by one of the most vibrant, engaging and admired personalities of his century, Albert Einstein, the image of physicists has deteriorated.
Nuclear physics research isn’t much different from a good game of pool. When the cue ball slams into the racked game balls, they scatter, knocking into each other and colliding with the edges of the table.
n recognition of his profound contributions to cultural, artistic and humanistic dimensions of physics, William and Mary Chancellor Professor of Physics Hans C. Von Baeyer recently received the American Institute of Physics Andrew Gemant Award.