News
Abrams Teaching Award Winner Professor Mark Devlin on Teaching Introductory Classes
"When I started my position in the department of physics & astronomy at Penn in 1996, I had never been in front of a class in my life. I was assigned Introductory Astronomy (Astro 001) for my first course, given a book and told where to show up. I figured I knew astronomy pretty well, how hard could it be?"
Penn Research Partnership with University of Puerto Rico Awarded $3M NSF Grant
A Partnership for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Puerto Rico was one of six to receive $3M in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Physics Professors Charles Kane, Eugene Mele and A.T Charlie Johnson: NSF Awards $250K for Topological Materials SUPERSeed
The NSF recently awarded funding ($250K) for a new SUPERSeed, Topological Quantum Materials between Two and Three Dimensions. LRSM’s SUPERSeed will combine theory, computation and experiment on topics that lie at the intersection between materials science and topological physics: layered 2D materials, topological semimetals, and ferroelectric (FE) topological insulators.
New Physics Demonstration Videos
Professor Larry Gladney and Bill Berner, in collaboration with the Penn Online Learning Initiative, have developed a series of physics demonstration videos on electrodynamics. The series of demonstrations, supported by Penn's AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative grant, were designed for use in the classroom as well as review materials. A second series of videos are currently being developed.
To watch videos of Physics demos, click here
Remembering Emeritus Professor Howard Brody-- "The Science of Swing"
Professor Brody’s love of tennis, perhaps like Newton’s, was never quite matched by his skill. From fumbling tournaments in high school (“The coach gave up”), he progressed to four years of varsity play at MIT, and for one heady month coached the men’s team at the University of Pennsylvania where, for almost all his career, he was a physics professor.
Professors Justin Khoury, Tom Lubensky and Andrea Liu receive Kaufmann New Initiative Research Grants
Upenn researchers will receive five of the 10 grants being awarded this year by the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, part of The Pittsburgh Foundation, which supports cutting-edge scientific research in chemistry, biology and physics at institutions across Pennsylvania.
Professor Justin Khoury: Experiment Attempts to Snare Penn Astrophysicist’s Dark Energy ‘Chameleons’
If dark energy is hiding in the form of hypothetical particles called “chameleons,” a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, plans to flush them out.
The results of an experiment published in Science narrows the search for chameleons a thousand times compared to previous tests. The researchers hope that their next experiment will either expose chameleons or similar ultralight particles as the real dark energy, or prove they were nothing more than an illusion.
Penn Researchers Use Nanoscopic Pores to Investigate Protein Structure
The Penn researchers’ translocation technique allows for the study of individual proteins without modifying them. Samples taken from a single individual could be analyzed this way, opening applications for disease diagnostics and research.
Professor Cullen Blake Discusses the Pluto Flyby and "Earth's Twin."
Hunting for Planets
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“Pluto is the best known member of a class of objects that lurk in the exterior of our solar system,” says Cullen Blake, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy. “Before the New Horizons photos, we conceived of these planets as big, dirty balls of ice. Now we realize that they are not featureless and barren because they have mountains and canyons on the surface...”
To read the article in full by SAS Frontiers, visit
Professor Alison Sweeney, "Diving Deep for Alternative Energy"
"When Alison Sweeney, an assistant professor in the School of Arts & Sciences’Department of Physics and Astronomy, went scuba diving in Palau this summer, she wasn’t on vacation.