Our department welcomed five new faculty members in Fall 2024-25. Please click on each one, below, to learn more. Continue scrolling for links to even more detailed interviews.
Dan Hooper
Theoretical astrophysicist and UW–Madison alum Dan Hooper joined the faculty as Director of WIPAC and professor of physics.
Elio König
Assistant professor Elio König is a condensed matter theorist who studies the collective behavior of quantum particles in materials. A former UW–Madison postdoc, König was most recently a group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany.
Britton Plourde
Britton Plourde joins the department as a professor of physics with a focus on condensed matter experiment and superconducting quantum computing. He holds a half-time faculty appointment; the other half the time, he is a scientist with the local startup quantum computing Qolab.
Melinda Soares-Furtado
Melinda Soares-Furtado holds a joint appointment in the astronomy and physics departments. Her research focuses on detecting stars and the planets that orbit them, then learning as much as she can about these new worlds.
Ben Woods
Condensed matter theorist Ben Woods works in semiconductor quantum dots and semiconductor-superconductor heterostructures.