August 2013
APS Fellow award presentation
Congratulations to Professor Andrey Korytov, recipient of the APS Fellow Award as presented by Professor Howard Haber, treasurer of DPF (Division of Particles and Fields), at the annual DPF meeting held at UC Santa Cruz.
August 2013
International Conference Held in Honor of Chemistry Faculty Member Rod Bartlett
Rod Bartlett was the honoree of the 7th Molecular Quantum Mechanics Congress held in Lugano, Switzerland, June 2-7, 2013. The topic was "Electron Correlation: The Many-Body Problem at the Heart of Chemistry," a field that Prof. Bartlett has pioneered. More than 330 scientists from 21 countries were in attendance.
August 2013
Congratulations to Professor Yoonseok Lee, recipient of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitation Fellowship. This program is designed to enable Japanese researchers to invite their foreign colleagues to Japan to participate in cooperative work and other academic activities. Prof. Lee will be visiting Tokyo Institute of Technology and Kyoto University in 2014. More ...
May 2013
On June 11, 2013, Professor Clifford Will received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. The university is ranked #6 among comprehensive universities in Canada (those without medical schools). Born and raised in Canada, Will attended nearby McMaster University in Hamilton before going to Caltech for graduate school in 1968. Congratulations, Cliff!
April 2013
Matthew Calkins is the 2013 Winner of Outstanding Undergraduate Senior Thesis (Implementation of a Differential Hall Element Magnetometer) Award. Matthew's advisor is Prof Mark Meisel. Matt came to our program as a transfer student from Daytona State College and has excelled in every aspect at UF. He has conducted his research in Meisel’s group for over a year. Congratulations Matthew!
April 2013
The 2013 University Scholars (http://www.scholars.ufl.edu/):
Bradley Nicks (Meisel)
Brian Schaefer (Biswas)
Bryan Weaver (Ray)
April 2013
Congratulations to the following physics undergraduates:
Roman Chapurin, class of 2012, received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, he received an Honorable Mention last year. Roman conducted research with Prof Gary Ihas and is currently at U. Colorado Boulder.
Matt Gilbert, a graduating senior, received an Honorable Mention this year. Matt conducts research in Prof Andrew Rinzler's group and has been accepted to Berkeley, Cornell, and many other premier graduate programs.
Joshua Achiam, a junior in Physics/Aerospace Engineering, received an Honorable Mention for 2013 Barry Goldwater Scholarship.
April 2013

University Teacher/Scholar of the Year Award

Peter Hirschfeld has been selected as the 2012-2013 University Teacher/Scholar of the Year. There is only one winner per year, and it is the University of Florida's most prestigious and oldest faculty award. Peter is now the University's nominee for the SEC Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award. It is given to a faculty member who "demonstrates distinguished achievement in both teaching and scholarly activity (manifested by scholarly research, creative writing, original works of art, etc.) and visibility within and beyond the university." Congratulations, Peter!
April 2013
Congratulations to the following physics undergraduate majors who have been elected to Phi Beta Kappa in spring 2013:
Cody Jordan Reeves
Eric Bradley Deleeuw
Brendan David Faeth
Marc Adam Gold
Anders Peter Hansen
Aleksander Levental
Sean-Jiun Wang
March 2013
The CMT group has been successful in winning the competition for a prestigious Dirac post-doctoral position funded by the NFHML. (Soon to be) Dr. Saurabh Maiti from Andrey Chubukov's group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will join our Department in September 2013. Saurabh was nominated by Peter Hirschfeld, Dmitrii Maslov, and Matthias Graft (Los Alamos). A Dirac Fellow is expected to demonstrate high aptitude for theoretical research as well as to draw on the close connection with the ongoing experimental program(s). So, don't be surprised when Saurabh shows up at your lab's door to find out what is going on.
March 2013
Photos of the Physics is Fun show in memory of Robert Buchler, Professor Emeritus
Robert Buchler, Physics Professor Emeritus, sadly passed away on October 16 . Gainesville Sun
March 2013

2013 CCMS Summer Fellowships

Congratulations to the three physics graduate students who have been awarded the 2013 CCMS Fellowships, providing full summer support for young graduate students interested in research with the CCMS group. The winners of the 2013 CCMS Fellowships are:
Colin Barquist, advisor, Yoon Lee
Haoming Jin, advisor, Neil Sullivan
Jing Wang, advisor, Art Hebard

2013 IHEPA Summer Fellowships

Congratulations to the five physics graduate students who have been awarded the 2013 IHEPA Fellowships, providing full summer support for young graduate students interested in research with an IHEPA group. The winners of the 2013 IHEPA Fellowships are:
Kendall Ackley (LIGO) advisor, Sergey Klimenko
Andrew Chilton (LISA) advisor, Guido Mueller
Andrew Carnes (CMS) advisor, Ivan Furic
Hualin Mei (CMS) advisors, Andrey Korytov and Guenakh Mitselmakher
David Roffman (CMS) advisor, Ivan Furic
February 2013
Erik Deumens talks about UF's Updated Computer Network More ... WCJB News
January 2013
Seven UF professors awarded Fulbright grants for research abroad More... UF News
January 2013
Congrats to Prof Selman Hershfield on being awarded CLAS Teacher of the Year and being selected as one of only two CLAS nominees for the University-wide competition More... CLAS News

A Special Guest at CMS Collaboration Meeting

Sally Field, Oscar-winning actress and star of the recent movie, "Lincoln", is sister to our own Professor Rick Field. On a recent visit to CERN she met with her brother Rick and his colleagues, and gave a talk. Photos

December 2012

Sigma Pi Sigma Induction Ceremony

23 UF undergrads are inducted into the Sigma Pi Sigma national physics honor society. Prof. Paul Goldbart delivered an invited talk, and participated in the induction ceremony. Photos


December 2012
Professor David Tanner recognized as APS Outstanding Referee More...
December 2012
Two faculty members, Sergey Klimenko and Andrey Korytov, are elected as American Physical Society Fellows More ...
Big Bang Theory? Two Million Hours of Computing Time Logged in October More ...
October 2012
Experiment in University of Florida laboratory corrects prediction in quantum theory More ... (UF News)
October 2012
Robert Buchler, Physics Professor Emeritus, sadly passed away on October 16 . Gainesville Sun
October 2012

2012 Outstanding Mentor of Undergraduate Research Award

Congratulations to Amlan Biswas who was awarded one of three campus-wide "Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor" awards at the recent "Education Celebration" sponsored by the Florida Blue Key as part of the the homecoming celebrations. More details of the Education Celebration are mentioned in the Alligator.
July 2012
At a seminar held at CERN on July 4, the ATLAS and CMS experiments both announced the discovery of a new particle which appears to be consistent with the Higgs boson of the Standard Model. The high energy physics group in the Physics Department is one of the biggest contributors to the CMS experiment and was heavily involved in the analysis of the four lepton discovery channel.

Media coverage with quotes from UF faculty:
May 2012
Congratulations to Prof Richard Woodard who has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. The citation reads "For outstanding contributions in the areas of quantum cosmology and quantum gravity, and for his dedication to undergraduate and graduate teaching".
April 2012
Professor Gregory Stewart is named one of 33 UF Research Foundation Professors for 2012 More...
March 2012
A recent paper by Robert Zak and Daniel Loss (University of Basel, Switzerland), and Dmitrii Maslov (Physics, UF), [R. Zak, D. L. Maslov, and D. Loss, "Ferromagnetic order of nuclear spins coupled to conduction electrons: A combined e=EF=AC=80ect of electron-electron and spin-orbit interactions", Phys. Rev. B v. 85, 115424 (2012)] was featured in Physics Viewpoint, a special section of Physical Review journals that, according to its stated mission, "spotlights exceptional research". The authors of the commentary (Michele Governale and Ulrich Zuelicke, both from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) point out that "the importance of the work (by Zak et al.) lies in the detailed analysis of the e=EF=AC=80ect of the interplay of spin-orbit coupling and electron-electron interaction on the stability of the magnetic ordered state" and that "their study has broader implications for low-dimensional magnets, whose features could be tailored by changing the physical environment (especially spin-orbit coupling and con=EF=AC=81nement) of the charge carriers that mediate the interaction". The full text of the commentary is available here. The collaboration between physicists from UF and Basel is a part of the Materials World Network "Control of Nuclear Spins in Nanoelectronic Devices" (NSF-DMR-0908029) which includes UF, University of Basel, Harvard University, and ETH (Zurich, Switzerland).
March 2012
Congratulations to Professor Konstantin Matchev who has been named the recipient of the 2011-2012 Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award.
March 2012
Congratulations to Prof Sam Trickey who has been named by the APS as an "Outstanding Referee". Out of nearly 60,000 active referees, only 150 of these are announced each year.
March 2012
Prof Mark Meisel has been selected for a prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award for Spring 2013. He will be a visitor at P. J. Safarik University, Kosice, Slovakia. Congratulations!
February 2012
Congratulations to Professor Richard Woodard who has been selected Teacher of the Year by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His nomination had the enthusiastic endorsement of a number of physics undergraduate students. Congratulations Richard!
December 2011
Prof Darin Acosta discusses the Higgs boson in Gainesville Sun article: UF physicist: Closing in on 'God particle'
October 2011
"Scaling, bounds, and inequalities for the noninteracting density functionals at finite temperature" by profs Jim Dufty and Sam Trickey was selected as Editor's Suggestion in Physical Review B. for September.
September 2011
The Higgs or not the Higgs? More...
February 2011
UF Physics Scientist's work featured in "Physics Today"
The work of UF Scientist Sergey Klimenko is featured in the December 2010 issue of "Physics Today", page 31. The title of the article is "LIGO relocation will boost gravitational wave science". More ...
November 2010
Honorary Degree Recipient, Prof Mark Meisel
On November 12, 2010 a ceremonial session of the Scientific Board of the University took place at the premises of the Great Auditorium at the Rectorate of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice on the occasion of awarding the honorary degree “Doctor honoris causa” to Prof. Mark Meisel in the field of physics. This is a significant honor, as the University makes one such award each year, and they are given to people of great stature internationally.
Awarding the Honorary Degree Photos
"Snapshots of a Collaboration in Kosice" (speech given at the ceremony)
December 2010
A recently published paper by Prof Konstantin Matchev is featured as part of APS Physics, Spotlighting Exceptional Research: Meet a superpartner at the LHC APS website
October 2010
Prof David Tanner has been chosen by Florida Blue Key as a winner of a Distinguished Faculty Award. There are four awards given annually as part of the Homecoming celebrations, and recognize "high quality of instruction, strong relationships with students inside and outside the classroom, reputation for scholarship and distinguished service to the University". The award was presented at the 2010 Education Celebration on October 5th at the Curtis Phillips Center, and he was recognized at the 2010 Homecoming parade and presidential brunch on October 15th. Congratulations!
September 2010
Prof Konstantin Matchev is featured in New Scientist Magazine article, 'LHC could hit the jackpot this year' More... PDF
September 2010
Physics Blitzes the Hill as part of Science- Engineering- Technology Congressional Visits Day More... APS News
September 2010
A Symposium in Honor of John R. Sabin. Jack Sabin, Professor of Physics and Chemistry at UF and Adjungeret Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, was honored for his service and scholarship in celebration of his 70th birthday by friends and collaborators for three days of science, remembrance, and fellowship. More...
July 2010
Professor John Klauder has been given the honorary degree of "Doctor Phylosophie Honoris Causa" by the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics (Kiev, Ukraine). The award recognizes Prof. Klauder for his "world distinguished contribution to theoretical physics." Congratulations, John! For more information on this institute and previous awardees please visit http://www.bitp.kiev.ua/.

Professor John Klauder retires after 22 years More...
June 2010

Professor Mark Meisel has been awarded the honorary degree "Doctor honoris causa" by Pavol Jozef Safarik University, Kosice, Slovakia. This is a significant honor, as the University makes one such award each year, and they are given to people of great stature internationally. Mark will go to Slovakia for the ceremony in November. Photos and text from previous ceremonies can be found at http://www.upjs.sk/en/.
May 2010


Kevin Ingersent has been named the "Colonel Allan R. and Marjorie Crow Term Professor" for 2010-2011. A CLAS Term Professor is an honor that carries with it a one-year salary supplement and $1,000 in research support. The award that recognizes excellence in scholarship, teaching and service. Congratulations, Kevin!
May 2010


Ivan Furic has received the "Excellence Award for Assistant Professors." There are 10 such awards at UF, with only 2 nominations possible from CLAS. The award comprises $5,000 for research-related expenses. Congratulations Ivan!
April 2010


Congratulations to Hai-Ping Cheng who has been selected to receive a University of Florida Research Foundation (UFRF) Professorship award. More>> (UF News)
March 2010
UF Physics celebrates Large Hadron Collider Collisions at 7 TeV
This event marked a new era in ultra-high energy physics that is expected to yield breakthrough discoveries of new fundamental particles and symmetries of nature. It represents the culmination of 15 years of work at University of Florida that has brought in more than $40M in federal grants and has enjoyed tremendous institutional support. Our university group in the CMS experiment is the second largest in the United States and the fifth largest in the world. Photos from the event and a congratulatory letter from Representative Cliff Sterns. Article featured in UF News: UF physicists to observe, interact as huge particle collider amps up More >>
March 2010
Congrats to Physics graduate students, Xiaochang Miao, Yitzi Calm, Zhanwei Lui & Ali Ashrafi who received the CCMS summer graduate fellowships.
March 2010
Society of Physics Students organizes Science Bowl More >>
February 2010
Long time collaborator with Microkelvin Laboratory at UF is Prize Winner More PDF
February 2010
Dark matter or background noise? Results intriguing but not conclusive More >> UF News
November 2009
Four Physics professors have been elected Fellows of the American Physical Society. Jim Dufty "For his numerous seminal contributions to nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and its applications to granular fluids, plasmas, strongly coupled Coulomb systems, and materials science"
Kevin Ingersent "For contributions to the theory of strongly correlated electron systems"
Mark Meisel "For contributions to magnetic and magneto-optical properties of low-dimensional and nanoscale materials"
Dmitrii Maslov (not pictured) "For contributions to the theory of quantum transport in one-dimensional systems."
October 2009
Department of Energy Awards $1.275 Million Grant to University of Florida Physicists More.. CLAS news
September 2009
Gravitational Wave Observatory listens for echoes of universe’s birth More UF News
September 2009
Jacobo Konigsberg is featured in Parade's The Race for the Secret of the Universe
August 2009
Alan Dorsey, former Physics chairman, will be the new associate dean for natural sciences and mathematics. More.. (UF news)
October 2009
The High Energy group is featured on Fermilab Today's University Profile see Fermilab Today
April 2008
Congratulations to Andrey Korytov who was named the 2009-2010 Colonel Allan R. and Margaret G. Crow Term Professor in CLAS. These professorships recognize a select group of faculty who have demonstrated excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service.
December 2008
Congratulations to Professor Amlan Biswas who was selected to receive one of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences 2008/2009 Teaching/Advising Awards.
October 2008
Professor Ho Bun Chan is the co-recipient of the 2008 Outstanding Young Researcher Award of the Overseas Chinese Physics Association. The award committee cited Ho Bun's "significant contributions in the measurement of quantum mechanical Casimir forces using micromechanical devices and in the study of fluctuation-induced switching in nonlinear micromechanical oscillators." Ho Bun will share the $1500 award with Feng Wang (University of California, Berkeley) and Congjun Wu (University of California, San Diego). For details, see http://www.ocpaweb.org/new/oyraaward/oyraaward.html. Congratulations Ho Bun!
October 2008
Professor Andrey Korytov has been approved by the CMS Collaboration Board as the new Convener (leader) of the CMS Higgs Physics group. The CMS Collaboration Board is the body which approves all the important decisions in CMS, it consists from representatives of all the CMS Institutions (~140). In this capacity Andrey will coordinate for the next two years (2009 and 2010) all the CMS work related to the Higgs searches. Higgs of course is the unquestionable #1 physics priority for LHC, a very large number of the very best people from many institutions in CMS will work on this subject. At the Collaboration Board meeting it has been mentioned that over a number of years Andrey has made numerous important contributions to the CMS detector design, construction and to the CMS preparations for physics, particularly for the Higgs searches. Congratulations to Andrey!
September 2008
UF physicists to take part in world’s most ambitious science experiment More... UF News
September 2008
First Beam a Success!
The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the world's most powerful particle accelerator. See photos and blog.

View multiple Webcams of CMS commissioning and run coordination of the CMS control rooms and experimental cavern. Learn more about UF's role and for a rap version of LHC physics, visit You Tube
August 2008
Prof Rick Field and graduate student Deepak Kar are selected for the 'Fermilab Result of the Week' More... Fermilab Today (article on right)
July 2008
Physicists tweak quantum force, reducing barrier to tiny devices More... UF News
June 2008
Physics Department Chairs Make Their Case on Capitol Hill More... APS.org
June 2008
Sun Might Hold Secret of Dark Matter More... space.com
June 2008
The Casimir effect - Much ado about nothing, as featured in The Economist, refers to an experiment in Prof Ho Bun Chan's lab More... UF News
June 2008
 Scientists edge closer to unlocking secrets of mysterious Crab Pulsar
More... UF News
May 2008
 The U.S. Department of Energy has named Assistant Professor Ivan Furic an Outstanding Junior Investigator (OJI) (OJI awards are the equivalent of NSF's CAREER awards). These competitive and prestigious awards are given to tenure track faculty and are meant to identify the best young researchers in high energy physics. Ivan's award will support his research on "TeV Muons - Heralds of New Physics at the LHC". The DOE will provide $82,000 per year in support of his research. This is the third OJI in the department, following on Darin Acosta's in 2001 and Konstantin Matchev's in 2004. Congratulations Ivan!
April 2008
 Professor Darin Acosta has been selected to receive a 2008-2010 University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship. These three-year professorships recognize faculty who have established a distinguished record of research and scholarship that is expected to lead to continuing distinction in their field. Congratulations to Darin for a well-earned distinction!
March 2008
 OUTSTANDING REFEREES The American Physical Society has named Professors Mark Meisel (L) and Richard Woodard (R) as "Outstanding Referees". This is the first year of this recognition, so Mark and Richard are among 534 in the inaugural group. According to the APS, "The highly selective award program recognizes scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals. The program will annually recognize approximately 130 of the 42,000 currently active referees, but in the inaugural year a larger group of 534 referees has been selected for the Outstanding Referee designation." The full list of Outstanding Referees, along with details about the program, can be found at http://publish.aps.org/outstandingreferees.
February 2008
 Asst Professor Ivan Furic has been named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. These extraordinarily competitive awards are designed to "stimulate fundamental research by young scholars of outstanding promise". Ivan will receive $50,000 over a two year period in support of his research. For the full list of recipients, see http://www.sloan.org/programs/fellowshiplist.shtml Congratulations Ivan!
January 2008
 Distinguished Professor Pierre Ramond has been selected as the 2007 recipient of the Lise Meitner Prize presented by the Physics Center. More...
December 2007
 Professor Mark Meisel has been named the 2008 Colonel Allan R. and Margaret G. Crow Term Professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. These professorships recognize a select group of faculty who have demonstrated excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service. Congratulations to Mark on receiving this well-earned distinction!
November 2007
 After nearly 50 years of distinguished service, Professor Gene Dunnam will retire at the end of this semester. Retirement Photos
October 2007
 Professor Andrew Rinzler and his former graduate student, Zhihong Chen (now on permanent staff at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Tarrytown, NY) have been awarded United States Patent #7,261,852 titled "Transparent electrodes from single wall carbon nanotubes" More...
hebardOctober 2007
 Distinguished Professor Art Hebard (together with Jun Akimitsu of Aoyama-Gakuin University and Robert Haddon of UC Riverside) will receive the 2008 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials from the American Physical Society. The award citation reads "For the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in non-oxide systems."
More... (CLAS News)
August 2007
The department welcomes new faculty, Professor Heather Ray and Professor Ivan Furic
July 2007
 Physicists: Quantum dance draws unexpected guests More... (UF News)
July 2007
Professor Jacobo Konigsberg is quoted in a July 24 New York Times story New York Times Article

September 2007
 He is also quoted in Scientific Showdown a Sept 5 Chicago Tribune Article (Tribune)


September 2007
 Quoted in an MSNBC article on the race for the Higgs Inside the SubAtomic Race (MSNBC)
July 2007
 Professor Ho Bun Chan was highlighted in a recent "News Feature" in Nature ("Feel the Force", Nature Vol 447, pp 772-775, 14 June 2007). Read Article
July 2007
 Professor Ivan Furic, new to the Physics department, is one of the three recipients of the 2007 "Young Physicist" Prize, awarded by the High Energy and Particle Physics Division of the European Physical Society. The announcement may be found at http://eps-hepp.web.cern.ch/eps-hepp/other-prize-awards.php . The citation reads: 2007 I. Furic, G. Gomez-Ceballos and S. Menzemer "For outstanding contributions displaying individual creativity and collaborative effort to the complex analysis which provided the first measurement of the frequency of Bs oscillations."
July 2007
Faculty Promotions include Art Hebard, Distinguished Professor; Darin Acosta, Full Professor; Yoonseok Lee, Konstantin Matchev and Guido Mueller, Associate Professor (with tenure) and Robert DeSerio, Senior Associate In.
April 2007
 Professor Peter Hirschfeld
Peter Hirschfeld has been selected to receive a 2007-2010 University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship. These professorships recognize faculty who have established a distinguished record of research and scholarship that is expected to lead to continuing distinction in their field.
February 2007
 Professor David Reitze has been elected spokesperson of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration. LIGO is one of the most important and one of the most ambitious science experiments in the world, looking for gravitational waves from the Universe and testing some of the most intriguing predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity. It is the largest experiment ever funded by NSF. LIGO Scientific Collaboration includes over 500 members including some of the best scientists from many US universities and from all over the world. LIGO is also a part of the UF Strategic Plan.

January 2007
 Professor Ho Bun Chan will receive the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award. The CAREER award is the NSF's most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. Ho Bun will receive $500,000 over a five year period in support of his proposal "CAREER: Activated Escape in Nonequilibrium Micromechanical Oscillators - Research and Education Program "

December 2006
 Professor John Yelton has been selected as Fellow of the American Physical Society (Division of Particles and Fields) . Citation: For discovery and study of many baryon states, which contributed to our understanding of the quark structure of hadrons.

December 2006
 Professor David Reitze has been selected as Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS General). Citation: For leadership in the applications of lasers to diverse areas, from the detection of gravitational waves to the ultrafast response of matter.

November 2006
 Professor Guido Mueller has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2006 International Educator of the Year Award (junior category). He received his award at a ceremony in the Keene Faculty Center. More
November 2006
UF is part of $30 million effort to expand science "cyber infrastructure" to continue research and development on a powerful, new international computing tool, including $425,000 for work on the project at the University of Florida. Paul Avery, UF Physics professor, is one of the five principal investigators.
See full article in November PROTON
October 2006
Fermilab Discoveries
Several new discoveries have been made at Fermilab (near Chicago).
The most recent discovery relates to the conversion between matter and anti-matter. The discovery was made at the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF); this large collaboration of several hundred physicists is led by Jacobo Konigsberg, who is a faculty member in the Department of Physics, and co-spokesperson for the collaboration.
Press Release

Another discovery is two rare types of particles, exotic relatives of the much more common proton and neutron.
Press Release