Congratulations to Professor Yosuke Kanai on being elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS)! Dr. Yosuke Kanai is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He was nominated by the Division of Computational Physics for
“For important contributions to the development and application of a real-time propagation approach to time-dependent density functional theory and use of first-principles methods to study non-equilibrium electron dynamics phenomena, including electronic stopping of high-energy ions in complex matter.”
Prof. Kanai has made several key contributions to the development of real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT). His recent perspective piece in the Journal of the American Chemical Society offers an introduction to the methodologies and applications of RT-TDDFT, making the topic accessible to a broader audience [1].
“I am truly delighted that our work has been recognized by our peers in the community and feel honored to have been elected as an APS fellow.” Kanai said.
Since 1921, the APS Fellowship Program has recognized members making advances in physics through original research and publication, or by making significant innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology, the teaching of physics or service and participation in the activities of the Society. Fellowship is a distinct honor signifying recognition by one’s professional peers. Each year, no more than one half of one percent of the Society’s membership (excluding student members) is recognized by their peers for election to the status of Fellow of the American Physical Society.
[1] Real-Time TDDFT for Simulating Nonequilibrium Electron Dynamics
J. Xu, T. E. Carney, R. Zhou, C. Shepard, Y. Kanai
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 5011 (2024) – Invited Perspective

Three undergraduate student mentees of the Grad-to-Undergrad (G2U) Mentorship Program – Maria “Flor” Nardone, Vysnavi “Vyshu” Sabbi, and Gerald “Mezzie” Akwuole – attended the Conference for Undergraduate Minorities in Physics (CU2MIP) [https://cu2mip.physics.umd.edu].

The conference was held from April 12-14th at the University of Maryland (UMD) and The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), offering various avenues to personally interact with scientist working in academia, industry, and government and learn about career opportunities available for physicist. The conference offers a variety of workshops and panels focusing on success in physics, applying to graduate school, science policy, efficient networking techniques, and more. The mentees also participated in professional and social activities that included lunch with a Nobel laureate, a poster session, lab tours of different research centers, and a Karaoke night with the UMD Society of Physics students!

One of the tour opportunities at NIST’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology was led by UNC alum and former G2U mentor and program coordinator, Michele Kelley. The mentees were able to have a reunion with Michele and learned about the exciting work being done at NIST, pictured below.

Michele, Mezzie, Flor, and Vyshu (left to right).

Second photo from: https://cu2mip.physics.umd.edu/photo-gallery/

The mentees also shared some thoughts about the conference and what it meant to them:

“Meeting successful minority physicists who have overcome similar challenges was incredibly inspiring. It gave me hope for my future in the field, empowering me to take ownership of my identity and see my future goals more clearly and attainably.”
– Vysnavi

“It was an amazing experience! Physics isn’t the most common major but being able to be in a room where I know we all have that thing in common was inspiring. Being at the conference reminded me of why I loved studying physics in the first place. Whether we do research in labs, work in industry, academia, or for the community, we all embodied one of the core principles physics teaches us: To think outside of the box. Everyone’s reasons to study physics and their area of interest/expertise was unique but engaging, important, and thought-provoking. Being at the conference helped reassure me that my future can take multiple paths and that it’s okay that my path may seem a little different. As a college student whose about to graduate in a year and is always worried about my future, this conference really helped me put things together and see all the options I have out there.”
– Mezzie

The G2U program is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for underrepresented minority students pursuing their passion for physics and astronomy at UNC. With support from staff and faculty, the graduate student-led program hopes to continue to provide mentees with unique opportunities to explore physics outside of the classroom.

Congratulations to Prof. Dan Reichart on receiving the Emmons Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, for “demonstrating outstanding achievement in the teaching of college-level introductory astronomy for non-majors”.

More info here.

On August 26, astronomy minor Karsen Kitchen who is senior majoring in communication studies made history by being the youngest woman to cross the Kármán line (an altitude of 100 km above mean sea level) which marks the boundary of where space begins. She was one of the six member of Blue Origin’s NS-26 spaceflight mission.

Congratulations to Prof. Carl Rodriguez who received the annual Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. The prestigious, university wide award was established in 1986 to recognize the achievements of outstanding junior faculty.

From the College of Art and Sciences’ announcement:

“Rodriguez is an emerging leader in a field that is in its infancy — black holes and gravitational waves. This year, he was selected by the American Astronomical Society for the Warner Prize, the highest national award given to early-career astrophysicists. He won for groundbreaking work on the astrophysical origin of the gravitational-wave sources detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Rodriguez’s work on the dynamical formation of merging black hole binaries from young star clusters, stellar triples, and globular clusters — millions of stars tightly bound together — has been key in the community’s analysis of these events. His 96 peer-reviewed papers, 19 of which he led as first author, have garnered over 10,000 citations.”

Our very own Laurie McNeil has been named as the 2025 John David Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Education awardee!

From AAPT’s website announcement:

The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has announced that the John David Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Education Award for 2025 will be awarded to Laurie Elizabeth McNeil, Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).

This prestigious award will be presented to McNeil during the 2025 AAPT Winter Meeting. McNeil was selected to receive the Jackson Award in recognition of her contributions to graduate education in Physics and Astronomy and related fields. She is a pioneer in graduate physics & astronomy education.

Regarding her selection to receive this award, McNeil said, “I am deeply honored to receive this recognition of my efforts on behalf of graduate education. I have been privileged to be in a position throughout my career to work to enhance education in physics and related fields at all levels, to help all students succeed in applying their talents and training in whatever area they choose.”

Find the full announcement here.

Congratulations, Laurie!!!

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill students, David Stilwell and Sophie Kressy participated in the American Physical Society Congressional Visits Day to advocate for legislation that would benefit US science goals and our scientific community.

Grad students and postdocs in physics have long been underpaid — but today, the compensation gap is particularly extreme.

“The salary, or compensation, that students and postdocs receive is about the same as what my husband received 20 years ago when he came to Penn State from Cambridge University as a postdoc,” says Amena Khan, an associate professor of instruction at the University of Texas at Dallas. “It is as though one is being penalized for choosing physics as a profession.”

To change this, it helps to talk to the folks in charge — so in January, 91 APS members flocked to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. for APS’s Congressional Visits Day. In 110 meetings with lawmakers and staffers, attendees advocated for science policy priorities, including the RESEARCHER Act, which would start the process of building compensation guidelines for federal science agencies.

For Ari Jain, an attendee and a doctoral student in aerospace engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, the efforts paid off. After CVD, he spotted an email from the staffer of his congressional representative, Nikema Williams. It felt “a little surreal,” he says. “Our team had just sent a thank you-note to her staffer, and he responded the next day saying that she had agreed to co-sponsor the bill.”

Physics graduate students earn far less money than those with bachelor’s degrees in the field, a deterrent for students considering advanced degrees in STEM. Physics students with bachelor’s degrees working in industry earn a median starting salary of $70,000, while grad students make just under $30,000.

“Their salaries are pitifully low, especially against the rising costs of living in our metros and towns,” says B.S. Sathyaprakash, a professor who teaches physics, astronomy, and astrophysics at the Pennsylvania State University, who also joined CVD.

The RESEARCHER Act was one of several priorities covered in conversations with members of Congress. To make sure the advocates were prepared, APS staffers spent months organizing for the event, providing advocates with extensive training and background information on APS’s policy priorities. These were vital steps for many of the CVD participants, including those who had never advocated on Capitol Hill before, like Khan and Sathyaprakash.

Khan also said she was “lucky to have two experienced colleagues” on her team. “[They] made navigating the day seem almost effortless.” Jain, meanwhile, relied on guidance from seasoned CVD advocate David Stilwell, a doctoral student in physics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

“Some of it was just little things, like navigating the buildings and making sure our team didn’t get too lost,” Jain says. “But also, David gave us amazing insight on what to actually expect from the meetings and conversations that we have with staffers.”

 

From : https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/202404/wages.cfm

Zack is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, to carry out research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The fellowship supports postdoctoral fellows performing impactful research in MPS fields while broadening the participation of groups that are underrepresented in the mathematical and physical sciences.

Congratulations, Zack!!!

You can find more information on Zack’s award here.

See also feature in the Tar Heel Up Close here.

NSF just announced their Graduate Research Fellowship Program award winners and we are pleased to announce Andy Boyle received a fellowship award. This five-year fellowship includes three years of financial support as well as a cost of education allowance. Andy is being recognized for their outstanding research and potential impact on the field.

 

Andy Boyle works with Andrew Mann in the Young Worlds Lab studying young (<1 Gyr) stars and exoplanets. His project focuses on using stellar rotation to determine the spatial extent and evolution of young clusters and stellar groups in our region of the Galaxy (< 300 pc). As stars age, their rotation period increases, and the relation can be used to assign ages to stars (a technique known as gyrochronology). By combining spatial and kinematic data from ESA’s Gaia mission with rotation periods measured using light curves from NASA’s TESS mission, Andy aims to find the dissolving parts of stellar associations that would be invisible with kinematics alone. This search will provide insight into stellar structure in the local Galaxy, the evolution of stellar groups, and the dynamical processes that fuel their dispersal, as well as provide an expanded sample of stars to search for young and evolving planets.

 

Carl Rodriguez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, has been awarded the 2024 Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society.

AAS recently announced its 2024 prizes for outstanding achievements in research and education at its 243rd meeting in New Orleans.

The Warner Prize is given to a young scientist for a “significant contribution to observational or theoretical astronomy.” The AAS is an international organization that includes professional astronomers, astronomy educators and amateur astronomers. Its membership of approximately 8,000 also includes physicists, geologists, engineers and others whose interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects that comprise the astronomical sciences.

Rodriguez was recognized for fundamental advances on the astrophysical origin of gravitational-wave sources. He has discerned how repeat mergers of black holes and stars in dense clusters would lead to the existence of massive black holes, a prediction later verified by gravitational-wave detectors. His work has opened new directions in research into gravitational-wave sources and their connection to the formation of both star clusters and galaxies.

Rodriguez joined the UNC faculty in January 2023 from Carnegie Mellon University. He completed his Ph.D. in 2016 from Northwestern University and received a B.A. in physics from Reed College in 2010.

His research group is interested in both stellar dynamics (the movement of stars and compact objects in star clusters and galaxies) and the astrophysical sources of gravitational waves.

Among other awards, Rodriguez received a prestigious Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering in 2022.

December 19, 2023, Chapel Hill, North Carolina – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has once again secured the coveted Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. This marks the sixth consecutive year that the UNC-CH chapter has been acknowledged for its exceptional contributions as a top-tier student-led physical sciences organization. This designation is bestowed upon less than 15% of all SPS chapters at colleges and universities in the United States and internationally.

The SPS, a professional association for students, operates under the umbrella of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), encompassing various professional physical science societies.

 

Led by faculty advisor, Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor, Dan Reichart, the UNC-CH SPS chapter continues to exemplify excellence in student leadership. The officers for the 2022-2023 academic year are:

• President: Ravi Pitelka B.S. Physics, Mathematics B.A., Class of 2023
• Vice President: Vimal Palanivelrajan B.S. Physics, Mathematics B.S, Class of 2024
• Treasurer: Logan Selph B.S. Astrophysics, Currently Music Minor, Class of 2024
• Secretary: Stephen Snare B.S. Physics, Math B.A., Class of 2025
• Outreach Coordinator: Abbey Dunnigan B.S. Astrophysics, Class of 2024
• Events Coordinator: Em Chittenden B.S. Physics (Astrophysics Option), Class of 2024
• Room Managers: Rob Sternquist B.S. Physics, Mathematics B.S., Class of 2024; Landon Overall B.S. Physics, Class of 2023

“One of my favorite things about UNC SPS is how it gives opportunities to do things like go out camping with other physics majors. It’s a really useful resource when you need help on physics problems or with studying, but it’s also a great social space if you just want to hang out,” said Neel Iyer, the current Secretary for the 2024 – 2025 academic year.

SPS chapters undergo rigorous evaluation based on their engagement with the campus community, the professional physics community, the public, and SPS national programs. The Outstanding Chapter Award acknowledges not only high levels of outreach but also innovative approaches aligned with SPS’s mission to “help students transform themselves into contributing members of the professional community.”

For more information about the UNC-CH SPS chapter, please contact President Vimaleshwar Palanivelrajan (vbassic@email.unc.edu) or Secretary, Neel Wilson Iyer (iyern@unc.edu).

James T. Dobbins III, PhD, FAAPM, FSPIE, BSPHYS ’78 (UNC-CH), received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023 from the Society of Directors of Academic Medical Physics Programs, Inc (SDAMPP). Dobbins, now retired, spent his entire 37-year career on the faculty and in senior administration at Duke University, where he is Associate Vice Provost Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Radiology, Biomedical Engineering, and Physics. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the physics of imaging, both theoretical and experimental, whose research has contributed to several FDA-cleared diagnostic imaging techniques now in clinical use in hundreds of hospitals worldwide. He was the Founding Director of the Graduate Program in Medical Physics at Duke, now one of the top three such programs in the US. He was also part of the small team of senior administrators that designed, built, and launched Duke’s joint venture university in China – Duke Kunshan University (DKU) – which offers both graduate and undergraduate degrees to a global community of students; he also served as Secretary of the DKU Board of Trustees. He is past-president of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and co-founder and past-president of SDAMPP. He won the Sylvia Sorkin Greenfield Award for best publication in the journal Medical Physics and is a Fellow of AAPM and SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics. He and his wife, Catherine N. Dobbins, BA ’77 (former senior management at UNC-TV), live in Durham, NC and enjoy spending time with their son, Scott, daughter-in-law Summer, and grandson Theo in New York City.

You can find his profile page here.