News & Honors Archive

Gladney to head committee on communal expectations for teaching and learning

headshot. Over the coming weeks, this committee, chaired by Yale Physics Professor and FAS Dean of Diversity and Development Larry Gladney, will work to develop a set of communal expectations for FAS teaching and learning that outline principles of mutual respect and understanding for faculty and students in our classroom interactions. The work will be highly collaborative, drawing on and consulting with the organizational structures that give voice to our communal well-being, including the Yale College Council, the Graduate Student Assembly, the FAS Faculty Senate, the residential colleges, and others across campus. Read more.

Wright Lab graduate students win fellowships

Hannah Bossi (pictured upper left), Samantha Pagan (lower left) and Arina Telles (lower right) have each been awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.  

Sumita Ghosh (pictured upper right) has been accepted into the triplet program of the Quantum Information Science and Engineering Network (QISE-NET), which includes funding for up to three years of research at a leading technology company or national laboratory

Joseph Shomar wins 2020 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship

headshot Congratulations to Yale Physics graduate student Joseph Shomar (advisor Damon Clark) upon winning a 2020 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, which is administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The program seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Luna Zagorac selected as a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) recipient

Yale Physics graduate student Luna Zagorac (advisor Nikhil Padmanabhan) has been selected as a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) recipient with her project “A Light in the Dark: UltraLight Dark Matter in Simulation and Observation”. The Astrophysics Division received 158 proposals, and Luna was one of the 19 selected. FINESST accepts proposals for graduate student-designed research projects that contribute to SMD’s science, technology, and exploration goals.

Ako Jamil awarded honorable mention for 2020 GIRA Award

scientist in lab. Wright Lab graduate student Ako Jamil has been awarded honorable mention for the competitive Graduate Instrumentation Research Award (GIRA) for his project “Development of a Low Radioactive Large Area SiPM Array for Ton-scale 0νββ” (advisor David Moore). The GIRA program aims to encourage and facilitate greater involvement of physics graduate students in significant instrumentation development, to boost recognition of instrumentation work as a vital part of PhD training, to foster growth of future HEP instrumentation experts in the US, and to strengthen university-lab ties on instrumentation development.  Read more.

da Silva Neto and Navon awarded national early career awards

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The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.  Two Yale Physics assistant professors have recently been awarded CAREER awards. 

  • Eduardo da Silva Neto (“Determining the Role of Intertwined Orders in Superconducting Quantum Materials”)

  • Nir Navon  (“Quantum mechanics far from equilibrium: Matter-wave turbulence”)

da Silva Neto was also awarded a $70,000 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to advance his work in Experimental Condensed Matter physics. These awards are given to those whose “achievements and potential place them among the next generation of scientific leaders in the US and Canada.” 

Miles Waits wins an F. Wilder Bellamy Jr. Memorial Prize

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Undergraduate physics major Miles Waits is one of eight juniors at Yale to win an F. Wilder Bellamy Jr. Memorial Prize for 2020, awarded to a junior who best exemplifies personal integrity, loyalty to friends, and high-spiritedness in athletics, academics, and social life.  His award profile is below.
 
If our college (Jonathan Edwards residential college) were a corporation, Miles would be its CEO — he is a man in charge, always making plans, dreaming big dreams, and recruiting partners in crime. Fortunately for JE, Miles is also a community-minded spirit with a good heart and great sense of humor. Miles has served as JE’s college council’s vice president for the past year and is the Yale College Council’s residential college deputy director. He is also an outreach fellow for Dwight Hall, providing one-on-one tutoring for local elementary students and working with New Haven Reads to recruit student volunteers. A physics major with a strong background in computer science, Miles somehow finds hours of his time to devote to organizing traditional JE events like apple-picking in the fall and skiing in the winter. He has also added new events like movie nights and the formation of a college textbook library. Miles is an active and happy participant in JE intramurals, having come to Yale as a decorated scholar-athlete in track and cross-country. Almost every event or undertaking happening in JE has Miles’ fingerprint on it somewhere. He is a friend to all but also a cheerleader, coach, and master of ceremonies. Read more.