Physics & Astronomy

College of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Department News

2025

University of Wyoming Asst Professor - Applied Artificial Intelligence: Click here to learn more.

2024

Open Research Scientist positions at the School of Computing: Click here to learn more

Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships for AI-enabled Interdisciplinary Research - Please see Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunities for AI-enabled interdisciplinary research Here. To explore potential advisors, please go to this page Here.

Dr. Meridith Joyce received a NASA TESS GI Cycle 7 grant entitled A Five-Fold Increase In "Holy Grail"Calibrators For Stellar Models: Doubly-Oscillating Binaries Pre-Screened With GAIA. What a way to start her job at UW with a one-year $70K bang!

Congratulations to Adam Myers for his DOE renewal grant. Adam's rolling grant to support planning and operations for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument was renewed by the Department of Energy for another $240k over the next 18 months. The grant has now brought in $640k since 2019.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jifa Tian and his Co-PI, TeYu Chien, have been awarded a three- year NSF grant entitled "Collaborative Research: Exploring Metastable Magnetic States in Unconventional Magnetic Domains of Two-dimensional van der Waals Magnets". The Partner institute for this collaborative research project is CSU, and budget for UW is $483,605.

Alex Petrovic secured a three-year $249,889 NSF grant " Microwave Spectroscopy of Engineered Triplet Superconductors" July 2024

Alex Petrovic has received from Quantum Collaborative a research grant Broadband Microwave Spectromicroscopy" ($53K), which is a joint effort between him and a colleague at Arizona State University.

Mike Brotherton has received a Space Telescope Science Institute grant $31,538) titled "A Major Overhaul of Ultraviolet-Based Black Hole Mass Prescriptions".

TeYu Chien received an Interdisciplinary-Collaborative Seed Grants from CEPS Engineering Initiative. The title is “Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Concrete and Masonry Structures”. This is a $25K joint project with Jenny Eisenhauer Tanner (Civil and Architectural Engineering). June 2024

Congratulation to Jifa Tian for another 2-year $300K grant! NSF RII Track-4 EPSCoR Research Fellows: Exploring van der Waals Superconducting Josephson Junctions for Robust Qubits

Good news. Jinke and Maohong Fan (Energy and Petroleum Engineering) are Co-PIs of a DOE project for Engineering Highly-Scalable and Efficient Sorption Materials for Direct Air Capture. The visiting scholar proposal was selected for award negotiation. The 3-year project is led by New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with a total budget of $1.5M. UW's share is $700K.

Both Daniel Dale and Mike Brotherton were awarded time (and funding!) on the Hubble Space Telescope. Here are the details of Danny's award. I will share it with you when I receive the information on Mike B's award.

Title: Resolving Gas, Star Formation, and Feedback in Nearby Galaxies with HST+JWST+ALMA

PI: Daniel Dale

Source: NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Amount: $115k to UW (~$1.7M in total for the larger team)

P&A faculty member Jifa Tian has been appointed by VPRED Parag Chitnis as the Interim Direct of the newly established Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology (C-QIST) at UW.

4/20/2024 Undergraduates presentation: Xander Larsen and Gabby Graham followed by a Poster sessions at the Wyoming Union.

4/17/2024 Provost Carman and Dean Wright attended the P&A faculty meeting to present awards to Daniel Dale the George Duke Humphrey Distiguished Faculty Award for 2024. Aysenur Bicer was also awarded the John P. "Jack" Elbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching award for 2024.

4/17/2024 The University of Wyoming is inviting applications for Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellows for conducting convergence research at the intersection of different disciplines. This year, the program will support a cohort of up to six postdoctoral fellows for two-year terms. Postdoctoral fellows participating in the program will receive professional development opportunities, including entrepreneurship-focused workshops, and mentorship from experts in at least two disciplines. Projects involving collaboration with DOE National Laboratories are encouraged.

This year, the research projects will focus on AI applications in one or more of the following topics. Use of modeling, simulation, digital twins, and other approaches are encouraged in the research projects. Additional information and How to Apply.

4/1/2024 Aysenur Bicer was selected to receive the 2024 Promoting Intellectual Engagement in the First Year (PIE) Award! Dr. Bicer will be honored at the 15th annual PIE Award Reception, Thursday, April 25th in the Union Yellowstone Ballroom from 4:00-5:00 pm. Dr. Bicer will also be Highlighted on the LeaRN Website.

3/18/2024 Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bair, first-year physics student received an internship for summer 2024 at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO.

3/11/2024 Physics and Astronomy Receives Award for Graduating Students in Physics Teaching. Click link for more information: Award for Graduating Students

2/29/2024 Professor Jinke Tang, who heads the Department, has been appointed to serve as a member of DOE's Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) for a 3-year term ending at the end of 2026. The Committee, established in 1986, provides advice and recommendations on scientific, technical, and programmatic issues relating to DOE's Basic Energy Sciences Program including materials sciences, chemistry, biosciences, geosciences, engineering and underlying competencies such as computational sciences.

2/15/2024 Daniel Dale, Assoc Dean/Professor, was elected as a Trustee of the American Astronomical Society (with the entire membership of the AAS voting). What an amazing honor and significant responsibility. A wonderful level of recognition of which he is most deserving.

1/17/2024 Congratulations to Professor Mike Pierce for being awarded time on NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility. The project is called A Radial Velocity Analysis of the Classical Cepheid T Vul from Near-IR Spectroscopy with collaborators Kristin Brady and Caty Pilachowski at Indiana University.