Jenna Samuel, a student of Andrew Wetzel, was just awarded an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship. Jenna will take this fellowship to the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas, Austin this fall to pursue her project: "Modeling the physics of gas removal and quenching in Local Group satellite galaxies with next-generation simulations”.
Updated March 5th 2021: The department will offer two in-person classes for physics majors who have achieved senior standing and who plan to graduate in the near future. All other PHY and AST classes will be held remotely. Click the link above for more information.
The Army Research Office is supporting Prof. Jim Crutchfield to explore the fundamental principles of adaptive emergent computation and to experimentally demonstrate how thermodynamic forces can drive a system to be naturally programmable. The three-year $1.5 million project is an experimental collaboration with Prof. Michael Roukes (Kavli Nanoscience Institute, Caltech) to design arrays of nanoscale information-heat engines that exhibit emergent computation and with Prof. Erik Winfree (Computer Science, Caltech) to deploy his DNA computing technology to evolve emergent computation in chemical reactions.
The film "Secrets of the Universe", featuring Prof. Manuel Calderon de la Barca from UCD Physics and his graduate students, is featured in the film festival Toronto Geek Fest. It is nominated for several awards, including Best Physics Film, Best Short Documentary, and Best Science Film. It can be screened virtually on Sunday February 14 at 9AM PST by registering for free at http://geekfesttoronto.com
Graduate Group member (and Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty) Marina Radulaski has been awarded an NSF CAREER award to support her research in quantum optics. More details are available here. https://ece.ucdavis.edu/news/professor-marina-radulaski-receives-nsf-career-award
Along with most other UC Davis campus departments and services, our department staff offices (remote and onsite) will be closed for winter break December 19, 2020, through January 3, 2021. We will resume support on Monday, January 4, 2021. Winter quarter 2021 instruction begins Monday, January 4th, and will once again be remote delivery.
All of the Physics and Astronomy undergraduate classes in Winter 2021 will be entirely remote and in some cases asynchronous. Please click the link above for more information.
A survey is now being carried out to assess the climate in our department. This survey is intended to identify areas of strength in the department, any issues that individuals and groups within our community might have, and to conduct a broad demographic census of the department in order to help us identify areas for improvement that may help guide department policy moving forward.
