Carnegie Mellon University

2014 News

Tuesday, December 30, 2014
GlueX Detector Journey highlighted in MCS Science Connection
After 17 years of work, Professor Curtis Meyer watched as the particle detector that he and his colleagues had constructed in Wean Hall was packed up, loaded into a moving van and sent off to its new home, the Jefferson Lab National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va.

Friday, December 19, 2014
Five Dept of Physics Faculty Members Elected Fellows of American Physical Society
Five Carnegie Mellon faculty members in the Dept of Physics have been elected fellows of the American Physical Society.

Friday, December 12, 2014
Alumnus Dr. Michael Bass wins Woods Prize
Alumnus Michael Bass, B.S. CMU Physics 1960, received the 2014 R. W. Wood prize of the Optical Society of America.

Monday, November 17, 2014
Eye on the Sky
At the end of August, the National Science Foundation signed a cooperative agreement with the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy that allows construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to begin.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Evilevitch's research featured in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Research by CMU biophysicist Alex Evilevitch and his team on how some viruses violently expel their DNA inside human cells has been featured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Friday, November 7, 2014
Neta Bahcall To Present Bennett-McWilliams Lecture in Cosmology
Prominent astrophysicist Neta Bahcall, who was the first head of the Hubble Space Telescope's Science Program Selection Office, will present Carnegie Mellon University's third Bennett-McWilliams Lecture in Cosmology at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 11.

Monday, November 3, 2014
Tabitha Voytek wins award from the Society of Women Engineers
Tabitha Voytek has won the outstanding collegiate member award from the Society of Women Engineers for being a role model for women in science and engineering.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Chuck Gitzen and Joe Rudman win Andy Awards
Joe Rudman and Chuck Gitzen were Andy Award Winners for their long and distinguished service to Carnegie Mellon University and the Physics Department.

Monday, September 29, 2014
Viral Infection Might Just Be a Phase Transition
In two separate studies, Carnegie Mellon University biophysicist Alex Evilevitch has shown that in viruses that infect both bacteria and humans, a phase transition at the temperature of infection allows the DNA to change from a rigid crystalline structure into a fluid-like structure that facilitates infection.

Friday, August 29, 2014
Robert Swendsen named one of Pittsburgh's Top Professors by Pittsburgh Magazine
Robert Swendsen has been named one of Pittsburgh's Top Professors in the September 2014 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine.

Thursday, August 28, 2014
NSF Authorizes Agreement for the Construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has authorized a cooperative agreement with the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) for construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will digitally image the sky for a decade.

Thursday, August 21, 2014
Eight Chinese guest students visit CMU Physics
This summer, for the first time, undergraduate students from the University of Science and Technology in China (USTC) have visited the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon to participate in extended research internships.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Weighing the Milky Way
An international team of researchers, including Carnegie Mellon's Matthew Walker, have devised a precise method for calculating the mass of galaxies.

Saturday, July 26, 2014
Robert Swendsen receives Rahman Prize and Ashkin Teaching Award
Physics Professor Robert Swendsen was recently recognized for his research efforts as the winner of the 2014 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics from the American Physical Society and has been named this year's recipient of the Mellon College of Science's Julius Ashkin Teaching Award.

Friday, July 25, 2014
Shirley Ho Wins Outstanding Young Researcher Award From International Organization of Chinese Physicists and Astronomers
Shirley Ho, assistant professor of physics and a member of the McWilliams Center for Cosmology at Carnegie Mellon University, has been named a co-winner of the 2014 Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the International Organization of Chinese Physicists and Astronomers.

Thursday, July 3, 2014
Markus Deserno becomes Editorial Board Member at the Biophysical Journal
Starting July 1st, Markus Deserno, associate professor and member of our department’s Biological Physics Initiative, will join the editorial board of the Biophysical Journal.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Degrees and awards presented at Commencement 2014
The 117th commencement at Carnegie Mellon University took place May 17-18, 2014. Shutterfly Inc. CEO Jeffrey Housenbold was the keynote speaker.

Monday, June 2, 2014
CMU Alumnus Eric Dahl receives DOE award
Eric Dahl (S'02) recently received an award from the Department of Energy to develop a new style of particle detector for finding dark matter particles, the nearly invisible matter that makes up more than 80 percent of our universe.

Monday, May 26, 2014
Raphael Flauger publishes paper that questions BICEP2’s gravitational wave discovery
Raphael Flauger, who will join the McWilliams Center and CMU Physics faculty this fall, has published a paper that questions the BICEP2’s gravitational wave discovery.

Saturday, April 26, 2014
David Spergel Presents Second Bennett-McWilliams Lecture in Cosmology
David Spergel presented the second McWilliams Lecture in Cosmology, titled "Taking the Universe's Baby Picture," at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 24 in the Gates-Hillman Center's Rashid Auditorium.

Saturday, March 15, 2014
Biological Physicist Carlos Bustamante To Deliver Carnegie Mellon's 2014 Buhl Lecture March 25
Carlos Bustamante, best known for his pivotal work using laser tweezers to measure the forces in DNA, will present Carnegie Mellon University's annual Buhl Lecture at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 25 in the Mellon Institute Auditorium, 4400 Fifth Ave., Oakland.

Thursday, March 6, 2014
Celebration of Hugh Young: Physicist, Educator, Musician, Explorer
A celebration of the life and legacy of Hugh Young, whose 52-year career at Carnegie Mellon left an indelible mark on generations of students, colleagues and alumni, will take place Friday, April 11, 2014 in the College of Fine Arts, Kresge Theatre and Great Hall.

Monday, March 3, 2014
Recent CMU PhD Kei Moriya's Paper Selected as a PRL “Editors' Suggestion”
For the second time in a year, a recent paper by Kei Moriya and the CLAS Collaboration has been selected as an “Editors’ Suggestion,” this time by Physical Review Letters.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Prof. Majetich Receives Seed Grant from CMU's Scott Institute for Energy Innovation
Professor Sara Majetich has received a seed grant from CMU's Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation to explore ways to make small powerful permanent magnets without the use of rare earth or noble metals.

Friday, January 10, 2014
Shirley Ho and Mariana Vargas-Magaña Co-Lead Measurement of the Scale of the Universe
An international group of researchers, including physicists from Carnegie Mellon University’s McWilliams Center for Cosmology, have made the most precise calibration of the standard ruler that is used to measure the universe.