Signal:Noise welcomes a new DJ for their February 19 show!
Here’s the lineup:
Show begins at 9 p.m. (21+; No Cover) at Fly by Night
Two UT Physics Joint Faculty Professors have been elected Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS), an honor that recognizes excellence in physics and exceptional service to the physics community.
An-Ping Li leads the Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Group and the Heterogeneities in Quantum Materials Theme at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He was recognized for pioneering contributions to multiprobe and spin-sensitive scanning tunneling microscopy that enable groundbreaking advances in understanding and control of atomic defects, interfaces, and precision synthesis.
Bronson Messer is Director of Science for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) at ORNL. The Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public elected him a Fellow for conveying the excitement and universal impact of physics to students, teachers, professionals, and the public via talks, multimedia, laboratory tours, popular national events, and for direct outreach to underserved Appalachian students and teachers.
Joint faculty appointments broaden opportunities for research collaborations and mentorship, allowing students to pursue master’s- and doctoral-level research at national laboratories. When Li joined ORNL as a research associate he began working with Physics Professor Hanno Weitering. After establishing himself as an independent researcher at the national laboratory, he developed a research program with the university as a joint faculty member and has mentored seven postdoctoral fellows from UT, including Wonhee Ko (who’s now an assistant professor). Messer has been the primary advisor for three UT Physics graduate students and has co-supervised eight others. He’s also a departmental alumnus, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1991 and a PhD in 2000. He translates that experience into the outreach that made him an APS Fellow.
“I think I was lucky to have ‘landed’ in the department as an undergraduate,” Messer said. “I had no idea what college or science or research was about. At all. I got excellent training, and I’m very interested in making sure that students who sound like me and might be just as bewildered get a feel for science being a process and a discipline, rather than being some secret writ.”
Affiliated faculty’s contributions to advancing physics research, training next-generation scientists, and inspiring public interest amplify the department’s impact in meeting the university’s land-grant mission and aspirations. This new class of APS Fellows joins 10 full-time physics faculty who have earned the honor, along with four Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
UT Physics and Astronomy is a growing and vibrant department looking for two outstanding candidates to join our dynamic faculty.
We’re inviting applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the field of Computational Astrophysics. The department has active research programs in computational nuclear, neutrino, and gravitational wave astrophysics, which are complemented by its research programs in experimental nuclear astrophysics. Both programs benefit from extensive collaboration with research scientists at the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and from the world-class facilities there. We seek candidates to complement and expand these research efforts.
Applications are due on December 1, 2025. For additional information or questions, please contact Professor Tony Mezzacappa via email at mezz@ukt.edu.
The anticipated start date is August 1, 2026.
We are also inviting applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the field of Theoretical Particle Physics. We are particularly seeking applicants who can work closely with our existing particle physics program.
The department has broad research programs in experimental collider and neutrino physics, with leadership in the CMS Experiment, COHERENT, and efforts towards future colliders. We build neutron experiments searching for baryon number violation and have an active program in quantum computing for high energy physics. These programs benefit from extensive collaboration with research scientists at the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and from the leadership-class facilities there, such as the Spallation Neutron Source, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. We seek a candidate to complement, connect, and expand these research efforts.
Applications are due on December 1, 2025. For other questions, please contact Professor Yuri Efremenko at yefremen@utk.edu.
This position’s anticipated start date is August 1, 2026.
Let’s kick off summer with some physics and electronic music! Your Harmonic Motion favorites are back with a new show!
What: signal:noise
Science & Reason (DJ Set) + ColliderScope (Physics VJ Set)
Who: Science & Reason + ColliderScope
Science & Reason = a mix of techno, dance, and house music (Bains Professor Steve Johnston)
ColliderScope = audio waveform-created images from CERN + sound waves across oscilloscope screens (Assistant Professor Larry Lee)
Where: Fly by Night, 906 Sevier Ave., Suite 126, Knoxville TN 37920
When: 24 May 2025 @ 9 PM, (21+, $5)
The Department of Physics and Astronomy gathered on May 5 for our annual Honors Day celebration to mark another year of amazing achievements. Staff, students, and faculty were recognized for their outstanding service, academic accomplishments, and research contributions.
Staff Honors
Extraordinary Departmental Service Award
This award recognizes extraordinary contributions of physics staff members. For her exceptional service organizing travel and managing reimbursement for hundreds of students, researchers, and faculty in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, this year’s honor went to Paula Keaton.
Undergraduate Awards
The undergraduate awards recognize both beginning and senior students for their accomplishments in academics, research, and leadership. For 2025 there were 10 exceptional nominees for these honors: Jordan Ashley, Olivia Clark, Daniel Dumont, Isabelle Garrett, Lindsey Hessler, Adam Krcal, Kinsley Lane, Isaac Noe, Jack Peltier, and Nathan Whittington.
The Outstanding First Year Physics Student Awards recognize extraordinary achievement by students in the first year of physics study. This year there were four honorees: Olivia Clark, Isabelle Garrett, Kinsley Lane and Nathan Whittington.
The Talley Awards are named for the late Robert Talley, who was a physics department distinguished alumnus and whose generosity made these honors possible.
The Talley Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research went to Jack Peltier, who works in Professor Robert Grzywacz’s nuclear physics group. He started out providing technical support like 3D printing and CAD design, with his responsibilities growing to include data analysis and detector construction. He is the first author on a Physics Letters B paper under review.
The Talley Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Leadership went to Lindsey Hessler. A double major in physics and business, she is part of the medium energy physics research group and took an active role in helping set up Assistant Professor Dien Nguyen’s 3He polarization lab. She has also designed presentations on professionalism and secured funding for a Women in Physics Mentorship Matrix to build camaraderie and offer career advice and mentoring to students and faculty.
The James W. McConnell Award for Academic Excellence recognizes students who have excelled in the classroom. This year’s awardee, Daniel Dumont, is a double major in physics along with biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology. He has a stellar transcript and has also excelled in the lab and in data analysis.
The most prestigious of our undergraduate awards is the Douglas V. Roseberry Distinguished Upper Classman Major Award, supported by the generosity of the Roseberry Family. This honor recognizes an upper level student who has excelled in academics, research, leadership, and building a departmental community. This year’s honoree is Jordan Ashley, who came to the department as a transfer student and has excelled both at particle physics research and revitalizing UT’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students. She has organized workshops, social events, conference travel, public outreach, and fundraising efforts. As SPS president, she has worked hard to make sure the chapter serves the physics student community.
Service Awards
Physics students make meaningful and thoughtful contributions to the department’s classrooms and teaching laboratories. This year 11 students were nominated for the service awards that acknowledge their investment of time and talent: Dessie Durham, Daniel DeSena, Ryan Elder, Josiah Elliott, Joseph Hewa, Ahmed Ismail, Ben Johnson, Brodie Kane, Marianna Pezzella, Caroline Riggall, and Adam Vendrasco.
For those efforts over the past academic year the department presented three Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards. The honors went to:
Ahmed Ismail: For extraordinary service as a GTA for graduate-level quantum mechanics.
Brodie Kane: For outstanding performance as a GTA in the studio labs for pre-health majors.
Caroline Riggall: For outstanding performance as a GTA in astronomy labs.
The department also recognized Ryan Elder with the James E. Parks Award, established by Physics Alumnus Richard Manley to honor students whose creativity and innovative thinking make a significant and positive difference in the teaching laboratories.
Graduate Awards
Graduate students are crucial to the department’s success in research, teaching, mentoring, and leadership. This year nine students were nominated for graduate awards: Chathuddasie Amarasinghe, Nora Bauer, Jordan O’Kronley, Louis Primeau, Caroline Riggall, Aya Rutherford, Brandi Skipworth, Jinu Thomas, and Colby Thompson.
The Stelson Fellowships are named for the late Paul Stelson, who had a prestigious career at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and served as an adjunct professor in the physics department. The Stelson Family established these honors to support outstanding graduate students, especially in their research endeavors.
The Stelson Fellowship for Beginning Research went to Louis Primeau. Working with Assistant Professor Yang Zhang, his focus is on topological transition, and quantum transport in two dimensional semiconductors for the precise measurements of quantum wavefunctions and potential applications. He has published papers in PRL and Progress in Quantum Electronics and has another accepted in Nature Electronics.
Jinu Thomas won the Stelson Fellowship for Professional Promise. As part of Bains Professor Steve Johnston’s group, he is working on an inelastic photon scattering technique that has become an essential probe of correlated materials. He has published in high-profile journals like npj Quantum Materials and Physical Review X. Last year he won a competitive US Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research fellowship.
The Fowler-Marion Award recognizes a graduate student who has made exceptional contributions to the department in scholarship, research, and departmental citizenship. This year’s honoree is Brandi Skipworth. She has been an outstanding GTA and plays a crucial role in a track-finder project for the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider, mastering the intricacies of track finding and statistical methods in her work with Assistant Professor Tova Holmes. She also mentors new graduate students, hosts social events for her fellow students, and serves on panels to best represent the department.
Faculty Awards
Each year the Society of Physics Students and the Graduate Physics Society choose an outstanding teacher and research advisor to recognize at Honors Day. This year’s awardees were:
Society of Physics Students Teacher of the Year Award: Professor Christine Nattrass
Society of Physics Students Research Advisor of the Year Award: Assistant Professor Tova Holmes
Graduate Physics Society Teacher of the Year Award: Bains Professor Steven Johnston
(Special Mention: Lincoln Chair Professor Cristian Batista)
Graduate Physics Society Research Advisor of the Year Award: Assistant Professor Dien Nguyen
(Special Mention: Professor David Alan Tennant)
Honors Day would not be possible without the hard work of the physics office staff: Yvonne Reall, Cheryl Huskey, Paula Keaton, and Showni Medlin-Crump. Thanks also to Brad Gardner and Paul Lewis for technical support and photography.
Join us Friday, May 9, for this month’s planetarium show: The Incredible Sun!
Every second, the Sun emits a million times more energy than the world consumes every year. Where does such a huge amount of power come from? Discover our star through the breathtaking time lapses. Thanks to the real images taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory and processed by advanced mathematical methods, you will experience the true nature of the Sun and find out that it is far from being as calm as it seems at first glance.
The one-hour event begins at 8 PM in the Nielsen Physics Building Planetarium (Room 108). The show is free and open to all ages, but seating is limited so please sign up beforehand. See you there!
Each year the College of Arts and Sciences honors faculty members who’ve excelled in teaching, advising, outreach, research and creative activity, and other aspects of the college’s mission. The Department of Physics and Astronomy was well-represented at the annual awards ceremony on March 31, when Assistant Professor Tova Holmes and Bains Professor Steve Johnston were recognized as outstanding researchers.
Understanding Matter’s Foundations
Holmes works in elementary particle physics and is deeply involved with research at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. She started at the ATLAS Experiment and is now part of the CMS Experiment, which sorts through the results of the LHC’s powerful particle collisions to search for new particles (and new physics) using the Compact Muon Solenoid Detector. She’s also turned her attention to the promise of a muon collider to further test the limits of what we understand about the particles and forces that make up all matter. Since joining the physics faculty in 2020, Holmes has won significant support and recognition for her work. In 2022 she was awarded a U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Award. In 2024 she won the university’s first-ever Cottrell Award and earlier this year she was named a Sloan Research Fellow. The college presented her with an Excellence in Research and Creative Achievement Award (Early Career.)
Decoding Quantum Materials
While Holmes focuses on particles, Bains Professor Steve Johnston wants to understand how and why quantum materials behave the way they do. As a condensed matter theorist, he applies mathematical models to demystify the complex interactions in quantum systems—those that defy the rules of classical physics models and have the potential to revolutionize science and technology (e.g., superconductivity). Johnston joined the faculty in 2014. Since then he has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2019), a UT Chancellor’s Citation Award for Extraordinary Professional Promise (2020), seen his research featured on the cover of Nature Physics, and played a key role in the university’s successful bid to win NSF funding for the Center for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (CAMM). Last year the department named him the Elizabeth M. Bains and James A. Bains Professor of Physics and Astronomy, support that enables him to develop and share a collection of codes (called SmoQy) to describe new quantum materials without having to start from scratch. He was honored with the college’s Excellence in Research and Creative Achievement Award (Mid-Career.)
While Holmes and Johnston have both won campus and national honors, the department’s students are equally impressed with their work, having selected Holmes as the Society of Physics Students Research Advisor of the Year and Johnston as the Graduate Physics Society Graduate Teacher of the Year (both in 2023).
In the past 10 years, physics faculty members have won 11 college research and creative achievement awards. Learn more about all the 2025 convocation awardees from the College of Arts and Sciences newsroom.
We depend on rare isotopes often without realizing it—in smoke detectors or PET scans, for example. These exotic nuclei are born in the cosmos and decay into elements found on Earth. Now scientists can create them at the state-of-the-art Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), where UT physicists play an important role.
For nearly three years FRIB has produced rare isotopes so researchers can figure out their structure and interactions, learning more about the science behind them and how they can be of benefit to society, all while training a new generation of scientists. A key to FRIB’s success is the innovative and flexible design of a detector system called the FDSi (FRIB Decay Station Initiator).
In an article for Nuclear Physics News, principal FDSi scientists Robert Grzywacz (UT Physics) and his colleague J.M. Allmond (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) review the system’s history, as well as its role in FRIB’s first experiments and potential for new discoveries.
The FDSi is an international collaborative effort stretching back a decade and Grzywacz has been involved from the beginning. This group of researchers designed, built, and put in place a modular combination of beta, neutron, and gamma-ray detectors to measure the decay of the most exotic nuclei produced at FRIB. The FDSi deployment is a three-phase mission, with the first completed in May 2022 and the second in February 2025. The third phase will expand the infrastructure to study FRIB beams with high-precision techniques. Ultimately the initiator system will lead to the FRIB Decay Station (FDS), which will adopt state-of-the-art detector technologies now in development.
Since FRIB began delivering isotopes in May 2022, the FDSi has been part of six experiments in support of the facility’s mission, with 13 approved experiments and 26 proposals submitted last fall. The impact includes four papers published in American Physical Society journals, including a Physical Review Letters outlining the first complete decay pattern of chlorine-45. UT Physics alumnus Ian Cox (’24), a student of Grzywacz, was the first author.
Nuclear Physics News reports on modern research in nuclear physics, including profiles of labs and facilities leading the way in innovation and discovery. Grzywacz and Allmond’s article “The FRIB Decay Station: New Horizons with Rare Isotopes” appeared online March 4.
Join us Friday, March 14, for Cosmic Origins Spectrograph!
The fun gets underway at 8 PM in the Nielsen Physics Building planetarium (Room 108) with a viewing of Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. The COS was an instrument installed on the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 during Servicing Mission 4. This show covers the basics of spectroscopy at a high level and touches on the processing of galactic and extragalactic gas. After the screening we’ll have a live star show!
The event is free and open to all ages, but due to limited seating registration is required. Sign up here!
