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Moshe Gai, a professor of physics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will look to research in Romania with fellow colleagues. This program will be an extension of his 2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award. During the spring semester of 2025, he spent five months at the University Polytechnica of Bucharest, where he taught both on the graduate and undergraduate level.
“The Fulbright Specialist program presents me with an opportunity to extend my international collaboration,” says Gai. “It is a source of sorely needed international travel funds that are now becoming more and more scarce.”
In Bucharest, Gai also developed his research program on the world’s highest intensity laser of the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics. The graduate class he developed as a Fulbright has now been approved for a new special topic course, Quantum Physics of Stars, that will be taught at UConn.
The University of Connecticut, Department of Physics, is proud to announce the 28th Annual Katzenstein Distinguished Lecturer on Friday, October 16, 2026, by Professor Federico Capasso.
Federico Capasso is Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard University. He received the Doctor of Physics degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Rome, Italy, in 1973 and after doing research in fiber optics at Fondazione Ugo Bordoni in Rome, joined Bell Labs in 1976. He was Vice President of Physical Research (2000-2002) before joining Harvard. He and his collaborators made many wide-ranging contributions to semiconductor devices, pioneering the design technique known as band-structure engineering. He applied it to novel low noise quantum well avalanche photodiodes, heterojunction transistors, memory devices and lasers. He and his collaborators invented and demonstrated the quantum cascade laser (QCL).
His honors include membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and honorary membership in the Franklin Institute.
In 2005 he received, jointly with Nobel Laureates Frank Wilczek and Anton Zeilinger, the King Faisal International Prize for Science for his research on quantum cascade lasers. The citation called him “one of the most creative and influential physicists in the world.” The international society of optics and photonics (SPIE), selected Capasso to receive the 2013 SPIE Gold Medal, the highest honor the society bestows. He received the Frederic Ives Medal Prize from the Optical Society of America (the highest honor of the society in 2019) for seminal and wide-ranging contributions to optical physics, quantum electronics and nanophotonics.
He is also the recipient of the IEEE Edison Medal, Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science, the Chisesi-Tomassoni award, the John Price Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute, the R. W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America, the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society W. Streifer Award, the Materials Research Society Medal, the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics (UK), the Duddell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (UK), the Willis Lamb Medal for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton “Leonardo da Vinci” Prize (France), the Welker Memorial Medal (Germany), the New York Academy of Sciences Award, the IEEE David Sarnoff Award in Electronics, the Goff Smith prize of the University of Michigan, the Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis for research in applied laser technology and the Julius Springer Prize in Applied Physics, the Jan Czochralski Medal of the European Materials Research society for his lifetime achievements in Materials Science, he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Applied Photonics and the Matteucci Medal in 2019 from the Italian National Academy of Sciences for his invention of the quantum cascade laser.
UConn Physics PhD student Kelcey Davis was featured in a UConn Today article to highlight a new experiment she was awarded on the James Webb Space Telescope. Kelcey’s research focuses on distant galaxies and black holes, and her new space telescope observations will offer a rich new view of the detailed physics of the first galaxies and their black holes in the early universe. For the full story, see the article in UConn Today.
When gases are cooled to temperatures approaching absolute zero, their atoms reach their lowest energy state, creating what is known as a quantum degenerate state. These gases are of interest for quantum sensors because they exhibit higher sensitivity to electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields compared to atoms at higher temperatures.
Researchers are developing quantum sensors that can measure gravitational acceleration with applications for geological surveying and space exploration, navigation in environments where GPS is unavailable, such as underwater or in remote terrestrial regions, as well as quantum computing. All of these applications could benefit from incorporation of quantum degenerate gases.
A significant challenge in utilizing quantum degenerate gases is that they are typically produced in discrete batches and are consumed or altered during the measurement process. This characteristic limits the ability to conduct studies that require high-frequency repetition for data validation.
Prof. Colombo has been awarded a $607,000 research grant from the Department of Defense to study more efficient methods for cooling atoms into a quantum degenerate state. The project focuses on a new preparation technique intended to reduce the time required to reach this state by approximately two orders of magnitude. This research seeks to address the current limitations regarding the speed and repetition of quantum gas production.
Professor Gai completed in May 2025, a five-month Fulbright stint in Bucharest Romania. During this visit he collaborated on research at the new EU world highest power (10 PW) laser lab, the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP), in Magurele near Bucharest. He taught a graduate class at the ELI-NP on “Physical Concepts of Stellar Evolution”, with 40 students registered, and a university wide general class intended for undergraduate students at the University Polytechnica of Bucharest (UPB) on “Layman Introduction to Astrophysics”, with 120 students registered. Gai was very impressed by the high quality of students at the UPB, that is known as one of the best science universities in eastern Europe. Professor Gai intend to teach the class he developed for the graduate course at the ELI-NP as a graduate special topic course on “Nuclear Physics of Stars” in the Physics department.
Perhaps among the most inspiring experience was meeting a UPB student, Valeria Cirlan, who traveled from Suceva to Bucharest to listen to his lectures. When inquiring, he found out that Suceva is up north by Moldova close to the Ukraine Border. In fact, Valeria took seven hours train ride, each way to and from Bucharest, to join Gai’s class. The enthusiasm for learning of the UPB students was indeed an inspiring experience.
Professor Gai, center, posing with his class at the University Politechnica di Bucharest. The last class slide, on the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe, is on display.
James Andrew Casey-Clyde
Advisor: Chiara Mingarelli
Thesis: “Multi-Messenger Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries”
Provakar Datta
Advisor: Andrew Puckett
Thesis: “Precision Measurements of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor to High Momentum Transfer using Durand’s Method”
Megan Davis
Advisor: Jonathan Trump
Thesis: “Timing is Everything: Single and Binary Quasars in Massive Time-Domain Surveys”
Logan Fries
Advisor: Jonathan Trump
Thesis: “Echo Mapping the Kinematic Environments of Supermassive Black Holes”
Ashok Gurung
Advisor: Serge Nakhmanson
Thesis: “Predictive Multiscale Modeling of Dielectric and Electromechanical Properties in Electroactive Materials”
Valerii Klimenko
Advisor: Kyungseon Joo
Thesis: “Differential Cross Sections from CLAS12 RG-A Inclusive Electron Scattering”
Kaitlin Lyszak
Advisor: Jason Hancock
Thesis: “Studies of Non Equilibrium Laser Induced Effects in Metals”
Brean Maynard
Advisor: Peter Schweitzer
Thesis: “Theoretical Studies of Hadron Structure”
Md Ashiq Rahman
Advisor: Niloy Dutta
Thesis: “Ultrafast Optical Pulse Generation and Supercontinuum Generation in Chalcogenide Waveguides”
Dhan Rana
Advisor: Boris Sinkovic
Thesis: “Studies of the Electronic Structure of Selected 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides”
Hugh Sharp
Advisor: Jonathan Trump
Thesis: “Continuum Lag Investigation Of Diverse Quasar Populations, and Contextualization Of The Accretion-Disk Size Problem”
Bochao Xu
Advisor: Ilya Sochnikov
Thesis: “Scanning SQUID Investigation of Time-reversal Symmetry Breaking in Exotic Quantum Materials”
Manasse Mbonye (UConn Physics PhD 1996, Advisor: Ron Mallett) was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree, and was the Commencement Speaker at the UConn Commencement ceremony in Gampel Pavilion on May 12, 2025. Manasse has had a remarkable career in physics, politics and scientific administration since completing his PhD in Physics at UConn in 1996. He was named the Outstanding UConn PhD graduate of 1996, in recognition of his scientific work and his efforts to assist his home country, Rwanda, after the tragic genocide period in 1994. After leaving UConn, Manasse held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and as a National Research Council (NRC) Senior Associate Researcher at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He subsequently held an Assistant Professor position at Rochester Institute of Technology. In 2011 he returned to Rwanda to lead the post-genocide reconstruction of the National University of Rwanda (NUR) and of the scientific, education and research sectors in Rwanda. He served as Vice Rector for Academics (Provost), and later Acting Rector (President) of the National University of Rwanda (NUR) 2011-2013. During his tenure NUR received over 55 million dollars in grants, in part from SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency), and NUR established academic relations with several international universities. Prof Mbonye also founded the Rwanda Space Agency, and is President of the Rwanda Academy of Science.
In collaboration with Gerald Dunne (UConn Physics), Prof. Mbonye is working to establish academic exchanges, for both faculty and students, between UConn Physics and the Physics Department at the University of Rwanda. This has the support of the UConn Administration. As part of this effort, Prof. Dunne visited the University of Rwanda in 2024, and met with a wide variety of leaders there. Prof. Dunne was hosted by Prof. Joseph Ntahompagaze, Head of the UR Physics Department. Prof. Dunne gave a physics colloquium, and had meetings with the UR Vice Chancellor and Provost, and with the Physics faculty and students. He toured the Physics teaching laboratories, and visited the Univ of Rwanda College of Education, hosted by Prof. Lakhan Lal Yadav, Professor of Physics and Physics Education. Dr. Yadav is Director of the African Centre of Excellence for Innovative Teaching and Learning Mathematics and Science. Prof. Dunne also met with the leaders of the Rwanda Space Agency, and of the new Regional Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Engineering and eHealth (CEBE). Prof. Mbonye played key roles in these educational and scientific initiatives.
Prof. Mbonye is planning to visit UConn Physics for 3 months during the Fall 2025 semester, working on research in his field of cosmology and astrophysics, and on the further development of the relationship between UConn and URwanda. He is keen to interact with students, staff and faculty. We look forward to hosting our distinguished alumnus, and encourage everyone to reach out and make him welcome.
Professor Moshe Gai, the director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, aka the Astrophysics Laboratory, https://astro.uconn.edu, was awarded a 2024-2025 Fulbright US Scholar Award to teach and do research in Romania. He will spend five months at the newly constructed world highest power laser lab (10 PW), the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP), recently constructed by the EU in Bucharest, where Prof. Gai plans to apply expertise he gained working at Duke University for using Time Projection Chamber (TPC) detectors with gamma-beams to study stellar process in the lab.
The University of Connecticut, Department of Physics is proud to announce the 26th Annual Katzenstein Distinguished Lecturer that will be on Friday, November 15th. For the details of the lecture see the Web Calendar post.
Adam Riess is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, the Thomas J. Barber Professor in Space Studies at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, a distinguished astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and his PhD from Harvard University in 1996. His research involves measurements of the cosmological framework with supernovae (exploding stars) and Cepheids (pulsating stars). Currently, he leads the SHOES Team in efforts to improve the measurement of the Hubble Constant and the Higher-z Team to find and measure the most distant type Ia supernovae known to probe the origin of cosmic acceleration.
In 2011, he was named a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and was awarded the Albert Einstein Medal for his leadership in the High-z Supernova Search Team’s discovery that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, a phenomenon widely attributed to a mysterious, unexplained “dark energy” filling the universe. The discovery was named by Science magazine in 1998 as “the Breakthrough Discovery of the Year.” His accomplishments have been recognized with a number of other awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008, the Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize in 2007 (shared), and the Shaw Prize in Astronomy in 2006.
Nora Berrah, professor of physics, in her lab at the Gant Complex on May 2, 2024. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)
UConn physics professor Nora Berrah has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Science (NAS), becoming the fifth member from the UConn community to join the selective national society.
Members are elected “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research,” and the academy serves as an advisory board for the nation on issues relating to science and technology.
As a member of NAS, Berrah joins professor of economics Kathy Segerson, Dr. Cato Laurencin, Chief Executive Officer of The Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering at UConn Health; Laurinda Jaffe, department chair and professor of cell biology at UConn Health; Dr. Se-Jin Lee, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at UConn Health; Mary Jane Osborn, professor of microbiology who died in 2019; and Henry N. Andrews, professor of botany who died in 2002.
“Membership in the NAS is one of the highest honors that can be given to a scientist,” says Ofer Harel, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “It is a recognition by peers and the academy of outstanding research achievements, and Nora absolutely falls into that category.”
Current academy members must nominate and vote for new members to join the academy, with no more than 120 members being elected each year.
“It’s just an unbelievably great honor,” says Berrah. “I feel very grateful for all the National Academy members who voted for me and for being elected.”
Berrah, the former department head of physics from 2014 to 2018, was elected in recognition of her research that focuses on ultrafast physical and chemical processes in quantum systems.
Berrah’s research has wide ranging impact
In her lab on campus, as well as at the Linac Coherent Light Source Free Electron Laser at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Stanford, California, Berrah conducts “time resolved, photo-induced experiments to understand ultrafast fundamental mechanisms such as charge transfer, energy transfer, and proton transfer.”
The experiments measure super-fast reactions up to the femtosecond, or one quadrillionth of a second, as well as to the attosecond, or one quintillionth of a second which has important impacts on other scientific fields.
“We want to understand these processes, and ultimately we want to control them to achieve desired outcomes,” says Berrah. “I and my research group measure manifestations of quantum mechanics — using ultrafast lasers at the femtosecond and attosecond timescale to test fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Our research has a broad impact on chemistry, biology, material science, and environmental science.”
Berrah was also previously elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She earned a Davisson-Germer award from the American Physical Society and is a fellow of the American Physical Society.
She has also been an advocate for increasing the participation and retention of women in physics.
“I realized as an undergraduate student that there were just very few women, whether they’re undergraduate or graduate students, and it doesn’t make sense to me, because we all have a brain, and if we have an interest in physics, then we should pursue it,” says Berrah. “It’s a man-dominated field. And way back, women were not welcomed in physics.”
Over the course of her career, Berrah has worked to help women feel less isolated in the field, including serving as the chair of APS’ Committee on the Status of Women in Physics.
Berrah is currently chairing a committee in the physics department to organize a conference for undergraduate women and gender minorities in physics, that she says will occur January 24-26, 2025. She says it is an opportunity to help undergraduate women network and peer mentor with each other, so they don’t feel isolated, since they are often the only women in their classrooms.
The conference is a chance for women to learn together and become comfortable in the field, Berrah says.
“It’s important to mentor the next generation of women physicists and increase significantly their number,” says Berrah.
Manasse Mbonye (UConn Physics PhD 1996, Advisor: Ron Mallett) was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree, and was the Commencement Speaker 
Adam Riess is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, the Thomas J. Barber Professor in Space Studies at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, a distinguished astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and his PhD from Harvard University in 1996. His research involves measurements of the cosmological framework with supernovae (exploding stars) and Cepheids (pulsating stars). Currently, he leads the SHOES Team in efforts to improve the measurement of the Hubble Constant and the Higher-z Team to find and measure the most distant type Ia supernovae known to probe the origin of cosmic acceleration.