News

Physics and Astronomy Students win SAS Fellowships

Three students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy have received fellowships from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Dan Beller and Nick Kybert received Teece Fellowships, and Carl Goodrich received a Dissertation Research Fellowship. Congratulations to all three!

Penn Physics Graduate Student Garrett Goon Wins Fellowship

Penn Physics graduate student Garrett Goon has been awarded a SAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year.

Jay Kikkawa wins Lindback Award for Teaching

Jay Kikkawa, Professor of Physics, is one of the eight 2013 recipients of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Awards for Distinguished Teaching.

Penn Physics Research makes the cover of the Biophysical Journal

A new paper co-authored by Penn Physics professor Philip C. Nelson has made the cover of the Biophysical Journal

Meson-antimeson oscillations in the news

A 1956 paper with Professor Ken Lande as first author is the first reference for meson-antimeson oscillations in a just-published paper on D0-D0-bar oscillations.  These oscillations are intimately related to the existence of three generations of quarks.  The first observation of K0-K0-bar oscillations by K. Lande, E. Booth, J. Impeduglia, L. Lederman, and W. Chinowsky paved the way for a half-century of study of oscillations that has culminated with the observation of oscillations of mesons involving the charm quark.

Ernie Moniz Chosen as DOE Secretary-Designate

Ernest J. Moniz is Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Energy Initiative, and Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the MIT Department of Physics and a former postdoctoral scholar in the Penn Physics Department.  He has been nominated by President Obama to lead the US Department of Energy in his second term.

CNT transistors detect disease biomarkers

Prof. Charlie Johnson's lab has produced new experiments demonstrating that carbon nanotube transistors can detect minute quantities of biomarkers of diseases like salmonella, lyme disease, and prostate cancer in less time than conventional methods.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1302/1302.2958.pdf

Profs. Jain and Bernstein to search for dark matter with the Euclid telescope

Professors Bhuvnesh Jain (r) and Gary Bernstein (l), both of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts & Sciences, have major roles in the Dark Energy Survey, an international collaboration to study the mysterious force using a new imaging system recently installed at an observatory in the Chilean Andes.

Zhengqing John Qi Wins IBM Ph.D. Fellowship

Zhengqing John Qi, a doctoral candidate in Charlie Johnson's group in Physics and Astronomy, has won an IBM Ph.D. Fellowship.

Vijay Balasubramanian Named Lasry Professor

Dr. Vijay Balasubramanian has been named the Cathy and Marc Lasry Professor of Physics & Astronomy. His research focuses on basic questions concerning the nature of space and time. His other interests include string theory, particle physics, high energy physics and neuroscience. He teaches the capstone course for the computational neuroscience minor in the Biological Basis of Behavior program and, in addition to his appointment in the physics & astronomy department, is an associate professor of neuroscience in the department of neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine.