NSF just announced their Graduate Research Fellowship Program award winners and we are pleased to announce Taylor Stevenson and Joseph Moscoso have both received fellowship awards. This five year fellowship includes three years of financial support as well as a … Continued

The Diversity Committee of the Department of Physics and Astronomy would like to offer more than just words as our hearts go out to Asian/Americans recently traumatized by mass violence, and to all in our community who live daily with … Continued

It’s no secret that active learning helps students learn and retain more information than they would from traditional, lecture-only instruction.  A new paper by Colin Wallace, a Teaching Associate Professor in our Department, and his colleagues at the University of … Continued

Our department chair, Christian Iliadis, recently appeared on Planet Gabo and the Player vs Life Podcast. The title of the podcast was “The Cosmos: The Influence of Astrophysics and Sci-Fi.” The interviewer, Gabriel Espinoza, writes about his “Player vs Life … Continued

  Using observations from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a team of astronomers has discovered a trio of hot worlds larger than Earth orbiting a much younger version of our Sun. Called TOI 451, the system resides in the … Continued

  Our department’s own Ben Levy, a 6th year graduate student in Professor Amy Oldenburg’s Coherence Imaging Laboratory, has been awarded the Tanner Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching by graduate teaching assistants. Ben teaches PHYS 281: Experimental Techniques in … Continued

Just over 100 years ago, physicists stumbled upon an elementary particle that could answer questions about the origin of the universe. Elusive and almost nonexistent, neutrinos may be the solution to understanding everything from the Big Bang to the inner … Continued

Astronomy Graduate Student Amy Glazier has been selected for the inaugural cohort of NASA’s Exoplanet Explorers program. One of ten early-career scientists selected nationally for the program, Amy will join the NASA ExoExplorers team, present her research to the exoplanet … Continued

UNC Chapel Hill explores new method for measuring galactic evolution of lithium.   In a new Report led by UNC graduate student Ben Kaiser and published in the journal Science, astrophysicists and astronomers from UNC, the University of Montreal, and Los Alamos National Lab … Continued

Morgan Clark, a fourth year doctoral student in neutrino physics, explains the impact and importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work in the Physics and Astronomy Department. Earlier this year, Clark was selected as the first DEI Scholar. She … Continued

Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor Laurie McNeil has been elected a member of the Council of Representatives of the American Physical Society. The Council has oversight of APS’s publications and conferences, must approve all policy statements and science strategy actions, and … Continued

The Ally Spotlight is a new project from the Diversity Committee designed to celebrate staff, faculty, + students who have taken the initiative to develop their allyship skills to help foster a more inclusive department. This month, we are featuring … Continued