Current and Past Students by Research Area
This page lists our current and past graduate students working on thesis research in the various research areas of the department.
Current Graduate Students by Research Area
Astrophysics and Cosmology
Yu Feng
Advisor: Rupert Croft
Arun Kannawadi
Advisor: Rachel Mandelbaum
Paul La Plante
Advisor: Hy Trac
Michelle Ntampaka
Advisor: Hy Trac
Melih Ozbek
Advisor: Rupert Croft
Tabitha Voytek
Advisor: Jeff Peterson
Biological Physics
Kiyotaka Akabori
Advisor: Stephanie Tristram-Nagle, John Nagle
Patrick Diggins
Advisor: Markus Deserno
Marilia Cabral do Rego Barros
Advisor: Mathias Loesche
Haw Zan Goh
Advisor: Mathias Loesche
Krista Freeman
Advisor: Alex Evilevitch
Robert Haussman
Advisor: Markus Deserno, Ira Rothstein
Mingyang Hu
Advisor: Markus Deserno
Michael Jablin
Advisor: Stephanie Tristram-Nagle, John Nagle
Udom Sae-Ueng
Advisor: Alex Evilevitch
Xin Wang
Advisor: Markus Deserno
Huizhong Xu
Advisor: Maumita Mandal
Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Sergio de la Barrera
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Fan Gao
Advisor: David Greve
Guowei He
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Joshua Levinson
Advisor: Robert Suter
Jonathan Lind
Advisor: Robert Suter
Siddharth Maddali
Advisor: Robert Suter
David Menasche
Advisor: Robert Suter
Patrick Mende
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Samuel Oberdick
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Stephan Piotrowski
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Amy Stetten
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Xi (David) Tan
Advisor: Robert Suter
Ying Zhang
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
Qi Fu
Advisor: Robert Sekerka
Qin Gao
Advisor: Michael Widom
William Huhn
Advisor: Michael Widom
Nikhil Sivadas
Advisor: Di Xiao
Experimental High Energy Particle Physics
Onur Albayrak
Advisor: Roy Briere
Aristotle Calamba
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Benjamin Carlson
Advisor: James Russ
Ryan Carroll
Advisor: Helmut Vogel
Yutaro Iiyama
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Bai-Cian Ke
Advisor: Roy Briere
Yueh-Feng Liu
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Zhen Tang
Advisor: James Russ
Theoretical High Energy Particle Physics
Alexander Bell
Advisor: Richard Holman
Varun Vaidya
Advisor: Ira Rothstein
Tereza Vardanyan
Advisor: Richard Holman
Experimental Medium Energy Physics
Dao Ho
Advisor: Reinhard Schumacher
Ian Laflotte
Advisor: Brian Quinn
William Levine
Advisor: Curtis Meyer
Katherine Robbins
Advisor: Gregg Franklin
Brian Vernarski
Advisor: Curtis Meyer
Theoretical Medium Energy Physisc
Brendan Fahy
Advisor: Colin Morningstar
David Lenkner
Advisor: Colin Morningstar
You-Cyuan Jhang
Advisor: Colin Morningstar
Quantum Theory
Daniel Stahlke
Advisor: Robert Griffiths
Ananth Tenneti
Advisor: Robert Griffiths
Recent Past PhD's by Research Area
Physics PhD degrees granted during the last few years are listed by research area.
Astrophysics and Cosmology
Zabel, Shane (Aug 2003)
The Physical Optics of Caustic Crossings in Gravitational Lensing
Advisor: Jeff Peterson
Knudson, Adam (Dec 2003)
X-Ray Luminosity Evolution of Normal Galaxies
Advisor: Richard Griffiths
Kim, Young-Rae (Aug 2006)
New Probes of Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Advisor: Rupert Croft
Kulkarni, Gauri (Aug 2006)
Measurements and Models of the three Point Correlation Function of
Luminous Rd Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Advisor: Robert Nichol
Bock, Daniel (Dec 2006)
Superconducting Nanowire Bolometers
Advisor: Jeff Peterson
Sabirli, Kivanc (Dec 2006)
Confirmation of Self-Similar Evolution in the X-ray Luminosity --
Temperature Scaling Relation of Clusters of Galaxies
Advisor: Kathy Romer
Altay, Gabriel (Aug 2009)
Cosmological Radiative Transfer
Advisor: Rupert Croft
Bandura, Kevin (Aug 2011)
Pathfinder for a Neutral Hydrogen Dark Energy Survey
Advisor: Jeff Peterson
Degraf, Colin (Aug 2012)
Supermassive Black Holes in Cosmological Simulations
Advisor: Tiziana DiMatteo
Biological Physics
Liu, Yufeng (Dec 2002)
New Method to Obtain Structure of Biomembranes Using Diffuse X-Ray Scattering: Application to Fluid Phase DOPC Lipid Bilayers
Advisor: John Nagle
Gong, Haijun (Aug 2009)
Computational Models of Protein Sorting in the Golgi Apparatus
Advisor: Russell Schwartz
Pan, Jianjun (Aug 2009)
Supramolecular Organization of the Antimicrobial Peptide Alamethicin in Fluid Membrames
Advisor: John Nagle
Misra, Navodit (Aug 2010)
Algorithms for Reliable Computing in Molecular Biology
Advisor: Russell Schwartz
Bereau, Tristan (May 2011)
Unconstrained Structure Formation in Coarse-Grained Protein Simulations
Advisor: Markus Deserno
Sauerwine, Benjamin (Aug 2011)
Secondary Structure Models of Nucleic Acid Folding Kinetics
Advisor: Michael Widom
Shekhar, Prabhanshu (May 2012)
Neutron Reflectometry from Interfacial Molecular Architectures: Structural Modeling and Application to Sparsely Tethered Bilayer Lipid Membranes
Advisor: Mathias Loesche
Shenoy, Siddharth (May 2012)
Structure and Kinetics of the PTEN Tumor Suppressor: Investigation of Solution and Membrane-Associated States
Advisor: Mathias Loesche
Yolcu, Cem (Aug 2012)
Effective Field Theory of Surface-Mediated Forces in Soft Matter
Advisor: Markus Deserno
Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Ramachandran, Vidhya (Dec 1999)
Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Gallium Nitride on Silicon Carbide
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Li, Gang (Aug 2000)
Computer Simulation of Magnetic Tape Recording
Advisor: Jimmy Zhu
Chen, Huajie (Dec 2000)
Growth and Scanning Probe Microscopy of III-V Semiconductor Alloys
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Luokkala, Barry (May 2001)
Interfacial Structure and Rearrangement on Nonionic Surfactants near a Receding Contact Line
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Shi, Changqing (May 2001)
High Data Rate Degradation and Medium Thermal Stability in Ultra-High Density Magnetic Recording
Advisor: Jimmy Zhu
Qu, Dan (Aug 2001)
Hydrodynamics of Dip-Coated Thin Films in the Presence of Evaporation and Surfactant Structured Controlling Spontaneous Dewetting
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Suo, Yue (Dec 2001)
Unsteady Spreading of Newtonian Fluids and Dynamic Wetting of
Shear-Thinning Fluids
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Guan, Lijie (Aug 2002)
Micromagnetic Study of Advanced Magnetic Thin Film Media for Ultra-High
Density Recording
Advisor: Jimmy Zhu
Farrell, Dorothy (Dec 2002)
Magnetic Properties of Self-Assembled Fe Nanoparticle Arrays
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Liu, Yi-Kuang (Dec 2002)
Magnetic Anisotrophy and Permability in Sputtered FeAIN Thin-Film Materials
Advisor: Mark Kryder
Chen, Xia (Aug 2003)
Effects of Thin and Ultra-Thin Liquid Films on Dynamic Wetting
Advisor: Steve Garoff
McKay, Hugh (Aug 2003)
Nanoscale Microscopy of Semiconductor Epitaxy
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Anderson, Meredith (May 2004)
Measuring the Atomic Kinetics of Cu Surface Alloys Using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Low-Energy Electron
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Ashutosh, Ashutosh (May 2004)
Growth of Gallium Nitride on Porous Silicon Carbide Substrates
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Humfeld, Keith (May 2004)
Interface Shapes and Thin Film Structures of Complete, Partial, and Pseudo Wetting Systems
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Chong, Shang-Shan (May 2005)
Predicting Nanoporous Gas Separation Membrane Performance from Atomistic Simulations
Advisor: David Sholl
Brahme, Abhijit (Aug 2005)
Modeling Microstructure Evolution during Recrystallization
Advisor: Tony Rollet
Tanase, Mihaela (Dec 2005)
Electron Microscopy Characterization and Structure Optimatization of FePt Self-Assembled Nanoparticles for Ultrahigh-Density Magnetic Data Storage
Advisor: Zhu Laughlin
Varanasi, Kalyani (Dec 2005)
Dynamic Wetting at Receding Contact Lines of Soluble Surfactant
Solutions: Hydrodynamics and Molecular Assemblies
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Zhang, Li (May 2005)
Characterization of Heat-Assisted Magnetic Probe Recording on CoNi/Pt Multilayers
Advisor: James Bain
Dong, Yang (May 2006)
Nanoscale Electronic Properties of Semiconductor Surfaces and Interfaces
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Draganov, Dimitar (May 2006)
Transition Region and Precursing Films of Polymer Melts
Advisor: Robert Suter
Hennessy, Daniel (May 2006)
Three Dimensional X-Ray Diffraction Microscope Studies of Bulk Materials Microstructure
Advisor: Robert Suter
Xiao, Changshi (May 2006)
A Microstructure Reconstruction Approach for Three Dimensional X-Ray
Diffraction Microscopy
Advisor: Robert Suter
Ding, Yi (Aug 2006)
Phase Transformation of FePt Nanoparticles
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Kaya, Ahmet (Aug 2007)
Experimental Measurements of the Magnetic Recording Head High Frequency Response and Comparison to Quantitative Models
Advisor: James Bain
Sachan, Madhur (Aug 2007)
Magnetostatic Interactions in Highly Ordered Self-assembled Structures of Epsilon-Co Nanoparticles
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Nie, Shu (Dec 2007)
Morphology and Electronic Properties of Silicon Carbide Surfaces
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Gaan, Sandeep (May 2008)
Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of Molecular Thin Flims and
Semiconductor Nanostructures
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Wei, Yuli (Aug 2009)
Dynamic Wetting of Viscous and Viscoelastic Fluids
Advisor: Steve Garoff
Hogg, Charles (Aug 2010)
Pattern Transfer from Nanoparticle Arrays
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Luxmi (Dec 2010)
Structural Studies of Epitaxial Graphene Formed on SiC{0001} Surfaces
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Li, Shiu Fai (Frankie) (May 2011)
Imaging of Orientation and Geometry in Microstructures: Development and Applications of High Energy X-ray Diffraction Microscopy
Advisor: Robert Suter
Zheng, Peng (May 2011)
High Temperature Langasite Surface Acoustic Wave Sensors
Advisor: David Greve
Evarts, Eric (Aug 2011)
Conductive Atomic Force Microscopy Analysis of Sub-30 nm Magnetic Tunnel Junction
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Srivastava, Nishtha (May 2012)
Interface Structure of Graphene on Silicon Carbide for Various Preparation Conditions
Advisor: Randy Feenstra
Booth, Ryan (Aug 2012)
Inter- and Intraparticle Interactions in Magnetic Nanoparticle Systems
Advisor: Sara Majetich
Hefferan, Christopher (Aug 2012)
Measurement of Annealing Phenomena in High Purity Metals with Near-Field High Energy X-Ray Diffraction Microscopy
Advisor: Robert Suter
Hu, Weihua (Aug 2012)
Tip Based Nanofabrication Using Multi-mode Scanning Probe Microscopy
Advisor: David Ricketts, Randy Feenstra
Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
Banerjee, Shubho (Aug 2000)
Study of Morphological and Thermodynamic Properties of Dipolar Fluids
Advisor: Michael Widom
Lee, Hwee Kuan (May 2001)
Monte Carlo Simulations of Liquid-Liquid Phase Transition and Quasicrystals
Advisor: Robert Swendsen
Bi, Zhiqiang (May 2002)
Directional Solidification of a Binary Alloy Using the Phase Field Model
Advisor: Robert Sekerka
Al-Lehyani, Ibrahim (Aug 2002)
First-Principles Study of Decagonal Quasicrystals
Advisor: Michael Widom
Diggs, Brian (Aug 2002)
Bayesian Analysis of Thermodynamics Series Expansions
Advisor: Robert Swendsen
Fasnacht, Marc (Aug 2003)
Adaptive Monte Carlo Methods
Advisor: Robert Swendsen
Kozan, Oner (Dec 2004)
A New Approach to Critical Properties of Site and Bond Percolation
Advisor: Robert Swendsen
Ganesh, Panchapakesan (Aug 2007)
First-Principles Study of Liquid and Amorphous Metals
Advisor: Michael Widom
Fore, Alexander (Dec 2007)
Lattice Boltzmann Models for Binary Solutions: Models for Diffusion between Species with Unequal Masses and Models for Flow of Immiscible Species in a Hele-Shaw Cell
Advisor: Robert Sekerka
Stojanovic, Vladimir (May 2008)
Novel Ordered States of Matter in Ultracold Atomic Gases
Advisor: Vincent Liu
Lin, Chang-You (Aug 2012)
Mean-Field Density Functional Theory of a Three-Phase Contact Line
Advisor: Robert Sekerka
Experimental High Energy Particle Physics
Kushnirenko, Alexander (May 2001)
Precision Measurements of the Lambda_c+ and D0
Advisor: James Russ
Mattson, Mark (May 2002)
Search for Baryons with Two Charm Quarks
Advisor: James Russ
Hirschfelder, Jessica (Aug 2003)
Quark Pair Production in Electron-Positron Collisions at 192-208 GeV
Advisor: Tom Ferguson
Giurgiu, Gavril (Dec 2005)
B Flavor Tagging Calibration and Search for Bs0 Oscillations in
Semileptonic Decays with the CDF Detector at FermiLab
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Gibson, Karen (May 2006)
Measurement of the Relative Fragmentation Fractions of B Hadrons
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Tiwari, Vivek (May 2007)
Measurement of the Bs anti-Bs Oscillation Frequency Using Semileptonic Decays
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Watkins, Michael (Aug 2007)
Inclusive Measurement of Upsilon(1S) Decays to Open Charm Hadrons
Advisor: Roy Briere
Chung, Kwangzoo (May 2008)
Hadronic Production of Psi(2S) Cross Section and Polarization
Advisor: James Russ
Galyardt, Jason (Dec 2009)
Correlations in Bottom Quark Pair Production at the Fermilab Tevatron
Advisor: James Russ
Pueschel, Elisa (May 2010)
Measurement of the CP Violating Phase sin2betas using Bs -> J/Psi Phi Decays at CDF
Advisor: Manfred Paulini
Thome, James (Aug 2011)
A Measurement of Helicity-Frame Spin Alignment of Inclusive Upsilon(nS) Mesons in Proton-Antiproton Collisions at 1.96 TeV
Advisor: James Russ
Akgun, Bora (May 2012)
Upsilon(nS) Cross Section Measurement in pp Collisions at 7 TeV Center of Mass Energy with the CMS Detector
Advisor: Thomas Ferguson
Theoretical High Energy Particle Physics
Chiang, Cheng-Wei (Dec 2000)
Study of CP Violation in K and B Mesons
Advisor: Fred Gilman
Low, Ian (May 2001)
Determination of V_ub from Inclusive B Decays
Advisor: Ira Rothstein
Martin, Matthew (May 2004)
Two Cosmological Scenarios in Spaces of Maximal Symmetry
Advisor: Richard Holman
Naidu, Siddartha (May 2005)
Alpha-Vacuum Decay and Linear Equation of State Cosmology
Advisor: Richard Holman
Wu, Feng (Aug 2005)
Next-to-leading-order Analysis of the Decay B -> X s gamma
Advisor: Fred Gilman
Porto, Rafael (Aug 2007)
An Effective Field Theory of Gravity for Spinning Extended Objects
Advisor: Ira Rothstein
Hutasoit, Jimmy (Aug 2010)
Time-dependent Backgrounds in String Theory and Dualities
Advisor: Richard Holman
Chen, Chien-Yi (Aug 2012)
New Physics Beyond the Standard Model with Weakly Interacting Particles
Advisor: Lincoln Wolfenstein
Neill, Duff (Aug 2012)
Apply Effective Field Theory to Higgs Production and Renormalizing SCETII
Advisor: Ira Rothstein
Experimental Medium Energy Physics
Koran, Phillip (Dec 2000)
BNL-E813: Search for the H-Dibaryon Through Chi- Capture on the Deuteron
Advisor: Brian Quinn
Paschke, Kent (Dec 2001)
Measurement of Spin Transfer Observables for AntiLambda-Lambda Production from Antiproton-Proton Annihilation at 1.637 GeV/c^2
Advisor: Brian Quinn
Feuerbach, Robert (Dec 2002)
Measurement of the Unpolarized K+ Lambda and Sigma0 Electroproduction Cross-Sections and Interface Terms from the Proton with the CLAS Detector
Advisor: Reinhard Schumacher
McNabb, John (Dec 2002)
Photoproduction of Lambda and Sigma0 Hyperons off Protons in the Nucleon Resonance Region Using CLAS at Jefferson Labs
Advisor: Reinhard Schumacher
Bradford, Robert (May 2005)
Measurement of Differential Cross Sections and Cx and Cz -> K+A and Yp -> K+E using CLAS at Jefferson Lab
Advisor: Reinhard Schumacher
Parker, Joseph (May 2005)
The Weak Decay of the 4He Lambda Hypernucleus
Advisor: Gregg Franklin
Lachniet, Jeffrey (Aug 2005)
A High Precision Measurement of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor Using the CLAS Detector
Advisor: Brian Quinn
Krahn, Zebulun (Dec 2007)
A Partial Wave Analysis of Eta and Etaprime Meson Photoproduction Using CLAS at Jefferson Lab
Advisor: Curtis Meyer
Williams, Michael (Dec 2007)
Measurement of Differential Cross Sections and Spin Density Matrix Elements along with a Partial Wave Analysis for gamma p -> p omega Using CLAS at Jefferson Lab
Advisor: Curtis Meyer
Riordan, Seamus (May 2008)
Measurements of the Electric Form Factor of the Neutron at Q2 = 1/7 and 3/5 GeV/c^2
Advisor: Gregg Franklin
McCracken, Michael (Aug 2008)
A Study of K+ Lambda Photoproduction in the CLAS g11a Dataset: Differential Cross Section, Recoil Polarization, and a Partial-Wave Analysis
Advisor: Curtis Meyer
Moriya, Kei (Dec 2010)
Measurement of the Lineshape, Differential Photoproduction Cross Section, Spin and Parity of the Lambda(1405) Using CLAS at Jefferson Lab
Advisor: Reinhard Schumacher
Seymour-Parno, Diana (May 2011)
Measurements of the Double-Spin Asymmetry A1 on Helium-3: Toward a Precise Measurement of the Neutron A1
Advisor: Gregg Franklin
Dey, Biplab (Aug 2011)
Differential Cross Section and Polarization Extractions for gamma p going to phi p Using CLAS at Jefferson Lab, Towards a Partial Wave Analysis in Search of Missing Baryon Resonances
Advisor: Curtis Meyer
Dickson, Ryan (Aug 2011)
Photoproduction of the f_1(1285)/eta(1295) Mesons Using CLAS at Jefferson Lab
Advisor: Reinhard Schumacher
Friend, Megan (May 2012)
A Precision Measurement of the Proton Strange-Quark Form Factors at Q^2 = 0.624 GeV^2
Advisor: Brian Quinn
Theoretical Medium Energy Physics
Linsuain, Otto (Dec 2002)
A Study of the Quark Schwinger-Dyson Equation in Minkowski Space in a Light-Cone Approach
Advisor: Leonard Kisslinger
Harey, Andrew (May 2004)
Pion Cloud Contributions to Nucleon Masses in Finite Nuclei
Advisor: Leonard Kisslinger
Lichtl, Adam (Aug 2006)
Quantum Operator
Design for Lattice Baryon Spectroscopy
Advisor: Colin Morningstar
Bulava, John (Dec 2009)
An Improved Variance Reduction Technique for Stochastic All-to-All Quark Propagators in Lattice QCD Spectrum Computations
Advisor: Colin Morningstar
Wong, Chik Him (Ricky) (Aug 2011)
The Stochastic Laplacian Heaviside Method in Lattice QCD and its First Applications to Hadron Spectroscopy
Advisor: Colin Morningstar
Quantum Theory
Gheorghiu, Vlad (Aug 2010)
Bipartite Entanglement, Separable Operations and the Location of Quantum Information
Advisor: Robert Griffiths
Looi, Shiang Yong (Aug 2011)
Quantum Error Correction Using Stabilizer States and Graph States
Advisor: Robert Griffiths
Yu, Li (Dec 2011)
Nonlocal Quantum Gates, Graph Codes and Information Splitting
Advisor: Robert Griffiths