Physics Alumnus George W. Crabtree (PhD 1974), who was Elected to National Academy of Sciences this past spring is featured in the new E-AtLAS newsletter.

Congratulations to Weronica Walkosz, who has been awarded a Dean's Scholar Fellowship from the Graduate College for AY 08-09! The Physics Department also wishes University Fellowship winner Yutao Gong, and all the new graduate students a warm welcome!

Congratulations to Alejandro Rebola, who has been chosen to receive a SKIT-HST GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP for the 2008/2009 school year. SKIT is an exciting opportunity to participate in the Chicago Public School's system-wide efforts to improve instruction in science and mathematics in elementary and secondary schools. SKIT-HST Fellows engage in a variety of activities that allow them to contribute their knowledge and expertise to support educational reform, as well as personally to develop fresh understandings of the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in urban classrooms. More information on the SKIT program at UIC can be found here: http://education.uic.edu/skitgk12/Index.htm

Congratulations to Russell Betts, with his appointment as Dean of Illinois Institute of Technology College of Science and Letters.

George W. Crabtree, a senior scientist and administrator at the Argonne National Laboratory, was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences for his excellence in original scientific research. George holds a Ph.D. degree in Condensed Matter Physics from our Department. Congratulations!

Undergraduate UIContest winner Michael Greco has received Honorable Mention at the 2008 UIC Student Research Forum for his poster entitled “Femtosecond, Thermal-lens-shaped Yb:KGW Laser.” Congratulations Mike!

In AY 08-09 the Physics Department will host a group of exchange students from Dongguk University. The exchange program initiated by the Physics Department and MPL is part of a cooperative agreement between UIC and the Dongguk University that lays out the framework for the academic and cultural interchange through mutual assistance in the areas of education and research.

Professor Olga Barannikova has been appointed a deputy spokesperson for the STAR detector collaboration at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The UIC Distinguished Professor JC Campuzano, a former undergraduate and graduate student of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Physics Department, is one of this year's recipients of the UWM Alumni Association's Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Proposal "Development of Physics Demonstrations to Enhance Introductory Physics Education" submitted by H. Aratyn, E. Garcia and L. Nasser has been awarded a Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Curriculum and Instructional Grant in the amount of 12K.

Professor Serdar Ogut has agreed to join editorial board of the Physical Review B for a three-year term (through December 2010

The December 2007 edition of Physics Today contains the article, "New Experiments Fuel Debate Over the Nature of High-Tc Superconductors." by Barbara Goss Levi ("Search and Discovery" Section, pp. 17-21), which discusses one- versus two-gap controversy in the high-temperature superconductivity quoting results of angle resolved photoemission data obtained by Dr. Campuzano's group (A. Kanigel et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 157001 (2007)).

The Physics department is pleased to announce WISEST mentoring. Physics majors and grad students may meet with Professor Olga Barannikova on an individual basis, or come to WISEST mentoring office hours on Fridays from 10 -11 AM in SES 2268.

A recent UIC News story describes scientific achievements of Juan Carlos Campuzano who is this year's sole recipient of the honorary title of the UIC Distinguished Professor for contributions to surface science, correlated electron materials, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and its applications to the still-unanswered question of how high-temperature superconductors work.The complete story can be found here

We are proud to announce that graduate student and Dean’s Fellow Jerald Kavich will participate in an International Student Exchange Program between Argonne National Laboratory and Research Center Jülich, Germany. Details of the program may be found here. Jerald will be working in the lab of 2007 Nobel Prize winner Peter Grünberg at the Institute of Solid State Research. Congratulations Jerald!

The recent UIC press release brings to the general attention of the community the Physics Department's unprecedented growth in its external funding. This funding boost will increase Department's capacity for performing highest quality scientific research and its ability to attract top physics students to its program.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the BCS-theory by J. Bardeen, L. Cooper, and R. Schrieffer which provided the first microscopic explanation for the phenomenon of low-temperature superconductivity, Dr. Morr is co-organizing a workshop entitled "Novel Aspects of Superconductivity" at the Aspen Center for Physics from July 30 to September 2. A blog of the talks presented during this workshop is available here.

It's been a year full of recognition for Juan-Carlos Campuzano. Soon after being chosen as a recipient of the honorary title of UIC Distinguished Professor for AY 2007-2008, Juan-Carlos was honored by an Outstanding Technical Achievement award joining a group of other 2007 HENAAC Award Winners in Engineering and Science. HENAAC was established in 1989 as a means of identifying, honoring, and documenting the contributions of outstanding Hispanic American science, engineering, technology and math professionals.

Earlier this year Juan-Carlos was promoted to the position of Argonne Distinguished Fellow. Most recently, Juan-Carlos accepted position of Director of the Under-represented Faculty Mentoring Program (UFMP) run by the Provost's office. Juan-Carlos now looks forward to drawing on a rich experience of his outstanding career at UIC to enhance academic opportunities of faculty in the UFMP program.

Congratulations to Jerald Kavich, who has been awarded a Dean’s Scholar Fellowship from the Graduate College. The Physics Department welcomes Lincoln Fellowship winner Maria Castro, who will join the PhD program in Fall 2007. Congratulations, Maria!

Congratulations to Gustavo Otero y Garzon and Hakim Iddir for their Outstanding Thesis Awards from the Graduate College and the Physics Department.

Congratulations to David Hofman for being one of the 12 UIC recipients of the 2007 Silver Circle Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Clive Halliwell was interviewed Feb 15 for Chicago Public Radio about ice falling from downtown high rises. Clive calculated the terminal velocity of the falling ice and shared useful safety tips with Chicago radio listeners. You can hear the interview here.

Mark Adams and David Hofman are the two Teaching Recognition Program Award recipients from the Physics Department for 2006. The award is given annually to UIC professors demonstrating outstanding performance in their teaching activities over a three year period. To date, the Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning has honored 14 Physics faculty members with Teaching Recognition Program awards.

The Mathematical Physics Research Group of Tom Imbo has recently received a substantial monetary gift from Dr. Mark Mueller of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo and Company (GMO) in Boston. Dr. Mueller obtained his Ph.D. in high energy theory from Stanford University in 1984 and worked several years as postdoctoral research associate in string theory before leaving physics for the world of quantitative finance in 1994. Dr. Mueller has been a regular visitor (and contributor) to the mathematical physics group at UIC since 2001. In Fall 2005 he became an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics at UIC, and in Fall 2006 became a member of the UIC Board of Visitors.

Juan Carlos Campuzano was promoted to the position of Argonne Distinguished Fellow for his outstanding accomplishments in condensed matter physics. This position is equivalent to an endowed chaired position at a University and there are only 22 Argonne employees who hold this prestigious rank. This award recognizes Juan Carlos Campuzano's contributions to surface science, correlated electron materials, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and its applications to the still-unanswered question of how high-temperature superconductors work.

Scientists of the DZero collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced in a seminar at Fermilab on December 8, 2006 the first evidence of single top quarks produced in a rare subatomic process involving the weak nuclear force. The result is an important test of predictions made by particle theory, such as the number of quarks that exist in nature. From UIC, Dr. Cecilia Gerber together with Timour Ten, Gustavo Otero y Garzon, Ioana Anghel and Lisa Shabalina contributed to this discovery through their work on identification of the B-jets front. Please find more information here.

UIC News Release from December 4, 2006 discusses applications of the laser temperature-jump technique to study the dynamics of a protein-DNA complex first performed in Anjum Ansari's lab. The research findings by Anjum and her colleagues shed light on the role that the DNA "bendability" plays in guiding the correct bending protein to the appropriate site on the DNA.

November 27, 2006 edition of Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Times featured the UIC High Energy group. The article highlights our HE group's CMS efforts and contains an interview with our graduate student Agata Smoron. Read the article here, where you also can download a podcast with Agata's interview.

The Physics Department is in the process of cataloging M.S. Theses and Ph.D. Dissertations for all Physics Alumni. Please mail a copy to us on CD for our records to the attention of Ms. Rachel Morrow, Graduate Advisor, and we we will have them printed and bound. Also, if you have not already done so, complete the Alumni Survey on our web site so that we may keep your information current in our database. Thank you for your cooperation.

On 11-11-06, Prof. Morr will present a public lecture entitled "Mysteries of the Quantum World" at the Museum of Science and Industry. If you are interested in attending the lecture (see abstract), please contact Prof. Morr for details.

Wilson Barajas will join the Physics Department as a graduate student in January 2007 and he is a recipient of the NSF Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship. Wilson is one of 13 recipients on campus.

Bridge to the Doctorate (BD) is an initiative supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a supplemental activity of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP). The goal of the supplement is to fund the initial two years of doctoral study for underrepresented students in MD/PhD and PhD programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at the University of Illinois of Chicago, one of 18 Illinois LSAMP Alliance institutions.

Zahid Ali, the electronics engineer in the Physics Department, has been selected as a recipient of the 2006-2007 UIC Award of Merit, a campus-wide honor which recognizes academic professional and support staff employees who have demonstrated excellence in service, commitment and dedication.

Prof. Cecilia Gerber was elected to the position of the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields Executive Committee member serving a three year term.

The High Energy Nuclear Physics group was recognized by invitations for three plenary talks at the Quark Matter 2006 meeting in Shanghai in November.

The Quark Matter conference series deals with the search for and study of a new state of matter consisting of a deconfined state of quarks and gluons - the fundamental building blocks of matter. The three invitees are : Olga Barannikova who will give an overview of recent results from RHIC, David Hofman who will review results from the PHOBOS experiment at RHIC and Russell Betts who will present plans for new physics with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the LHC.

Olga Barannikova is a winner of the 06/07 AY Women in Science and Engineering Research (WISER) Fund award.

This award will support Olga's research in High Energy Nuclear Physics which focuses on the management, analysis and visualization of petabytes of data in quest of discovering a new form of matter through relativistic nuclear collisions.

The Physics Department has received the 2006 Departmental Teaching Excellence Award. This award is well-deserved recognition of our innovative approach to curriculum development and our commitment to provide our students with the very best educational experience.

UIC Physics post-doctoral researcher Dr. Aneta Iordanova has been awarded the UIC Outstanding Thesis Award in Engineering, Mathematics and the Physical Sciences for her 2005 UIC Physics PhD thesis. Also, congratulations to UIC Physics graduate student Utpal Chatterjee with the 2006-2007 Dean's Scholar Award.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce the establishment of the Arnold R. and Doris E. Bodmer Science Travel Award Fund. Arnold Bodmer has been Professor in the physics department for many years and is now a Professor Emeritus. Dr. and Mrs. Bodmer have established this endowment which will provide travel funds to undergraduate and graduate students in the Division of Natural Sciences who have opportunities to study or do science research abroad.

Congratulations to Uday Sukhatme, former Professor and Head of our Department, with his appoinment as the next executive vice chancellor and dean of faculties at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Uday Sukhatme will assume his duties as the chief academic officer of IUPUI in July, 2006. Uday has been dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of Physics at SUNY at Buffalo since August 2002. Prior to that, Uday was at UIC for 22 years, where he served most recently as Interim Vice Provost for Academic Programs.

Dr. Keith Boyer has been selected as a recipient of the 2006 Los Alamos Medal Award. The Los Alamos Medal is the highest honor and most prestigious award given by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It is bestowed once a year on individuals for exceptionally distinguished achievements that have impacted the success of the Laboratory. This year Dr. Boyer is one of two recipients.

As you know, Dr. Boyer has been a long time research associate of Charles Rhodes and together with Charles Rhodes contributed significantly to our knowledge of the interaction of atomic systems with intense radiation fields.

In Nature 439, 921-923 (23 February 2006), Dr. Nick Evans reviews the recent advances on "duality" connection between string theory and the gauge theory of the strong force: quantum chromodynamics (QCD); especially focusing on the article by Misha Stephanov et al "QCD and a Holographic Model of Hadrons" Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 261602 (2005).

Fermilab Today from January 19, 2006 mentions studies made by Dzero collaboration of the products of extremely hard collisions between protons and their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons, at the Tevatron Collider. A measurement of the production rate (or cross section) of a Z boson with jets over a range of jet multiplicities is shown. The article contains a picture of UIC analysis team participating in this study. Shown are Marc Buehler (now with University of Virginia), Alan Stone, Nikos Varelas, and James Heinmiller. The link to the group picture is available here.

The January 13, 2006 issue of the Science magazine contains an article by Professor Schlossman showing strong evidence that the interfacial liquid structure alters the ion distributions near a charged interface. You can read here more about Professor Schlossman's research group experiment.

The Sep 2005 issue of Physics Today contains an enthusiastic review of a much-anticipated book "The Phases of Quantum Chromodynamics: From Confinement to Extreme Environment" by John Kogut and Mikhail Stephanov. The reviewer describes Dr. Stephanov as a leader in the study of QCD under extreme conditions who has made important contributions to the interpretation of lattice-QCD results at nonzero baryon densities, the experimental observability of the critical point, and collective excitations in color-superconducting quark matter.

Three major UIC awards has been received in 2005 by our collegues J.C. Campuzano (University Scholars Award), A. Schroeder (UIC Award for Excellence in Teaching) and D. Morr (Teaching Recognition Program Award) In addition, C. Halliwell was awarded 2004-2005 Curriculum and Instructional Grant from Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Modernization of Phys 141 Lab.

The Department thanks you for your work and congratulates you on your awards.

Prof.Campuzano is on the International Organizing Committee for Mottness and Quantum Criticality Workshop to be held June 8-19, 2005 in Tobago, West Indies.

Stephen Shing Fan Yip, a junior in physics, has been awarded national Goldwater Scholarship for the 2005/2006 year. The scholarships are awarded to outstanding college sophomores and juniors studying mathematics, natural sciences or engineering. Yip is UIC's 12-th winner and the second winner from our department.

"Fermilab results of the week" describes work of Prof. Gerber and her research group, which resulted in developing a clever way to identify top quarks based on the spatial distribution and energies of their decay products
that distinguishes events with a "top fingerprint" from overwhelming background.

The link to the group picture is available here

Recent Ph.D. graduates Richard Hollis and Aneta Iordanova celebrated their Wedding, in England, with Best-man and Thesis advisor Prof. David Hofman. The wedding came just days after their successful Thesis defenses. The day went very well, and a good time had by all. The service was a registry office ceremony, with a second (Church) wedding in Bulgaria in the summer. See Richard and Aneta after commencement, when the photo album should arrive.

Physics Today, March 2005 issue, contains an article entitled
"Extreme Nonlinear Optics: Coherent X Rays from Lasers" which on page 40 makes a reference to the first High-Harmonic Generation experiments performed by Prof. Charles Rhodes's group at UIC in the late 1980's, soon after the developments of large-scale, intense picosecond and femtosecond lasers. The unfortunate mistake with the group's University affiliation has been brought to the editors attention.

Shing Fan Yip was among 330 students nationwide to receive the 2005 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. This is a second year in a row, a physics undergraduate student has been awarded this highly competitive and prestigious scholarship.

Professor Wai-Yee Keung is on the Local Committee of the International Workshop KAON 2005 at Northwestern University, June 13-17, 2005

Prof. Cecilia Gerber was featured in the July/August 2004 issue of the UIC Alumni Magazine in the article entitled "When Atoms Collide". Here is an excerpt: "At the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Cecilia Gerber, UIC assistant professor of physics and recipient of a National Science Foundation Career Grant, seeks to unravel the mysteries of the top quark, the smallest and most elusive of atomic particles."

The International Workshop on Lasers and Nuclei held in Karslruhe, Germany on 13-15 September, 2004 was devoted to Prof. Charles Rhodes' 1988 discovery of laser light induced nuclear fission.

Through this development, nuclear reactions can now be induced and studied in the laboratory without recourse to nuclear reactors or particle accelerators. An introductory session on the laser matter interactions by Prof. Charles Rhodes, was followed by the "applications" sessions covering: nuclear and astrophysics, medical applications, transmutation and radiography.

Professor John Marko has agreed to join editorial board of the Physical Review E. He will handle submissions dealing with bio-materials, polymers and membranes.

Professor Nikos Varelas has agreed to take on the responsibility of overall coordination of Fermilab's DZero trigger effort. He will serve as an associate to the DZero collaboration spokespersons and will guide the triggering effort through the integration of the final Run IIa and upcomming Run IIb triggering additions.

Professor Dirk Morr has been awarded a Research Fellowship from the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Professor Morr is working on theories for strongly interacting electron systems, such as high-temperature superconductors, and quantum (zero temperature) phase transitions.The Fellowship enables Professor Morr to conduct research for one year at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

An interview with Professor Siva Sivananthan, director of the microphysics laboratory, about the night-vision sensor manufacturing process, was featured in the April 2004 issue of Armed Forces Journal.

Professors Mark Schlossman and David Hofman have been promoted to the ranks of Professor of Physics and Associate Professor of Physics.

Professor Juan Carlos Campuzano became Scientific Director for Condensed Matter at the Synchrotron Radiation Center. He will look after core programs in highly correlated systems, superconductors, magnetism, and atoms/ions/molecules.

Professor Serdar Ogut has received 2003/2004 Teaching Recognition Program award from the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Vladimir Skavysh, who is pursuing a dual major in mathematics and physics, was among 310 students nationwide to receive the award from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. The Goldwater scholarships are awarded to outstanding college sophomores and juniors studying mathematics, natural sciences or engineering.

The New Electronic Shop Web-page is up and will be used to submit the project request online.

Assistant Professor Mikhail Stephanov won the Sloan Fellowship award for the year 2002. Professor Stephanov is working on the theory of strong interactions (interactions between particles making up atomic nuclei) and its applications to the physics of heavy ion collisions. He conducts his research atUIC and RIKEN-BNL Research Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory- the site of the world's largest heavy ion collider.

Professor Juan Campuzano was selected as the APS Fellow in the year 2002.Professor Campuzano's research is in many areas of condensed matter physics, such as critical phenomena and two-dimensional phase transitions,the electronic structure of high temperature superconductors, and the development of techniques for studying empty electron energy levels in solids.