Latest News | Department of Physics

Latest News

Graduate Research Spotlight: Harum Ahmed

Congratulations to Harum Ahmed (Grad Student) for being interviewed by the College of Science in a research spotlight on Monday, February 5th! Harum's research is centered around active galactic nuclei and quasars, luminous active galaxies with accreting supermassive black holes in their centers. Through her research, Harum intends to contribute to the creation of the ultimate benchmark sample of quasars with rest-frame UV-optical spectral properties.

Dr. Yuanxi Wang awarded ACS-PRF Grant!

Yuanxi Wang's project, "Trends in Hydrodesulfurization Activity: Towards Realistic Surfaces and Reaction Models", has received funding from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator program. Hydrodesulfurization refers to the process of removing sulfur from petroleum feedstocks. This project will support theory modeling efforts on quantifying catalytic sulfur removal processes using atomistic reaction models.

ACS-PRF selected Dr. Jens Neu’s research for funding

The American Chemical Society - Petroleum Research Found, selected Jens Neu's work for funding. Every oil deposit is associated with petroleum gasses (APG). These APG are often too sparse for commercial exploitation making them an unwanted by-product of oil extraction. The simplest way to handle APG is to flare it, which accounts for about 1 % of the world CO2 production.

Dr. Xiao Received Prestigious DARPA Young Faculty Award

Yuzhe Xiao, Assistant Professor of Physics, has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Young Faculty Award (YFA) by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This prestigious accolade, granted to only about 30 promising young researchers each year, aims to recognize and support rising stars in junior research positions in academia and non-profit research institutions.

Congratulations to Liam Daly

Congratulations to Liam Daly (UnderGrad Student) for receiving the Outstanding Poster Award from T-APS. Liam Daly's research on THz conductivity in semimetals was recognized with the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Poster Presentation Award on this years Texas APS meeting. Liam studies in the Ultrafast THz Spectroscopy group, where he designed and built a reflection THz Time domain spectroscopy system to study semimetals.