Walt Wigglesworth, former student/staff shop supervisor (02/20/1995-01/22/2002), and for whom our stockroom is named “Walt Mart,” has passed away.
Board of Visitors Examine Badgerloop Pod Prototype
Members of the Department of Physics Board of Visitors Robert Leach, Gregory Piefer, Thomas Dillinger, Lloyd Hackel, and Craig Heberer (left to right) on an imagined trip in the frame of the Badgerloop pod prototype under construction in Chamberlin Hall, 6 May 2016.
Photo credit: Badgerloop.com, contact
Claire Holesovsky
Life Sciences Communication Junior | University of Wisconsin – Madison
Research Assistant | BadgerLoop Project Manager | JUST Magazine Senior Editor
(608) 712-1941 | holesovsky@wisc.edu
Prototype of LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Detector Tested at SLAC
Prototyping of a new, ultrasensitive “eye” for dark matter is making rapid progress at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory: Researchers and engineers have installed a small-scale version of the future LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector to test, develop and troubleshoot various aspects of its technology.
Photo: Knut Skarpaas (left, SLAC) and Kimberly Palladino (SLAC/University of Wisconsin) during the assembly of the TPC prototype. (Photo Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
Alexander Carver (BS ’06) is now an assistant professor
Alexander ‘AJ’ Carver, (BS ’06 physics and astronomy-physics), recently became an assistant professor at SolBridge International School of Business, Daejeon, South Korea where he teaches courses in quantitative methods and critical thinking.
Mark Eriksson awarded Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship
This award recognizes distinguished scholarship as well as standout efforts in teaching and service.
Ellen Zweibel awarded Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship
This award recognizes distinguished scholarship as well as standout efforts in teaching and service.
UW-Madison part of new search for signals from the early universe
In an effort to probe the first few moments of time after the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago, a consortium of researchers, including from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is planning a new observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
The $40 million initiative, known as the Simons Observatory, was announced today (May 9, 2016) and is being funded by major grants from the Simons Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
UW journal of undergraduate research publishes first issue
Last week, The Journal of Undergraduate Science and Technology (JUST) — completely run by undergraduate volunteers — published its first issue.
One of the students making this possible is Noah Johnson, Editor of Content. Johnson is a junior studying physics and mathematics. He also performs physical chemistry research in the Ediger lab, where he studies the effect of aspect ratio on molecular orientation in organic semiconductor glass films. He is interested in pursuing a career in the research of solid state realizations of quantum information processors and also wants to teach at the university level. Other interests of his include Bob Dylan, the Beat Movement and 60’s counterculture, Kurt Vonnegut, Woody Allen and French New Wave cinema, and corduroy pants.
AAAS honors Mark Eriksson and Gary Shiu
Five UW-Madison scientists have been honored as elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, two from the Physics Department.
Gary Shiu was elected “for pioneering contributions to string phenomenology and cosmology, for leadership in connecting fundamental theory to experiment, and for promoting basic science in the US and Asia.”
Mark Eriksson was elected “for innovative and important contributions to the understanding and development of nanodevices for spintronics and quantum information processing applications.”
Richard Sayanagi Selected as L&S Teaching Fellow
Physics graduate student Richard Sayanagi has been selected as an L&S Teaching Fellow for 2016, in recognition of the high quality of his performance as a teaching assistant. He will be entrusted with helping train his teaching assistant colleagues at the College of Letters and Science’s TA training program next September.
Past physics fellows can be found here: http://ls.wisc.edu/ta-fellows.html#physics