This month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) approved $23 million in funding to expand the IceCube detector and its scientific capabilities. Seven new strings of optical modules will be added to the 86 existing strings, adding more than 700 new, enhanced optical modules to the 5,160 sensors already embedded in the ice beneath the geographic South Pole.
Photo Credit: Johannes Werthebach, IceCube / NSF
Prof. Yamaç (Pehlivan) Deliduman from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, Turkey received the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Award from the American Physical Society to visit University of Wisconsin, Madison Physics Department in the summer of 2019. She collaborates with Prof. Baha Balantekin on quantum information theory as applied to neutrino physics.
Smartphones get a workout in a two-semester accelerated introduction to physics for potential University of Wisconsin–Madison physics, astronomy, and applied math, engineering and physics majors.
Phones get dropped, says Duncan Carlsmith, a professor of physics. They get thrown like a football. They get strapped to a pendulum or lashed to a bicycle.
Later, the phones spew out the data gathered by a surprisingly broad array of sensors: accelerometers, gyroscopes, audio and light sensors, magnetometers, and a precise timer.
In an article titled, “A Pioneer’s Preserverence,” Preston Schmitt describes the inspiring story of Physics Professor Sau Lan Wu:
The UW–Madison Vilas Professor’s story is a lesson in dichotomy. She grew up in dire poverty on the streets of Hong Kong as her wealthy father traveled the globe as the Ginger King, so named for his success in the preserved-ginger industry. She had $40 to her name when she arrived in the United States — 10 years later, she had a PhD from Harvard. And then she devoted her life to a rarely reciprocal field dominated by men.
Wu has played a core role in three major discoveries in particle physics, advancing what we know about the tiniest parts of matter — and therefore, the world around us. Along the way, she’s advised more than 60 UW graduate students and 40 postdoctoral researchers.
In “A Driving Force,” Stephanie Awe writes about Fatima Ebrahimi’s quest with roots in the UW-Madison Physics Department:
Fatima Ebrahimi PhD’03 is determined to unravel one of today’s most pressing needs. Ebrahimi is a principal research physicist in the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s Theory Department and an affiliated research scholar in Princeton University’s Department of Astrophysical Sciences. She strives to fully understand what many believe could be the answer to unlimited, clean, and reliable energy: nuclear fusion. She mirrors the very subject she studies, driven by seemingly limitless energy to help direct the future of the field.
AMEP and CS major, Peumeng Lyu, has won a Hilldale Undergradaute Research Fellowship to work with Prof. Robert McDermott working on condensed matter physics.
Physics undergraduate student Luquant Singh has been named a Goldwater Scholar, one of three at UW this year. He is a junior from Verona, Wisconsin, studying applied math, engineering and physics. Singh began research at UW–Madison the summer after graduating from high school. He currently conducts computational plasma physics research on the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX), a fusion energy device, with Professor David T. Anderson. Singh has earned authorship on national conference presentations and an in-preparation paper. He also serves on the design team for a new plasma physics device to be built at UW–Madison. He attends the university on a full-tuition music scholarship for clarinet performance. This summer, Singh will conduct computational plasma physics research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory under the direction of Stuart Hudson. After graduation, Singh plans to pursue a Ph.D. in plasma physics.
Kimberly Palladino was one of sixteen professors across UW to receive this year’s Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award, recognizing research and teaching excellence in faculty who are relatively early in their careers.
Palladino works in the field of direct dark matter searches with the two-phase liquid xenon TPCs LUX and LZ. Her group focuses on detector performance including high voltage and xenon handling. These detectors are generally looking for WIMP (weakly interacting massive particles) dark matter candidates via nuclear recoils. Neutron induced nuclear recoils are studied for backgrounds and calibration. Palladino is also involved in detector R&D for nuclear recoil detection.
The UW has awarded Professor Pupa Gilbert a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship, an award recognizing distinguished scholarship as well as standout efforts in teaching and service.
The university’s large introductory physics classes can be daunting to students, especially those who had limited exposure to the discipline in high school. In collaboration with others, Susan Nossal founded the Physics Learning Center 14 years ago to create a welcoming space for these students. The concept began as the Physics Peer Mentor Tutor Program, now the center’s core. Each semester, carefully trained undergraduates and staff members assist more than 150 students, many experiencing challenging circumstances inside and outside the classroom. The students develop confidence not only in physics, but in university life in general. Some go on to become tutors in the program themselves. Nossal sets a warm tone. Her caring demeanor and devotion to social justice foster powerful connections with students who may feel isolated or frustrated. Tenacious and resourceful, she’s grown the center into a forceful vehicle for student success.
Photo: Susan Nossal works on optical calculations with undergraduate students Matthew McAllister and Hanna Khan in a classroom at Chamberlin Hall.
Photo Credit: Jeff Miller