Category: Physics & Astronomy

The Texas A&M Society of Physics Students chapter has been recognized as a 2019-2020 SPS Outstanding Chapter for its excellence as a top-tier student-led physical sciences organization — a distinction awarded to less than 15 percent of the nearly 850 chapters located at colleges and universities across the US and world.

Since 2017, Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy M. Suhail Zubairy has been bringing Texas A&M freshmen to the frontier of quantum mechanics — a fundamental theory in physics describing the behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic scale that vexed even renowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein and typically is considered so advanced that it’s reserved for college juniors and seniors.

Three years into its quest to reveal the nature of dark energy, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) led by The University of Texas at Austin and involving Texas A&M University is on track to complete the largest map of the cosmos ever — a three-dimensional map of 2.5 million galaxies that will help astronomers understand how and why the expansion of the universe is speeding up over time.

To help ensure the success of future space missions and the safety of spacecraft and both the astronauts and scientists who rely on them, Texas A&M is teaming up with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a first-of-its-kind partnership through the Cyclotron Institute and Texas A&M Physics and Astronomy aimed at training the next-generation workforce in the rapidly growing field of space radiation effects testing.

Texas A&M physicist Ed Fry has been selected to receive The Oceanography Society's 2020 Jerlov Award, named for ocean optics research pioneer Nils Gunnar Jerlov and presented every two years to recognize significant advancements in ocean optics and outstanding achievements in interdisciplinary ocean science research.

Congratulations to Texas A&M physicist and Mitchell Institute Director Bhaskar Dutta, who has been elected as a 2020 Fellow of the American Physical Society in recognition of advances in knowledge through original research and publication, innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology, and significant contributions to the teaching of physics or service.

Ever wonder what it's like to work on the world's largest digital camera? Wonder no more, thanks to 2009 Texas A&M physics graduate and KAVLI Postdoctoral Fellow Andrew Bradshaw, who shares first-person perspective and photographs from inside the LSST camera clean room at Stanford University's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

A major National Science Foundation grant accelerating the prototyping and testing of some of the most powerful optical and infrared technologies ever engineered as the underpinning of the Giant Magellan Telescope includes hundreds of Texas A&M-built actuators that will support the GMT’s massive primary mirror and keep it precisely aligned.

Three Texas A&M projects are among 64 university research awards announced earlier this summer by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of a $132 million high energy physics-focused funding package aimed at advancing knowledge of how the universe works at its most fundamental levels.

Texas A&M astronomer and 2019-20 Council of Principal Investigators chair Darren DePoy will work closely with individual faculty and across the college's five departments to enhance research throughout Texas A&M Science in his new administrative role as associate dean for research.

Congratulations to Dr. R. Bowen Loftin '71, one of 12 Aggies honored this year with the university's highest former student honor, the Distinguished Alumnus Award. Loftin, who served as the 24th president of Texas A&M University (2010-14) as well as vice president and chief executive officer of Texas A&M University at Galveston (2005-10), received his bachelor of science in physics in 1970 from Texas A&M.

Multiple Nobel laureates and National Academy members will be featured in a July 27-August 7 virtual summer school quantum science showcase on COVID-19 co-sponsored by Texas A&M University, Princeton University and Baylor University in partnership with the Texas A&M Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering.

Congratulations to Texas A&M physicist and Cyclotron Institute member Ralf Rapp, one of four faculty named to Texas A&M's 2020 class of University Professorship holders, a distinction established in 2019 to recognize, elevate and amplify faculty achievement and impact.

Carbon, known universally as the basic building block of life, is generally thought by scientists to have formed inside the cores of stars. The Texas Active Target (TexAT) particle detector designed and built by Texas A&M physicists is playing a major role in a novel collaborative experiment to test whether other particles – specifically stray neutrons – could be involved in the element’s creation.

March 13 marked the untimely passing of Texas A&M physicist Melanie Becker, a world-respected expert in string theory described as one of the outstanding physicists of her generation and an international leader in theoretical particle physics who made many important contributions, including developing models for superstring compactification.