UC San Diego | Physics News Stories

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University of California San Diego condensed matter physicists noticed something surprising about electrons—they behave like a family. Electrons not only carry electric charge as exhibited in electric currents, but they also possess spins which are responsible for quantum magnetic properties. Electron spins can organize, bond and interact. When excited, one spiraling part impacts the others. This dynamic spin was the subject of breakthrough research by UC San Diego Professor Congjun Wu, physics graduate student Wang Yang, for...

UC San Diego Physicists Apply Pencil, Paper and Sociology to Breakthrough Research

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has named Professors Tongyan Lin, Elena Koslover, and Tenio Popmintchev as 2018 Sloan Fellows. They are three of 126 talented young U.S. and Canadian researchers to receive this distinction. The Sloan Research Fellowships are extraordinarily competitive awards involving nominations for most of the very best early-career scholars from the United States and Canada. The Fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promi...

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has named Professors Tongyan Lin, Elena Koslover, and Tenio Popmintchev as 2018 Sloan Fellows

University of California San Diego researchers in the Department of Physics have shed light on the formation of supermassive black holes and galaxies. The research by Professor Shelley Wright, graduate student Andrey Vayner and their colleagues outlines the physics surrounding the formation of black holes and galaxies, improving scientific understanding of how the two grow in unison. Their findings, published in the Dec. 20, 2017 issue of Astro...

UC San Diego Researchers Shed Light on Formation of Black Holes and Galaxies

UC San Diego has begun designing a powerful telescope that will be placed in Chile’s Atacama Desert to search for “ancient light” that could help explain how the universe arose from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. The $10 million telescope will be the largest of five instruments that are being developed as part of the Simons Observatory, which will be located on a high, arid plateau that’s well-suited for searching the cosmos. UC San Diego will collaborate with a Germany company on the design ...

UC San Diego to design telescope to search for "ancient light" from the universe

Chelsey Dorow, UCSD Physics graduate student, has been selected as Inamori Fellow for 2018. Chelsey studies the physics of indirect excitons. The Inamori Fellowship Program supports our best and brightest graduate students. This fellowship has been established by the Inamori Foundation.

Chelsey Dorow has won 2018 Inamori Fellowship

Physics faculty member Oleg Shpyrko has been named one of the recipients of the 2017 UCSD Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award. The prestigious award is bestowed upon faculty and graduate students to honor teaching excellence. Recipients are selected for their creativity, innovative teaching methods, ability to motivate students and commitment to teaching. Read more here.

Oleg Shpyrko Recipient of 2017 UCSD Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award

For the first time, scientists have directly detected gravitational waves — ripples in space-time — in conjunction with light from the spectacular collision of two neutron stars. This marks the first time that a cosmic event has been viewed in both gravitational waves and light. The gravitational signal, named GW170817, was first detected on August 17 at 8:41 am EDT by two identical Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, one located in ...

LIGO and OSG launch multi-messenger astronomy era

Kristian Skylar Mackewicz is the 2016-2017 recipient of the Shang-Keng Ma Memorial Award. Kristian recently graduated from UC San Diego majoring in Physics and Chemical Engineering. While at UCSD, Kristian worked on developing tunable interactions between micron-sized colloidal particles. He will be starting his PhD at the University of Chicago in the fall. He plans to shift his research focus to theoretical astrophysics, particularly general relativity and the theory of gravity. Kristian also has aspirations to work for NASA or SpaceX at so...

Kristian Skylar Mackewicz named 2016-2017 recipient of the Shang-Keng Ma Memorial Award

Kelson James Kaj is a 2016-2017 recipient of the John Holmes Malmberg Prize. Kelson recently graduated from UC San Diego with a B.S. in physics. During his undergraduate degree, he worked in the lab of Dr. Eva-Maria Collins, looking at various biophysical problems related to planarians. After graduating, Kelson will begin pursuing a PhD at the physics department at UC San Diego.

Kelson James Kaj named 2016-2017 recipient of the John Holmes Malmberg Prize

David Moore is a 2016-2017 recipient of the John Holmes Malmberg Prize. After transferring to UCSD from the San Diego Community College District, he worked with Dr. Hui Sun in the mathematics department on a numerical fluid dynamics Stokes flow problem. He studied in a number of graduate level courses, and graduated with Latin honors and a double major in physics and mathematics. He is currently continuing his education in the UCSD physics Ph.D. program, where he plans to work in the broad area of theoretical condensed matter physics.

David Moore named 2016-2017 recipient of the John Holmes Malmberg Prize