How did life begin? What is dark matter? What is consciousness? How much do we really know? These essential questions have fueled scientific inquiry for generations. Dr. Rachel Smith, Adjunct Professor at UNC, Associate Professor at Appalachian State, Head of … Read more

Calculating the thermodynamics of polarized fermions (realized in nature as nuclei, cold atoms, and neutron matter) is one of the most challenging problems in quantum physics. It suffers from a pervasive issue called the sign problem, which makes probabilities complex … Read more

Indium tin oxide (ITO) films are the premier choice of transparent conductive electrodes in optoelectronic devices, we find this material in almost all of today’s gadgets, from e-readers to light emitting diodes, from touch screens to solar cells. However, in … Read more

  Grayson Rich receives the 2018 DNP Division of Nuclear Physics Dissertation Award. Grayson completed both his undergraduate and doctoral studies in physics while a graduate student in our department at UNC.  As a graduate student he worked at TUNL … Read more

Since the beginning of the 21st century, nuclear physicists have had the opportunity to explore the properties of atomic nuclei with more neutrons than those found in the stable nuclei making up our world. They discovered unknown aspects of the … Read more

Joaquín Drut, Associate Professor and Melchor Fellow, receives the 2018 Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty. The Hettleman Prize recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty or recently tenured faculty. Joaquín was born and raised in … Read more

Rafael S. de Souza’s book “Bayesian Models for Astrophysical Data” won the 2018 Prose Award best book of the year in Astronomy and Cosmology. This comprehensive guide to Bayesian methods in astronomy enables hands-on work by supplying complete R, JAGS, … Read more

  Reyco Henning, Professor, receives the 2018 Carlyle Sitterson Award for Teaching First-Year Students, which “was established to recognize excellence in teaching first-year students by a tenured or tenure track faculty member.” Congrats to Reyco for a job well done!! … Read more

  Jennifer Weinberg-Wolf, Teaching Assistant Professor, receives the 2018 Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, which “was established to recognize excellence in inspirational teaching of undergraduate students, particularly first- and second-year students.” Congrats to Jennifer for a job well done!!

Cassandra Houston, Biophysics Administrative Assistant, became a Certified Research Administrator (CRA) in June 2018. CRA designation is granted by the Research Administrators Certification Council to individuals who have demonstrated the knowledge and experience necessary to serve as an administrator of professional … Read more

Associate Professor Amy Oldenburg in Physics & Astronomy at UNC, in collaboration with Associate Professor Joseph Tracy in Materials Science and Engineering at NCSU, have recently been awarded a 3-year NSF grant to develop novel optical imaging tools and plasmonic … Read more

The “missing mass” problem is one of the fundamental puzzles in contemporary physics and astronomy.  In recent years, attention has focused on modifications to the source side of Einstein’s equations of general relativity, the simplest of which is to add … Read more