Headlines

Reports on recent events within the larger scientific world, with a member of the department explaining the science and commenting on its significance.

Professor Gai’s Five Months Fulbright Stint, Spring 2025

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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.
M. Gai, Fulbright
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.

2024-2025 Physics PhDs

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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”

UConn Honorary Degree Awarded to Alumnus, Manasse Mbonye, PhD 1996

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R. Mallett and M. MbonyeManasse 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.

  • Rwanda Space Agency

Department Head greeting

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Dear Friends of UConn Physics,

While I look forward to sharing the news and accomplishments of the Physics Department over the past year, I can’t help but say that one word keeps coming to mind: turbulent. There is no getting around the fact that at the university, state, and federal levels, things have been changing on an almost daily basis. This uncertainty has presented the department with many challenges, but two things have helped me immensely. First, in my position as Department Head, I have always appreciated the abilities and dedication of the department staff. However, the past three months have stressed the department in ways I have not seen in all my time at UConn and I am so grateful for how the staff rallied in response and showed the incredible depth of their commitment to the department. Second, despite the difficulties, the faculty and students have carried on doing great work as though nothing unusual was going on and I am excited to share some highlights with you.

Our faculty have been very busy this past year. Prof. Pavel Volkov received the Nevill F. Mott Prize for his work on unconventional superconductors. Prof. Cara Battersby is a team leader on a NASA program, PRIMA, one of two proposals that are competing to become a $1B space probe. Prof. Daniel Angles-Alcazar managed, in one year, to get tenure and promotion to Associate Professor and receive a Sloan Fellowship and an NSF Early Career Award. Prof. Andrew Puckett got promoted to Full Professor and Prof. Niraj Ghimire and Prof. Erin Scanlon were promoted to Associate Professor in Residence. CLAS Awards went to Prof. Matt Guthrie for Broader Impacts, Service, and Visibility and Prof. Sarah Trallero for Teaching, Learning, and Student Success. We had two books published: Mode-Locked Lasers: Introduction to Ultrafast Semiconductor and Fiber Lasers, by Prof. Niloy Dutta, and The Music of Physics: An Introduction to the Harmonies of Nature, by Prof. George Gibson.

Our alumni have also been active. Prof. Manasse Mbonye (Ph.D. 1995) gave a commencement address and received an honorary degree from UConn for his profound contributions to rebuilding the university system of Rwanda. We are lucky to have Manasse come for an extended visit this fall, hosted by Prof. Gerald Dunne. Prof. Ron Mallett was featured in yet another article on time travel, this time in earth.com. Prof. Kyungseon Joo co-organized a workshop on Quantum Information Science with our former Prof. Robin Cote and a second workshop is being planned.

As usual, we gave out two honors to our undergraduate students. Our Katzenstein Prize for the best undergraduate research thesis went to Thomas Tarutin, supervised by Prof. Asli Tandoğan. Our Mark Miller Award for best research proposal went to Ayssar Farah, supervised by Prof. Gerald Dunne. The undergrads also had a busy travel schedule with Grace Gardella spending the summer at Brookhaven National Lab and Michael Frank and Owen Finch went to the Research Center for Nuclear Physics in Japan.

Our graduate students also did well: Provakar Datta won this year’s JSA/Jefferson Lab Thesis Prize, supervised by Prof. Andrew Puckett. Gursimran Kainth spent the summer at CERN, and Alessio Illari went to Los Alamos National Lab. Our students (undergrad and grad) showed up in various press releases representing the excellent research done in the department, including Noah Frese, Cameron Brady, Clark Bray, Bochao Xu, Brenna Petrelli, Danya Alboslani, and Logan Fries.

This past January, we hosted the Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics, sponsored by the American Physical Society and organized by Prof. Nora Berrah. Over 100 students were in attendance, making the conference a big success. Renovations of the UConn Planetarium were completed under the supervision of Prof. Matt Guthrie and we are now hosting regular shows at the planetarium and night viewing sessions at the recently renovated observatory. Responding to the budget situation at UConn, we expanded our summer online offering with a new course created by Prof. Diego Valente and Prof. Belter Ordaz. The course filled up the first day of registration and a second session was added, which also filled up.

Due to the fiscal uncertainties at the university, our special lectures are being postponed until the spring semester. Please look forward to future announcements.

Sincerely,

George Gibson
Department Head, Physics

UConn Physics Department hosted the 2025 conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics

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The Physics Department hosted the 2025 American Physical Society Conference for
Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics in January 24-26. This was
achieved with the support of the College of Liberal Arts and Science, the Provost’s Office, and the
Office of Sponsored Programs, the College of Engineering, the Institute of Material Sciences, the
APS and generous donors (the Ed Eyler and Karen Greer fund, the Mark Miller Fund Sponsorship
provided in memory of City College of New York Physicists William Miller and Myriam Sarachik,
Mirion Technologies, the Del Boca family gift, AAS, the New England Section of the APS and
the Startorialist Science and Fashion Shop).

The conference’s goal was to help undergraduate women and gender minorities pursue their
goals in physics by providing them the opportunity to learn about different physics research areas,
career tracks, graduate studies and various professions in physics. The conference brought
undergraduate students and scientists together to share experiences and concerns and receive
feedback and advice. It has been established that students’ experience at a professional conference
enables them to build community through peer networks and interacting closely with speakers and
panelists. The conference provided the students with feedback about their current work and were
mentored about career paths. UConn, which has a strong Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy
made every effort to create a welcoming and supportive environment for all. The conference
program had speakers and panelists from several institutions around the country, faculty, staff and
students from UConn as well as former UConn students who graduated with Bachelors, Masters
or PhDs. The link to the CU*iP conference program is https://physics.uconn.edu/cuwip/program/

The local organizing committee consisted of faculty, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate
students (Sarah Trallero, Lea Ferreira dos Santos, Shohini Bhattacharya, Luchang Jin, Matt
Guthrie, Peter Schweitzer, Alan Wuosmaa, Simone Columbo, Cara Battersby, Tom Blum, Erin
Scanlon, Elena Dormidontova, Asli Tandogan Kunkel, Cameron Brady, Meg Davis, Dani Lipman,
Jessica Mitlehner, Juliette Stecenko, Kaley Wilcox, Andrea Mejia, Liam McDermott, and George
Gibson) led by Nora Berrah. In addition, volunteers ─ faculty (Sylvanie Wallington), staff (Adam
Kolano, Carrie Chichocki, Dave Perry, Ray Celmer), students and postdocs (Noah Frese, Bill
Wortley, Willson London, Jack Conley, Christian McCoy, Tobi Saule, Christian McCoy, Yutong
Geng, Brenna Petrelli) and donors (Karen Greer) ─ provided great support in running a very
successful meeting.

  • Lab tour to CU*iP students given by Simone Columbo’s graduate student Kaley Wilcox.

UConn Students featured by Press Releases at the American Astronomical Society

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Two UConn students presented press releases at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held in Washington, DC on January 12-16, 2025.

UConn undergraduate Danya Alboslani presented a new method to map the 3D structures of star-forming clouds using X-ray light echoes. This press release resulted from a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal that Danya worked on as part of Prof. Cara Battersby‘s research group.

A schematic showing how X-ray flares illuminate the 3D structure of a star-forming cloud.
A schematic showing how the X-ray flares from our supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, illuminate slices of a molecular cloud over time. Astronomers can use these X-ray echoes to construct 3D maps of molecular clouds, constrain the past flaring history of Sgr A*, and better understand the overall geometry of our galaxy’s center. (Image courtesy of S. Brunker/UConn)

 

UConn graduate student Logan Fries presented new measurements of “black hole archaeology” via the mapping black hole spin over cosmic time. This work was a product of collaboration with Prof. Jonathan Trump‘s research group and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and will be submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.

A graph of redshift vs spin over cosmic history, from when the universe was 3 billion years old to today
Observed black hole spin over the history of the Universe, from past (left) to present (right). The thick colored dots show the observed spins of black holes – blue shows rotation in the same direction as the accretion disk, gray shows little or no rotation, and red shows rotation in the opposite direction. The green oval shows what would be expected from black hole growth by smooth accretion; the pink oval shows what would be expected from mergers (the illustrations on the right show the corresponding physical system. Most spin values are in the green area – especially in the early universe – suggesting that supermassive black holes are built up mostly from accretion. Image Credit: Left: Logan Fries and the SDSS collaboration; Top right: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI); Bottom right: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Congratulations to our outstanding students for producing such notable science results!

UConn Celebrates National Academies Members

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Nora Berrah, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Physics, speaking at the UConn National Academy of Sciences Celebration at UConn School of Law on Aug. 27, 2024. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

On August 27, 2024, scholars, trustees, and friends of UConn gathered at the University of Connecticut School of Law to honor members of the university community elected to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Established by an Act of Congress in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences was followed by the National Academy of Engineering in 1964 and the National Academy of Medicine in 1970, all under the same congressional charter. Collectively, they are known as the National Academies.

“Few honors can compare with election to a National Academy. It is a recognition by peers and the Academy itself of outstanding achievements in research and scholarship,” President Radenka Maric said at the celebration. Six UConn faculty members are elected members of the National Academies, with the most recent being Professor of Physics Nora Berrah, whose election was announced in May 2024.

For more information about the event, see the UConn Today article.

Department Head greeting

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Dear Friends of UConn Physics,

Last year, I wrote to you as a new Interim Head of Physics and only barely a month into my appointment. During the past year, we conducted a search for a permanent head and I was selected. For this, I am very grateful for the trust and support I received from the department. The past year has been a bit of a rollercoaster: on the one hand, the complex budget situation has preoccupied the department heads and upper administration and student protests sparked discussions about free speech and activism on campus. On the other hand, the Physics Department had another excellent year in terms of research, teaching, and outreach and I had the pleasure of meeting several of our generous donors.

The most notable achievements of the past year were the election of Prof. Nora Berrah to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors in science, and her appointment as a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, the highest honor at UConn. These will be celebrated at a special Edward Pollack Distinguished Lecture, on October 14, 2024, given by a longtime friend and colleague of Nora’s, Prof. Philip Bucksbaum, himself a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University.

A number of other faculty received notable awards this year. Prof. Moshe Gai will travel to Romania on a U.S. Fulbright Scholarship. Two faculty received awards from the College of Liberal Arts and Science (CLAS): Prof. Peter Schweitzer for Faculty Mentoring of Faculty and Prof. Erin Scanlon for promoting Climate, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. CLAS also funded a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative: “UConn STARs (Science, Technology, and Astronomy Recruits),” Prof. Cara Battersby, PI.

We gave out our two undergraduate awards: the Katzenstein prize for the best undergraduate research paper went to Danya Alboslani and our Mark Miller award to fund a summer research project went to Leilani Ainsworth, working with Prof. Simone Colombo

We are fortunate to welcome two new faculty this year:

  • Assistant Professor Aleksandra Kuznetsova is currently a fellow at the Flatiron Institute and works on star and planet formation. She will join us this August.
  • Assistant Professor Shohini Bhattacharya currently holds an Oppenheimer Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory in theoretical nuclear physics and will join us in January 2025.

This was also a great year for outreach. We welcomed over 100 enthusiastic second graders for a variety of hands-on activities, organized by Prof. Jason Hancock and Sarah Trallero. We held a viewing party for the opening of our newly renovated observatory, spearheaded by Prof. Matt Guthrie and we got permission to officially name it in honor of the late Prof. Cynthia Peterson, who funded and built the observatory in 1980. And, we had another exciting eclipse viewing party organized by Prof. Jonathan Trump – the second in seven years! We are looking forward to hosting CU*IP: Conference for Undergraduate Women and Under-represented Minorities in Physics, sponsored by the American Physical Society. It will take place in January2025 and is being organized by Prof. Nora Berrah, along with a large local organizing committee. Finally, I would like to cordially invite you to attend our 26th annual Katzenstein Distinguished Lecture on Friday, November 15, 2024, which will be held in our department. This year’s speaker is Professor Adam Riess from Johns Hopkins University where he is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor. He was a joint winner, with Drs. Saul Perlmutter and Brian P. Schmidt, of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics, awarded “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe.” I hope you can all attend and catch up on everything that is going on in the department and the Universe! I look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,

George Gibson
Department Head, Physics

UConn Physics Department Hosting January 2025 CU*iP.

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Every year, the American Physical Society (APS) sponsors CU*IP – Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics – at several locations around the country. This year, led by Prof. Nora Berrah, UConn Physics applied to host this national conference in Storrs and our proposal was accepted for January 24-26, 2025! The purpose of the conference is to bring together over 120 undergraduates from around the country to learn about many research areas in physics and also to lean many skills for pursuing a career in Physics or Science, such as networking, applying to graduate school, finding role models in academia or industry, learning how to succeed as an underrepresented minority, etc.

While the conference is partially funded by the APS, the host institution needs to raise a substantial amount of funds. So far, we have commitments from UConn, some generous donors, such as the Ed Eyler and Karen Greer foundation, alumnus Mark Miller, and the Del Boca family, as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Mirion Technologies.

The current members of the local organizing committee, composed of faculty, staff and students, are Cara Battersby, Tom Blum, Cameron Brady, Carrie Cichocki, Simone Colombo, Meg Davis, Elena Dormidontova, George Gibson, Matt Guthrie, Adam Kolano, Luchang Jin, Dani Lipman, Jessica Mitlehne, Michael Rozman, Dave Perry, Erin Scanlon, Peter Schweitzer, Juliette Stecenko, Sarah Trallero, Kaley Wilcox, Alan Wuosmaa and Nora Berrah.

The planned events demonstrate the Physics Department’s and UConn’s commitment to helping undergraduate women and gender minorities pursue physics following their undergraduate degree by providing them the opportunity to learn about different career tracks in STEM fields, graduate studies, and various professions in physics.

We will be very grateful to receive any donations to assist the Department in hosting the conference, which will be used to cover students’ meals, accommodation and travel, as well as the invited speakers’ and panelists’ travel and accommodation. Please visit our website at: https://physics.uconn.edu/cuwip/

UConn STARs visits Hartford Public High School

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The UConn STARs group visited Hartford Public High School (HPHS) to teach physics for a total of eight class periods from May 6th-9th, 2024. UConn brought 16 undergraduate students from the STARs program to HPHS for our annual outreach program, during which we interacted with about 100 high school students. We collaborated with physics teacher Dr. Thomas Longyear to develop four lesson plans on topics of: 1) Phases of Matter, 2) Waves, 3) Electrostatics, and 4) Gravity over the course of the academic year. During our visit to HPHS, the STARs participants led these engaging lesson plans with hands-on demos and activities, over the course of four days. The goal of the STARs program is to improve the retention of students from Historically Excluded Groups (HEGs) in physics at UConn by addressing key factors responsible for their attrition. We have academic year events that focus on social engagement, professional development, and community building. The STARs program just concluded its 3rd year, with consistent progress and growth, and is looking forward to continued growth in our fourth year!

Pictured below are the STARs participants and the HPHS students during our May 2024 visit.