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Physics is happy to announce that two students connected to our department have recently won the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship Award. The first is Kaitlin McAllister who is an undergraduate Physics major working with Prof. Bozhko on the physics of spin waves. Kaitlin designed and created a near-field scanning microwave microscope, one of only a few in the country. She is an avid researcher, with interests in both biophysics, magnetism, and space physics. UCCS Physics also had a strong connection to another Goldwater Scholarship winner this year. Arjun Kudinoor, who is now at Columbia University, took both undergraduate and graduate physics classes here at UCCS while a high school student! He also did some research, on magnetic materials with an exchange gradient, with Prof. Camley and, as a result, is a coauthor on a published paper with several UCCS physics faculty members and an international collaborator. These are the first Goldwater Scholarship awards associated with UCCS in the past 10 years! The awards can be up to $7,500/year for up to two years. | MORE

 

 

We are shocked and saddened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Our partnership with Ukrainian Science, with scientists in and from Ukraine, in particular in the field of Condensed Matter Physics, is very strong. Our thoughts are in Ukraine and with our colleagues and with all of the families who are impacted by this war.

 

 

The scholarship is named for a UCCS Physics Professor and Chair, James Burkhart, who generated the funding for the award through his Radon work and is now serving as an Emeritus Professor. The award supports students working toward a PhD in Applied Science with a specialization in Physics. The three students are: River Gassen (supervisor Dr. Kathrin Spendier), who works on expanding the applications of magnetic particles as drug delivery systems, to cut through mucus and also studying their behaviors as influenced by an oscillating magnetic field; Renju Peroor (supervisor Dr. Dmytro Bozhko), who works on generation of magnons using parametric pumping and studies the propagation of magnons in YIG films for quantum magnonic applications; Viktoriia Savchuk (supervisor Dr. Kelly McNear), who works in the field of plasmonics as well as studies the optical properties of the metal nanoparticles and hybrid plasmonic nanostructures. Congratulations!

 

Congratulations go out to Dr. Tim Fal. Dr. Fal, a Senior Instructor in Physics, was awarded the 2020 UCCS Campus-Wide Instructor of the Year Award. Tim is starting his 6th year of teaching physics at UCCS and has high standards and great rapport with students. One student comment summed up his teaching like this - "Dr. Fal’s class smacked me in the face – hard. His class was, and is, the single most challenging, dreaded, taxing, and above all inspiring class I have ever taken. Each lecture was a thought-provoking discussion that made me ask myself why I was not pursuing a physics degree." | MORE

 

An all-female team of Colorado physicists, including former associate professor of physics Karen Livesey and UCCS alumna Alex Stuart ’19, recently published scientific research on the properties of magnetic domain walls.| MORE

 

Congratulations to Casey Chalifour, Jonathon Davidson, and Brianne McGrath. Competing with students from CU Boulder, Colorado State University, Wyoming University, and Colorado School of Mines, our UCCS students each won a "Best Poster" presentation award (and $100) in the recent Front Range Advanced Magnetics Symposium meeting in August 2020. Despite the stiff competition from the other, larger, universities, UCCS Physics students captured 50% of all the student prizes. | MORE

 

Assistant Prof. Dmytro Bozhko publishes an article on Bose-Einstein condensation triggered by rapid cooling, which could lead to advancement of quantum nanotechnology. The research is published in Nature Nanotechnology | MORE

 

Physics PhD candidate Brianne McGrath took out the first place award at the UCCS 3MT competition in January 2020. | MORE

 

Physics PhD candidate Jason Nobles wins the 2019 Harry Lustig Award from American Physical Society. | MORE

 

Prof. Glushchenko was presented with the Faculty Award for Excellence in Research. | MORE

 

Condensed matter experimentalist Dmytro Bozhko will join UCCS Physics as an Assistant Professor in August 2019. | MORE
 

Physics PhD candidate Matthew Copus wins the 2019 UCCS Mt Lion Grad Slam and goes on to regional 3 Minute Thesis competitions. | MORE
 

Assist. Prof. Spendier together with Dr Guy Hagen in Biofrontiers win National Institute of Health award, starting in July 2018. | MORE
 

In August 2018, UCCS hosted the 4th annual edition of the Front Range Advanced Magnetics Symposium with 62 attendees. | MORE
 

US News and World Reports ranks UCCS Physics for the first time. | MORE

 

Prof. Pinchuk was presented with the Faculty Award for Excellence in Research. | MORE

 

Physics PhD candidate Patrick Yarbrough took out an award at the inaugural UCCS 3MT competition in May 2018. | MORE
 

Assist. Prof. Karen Livesey will travel to the Perimeter Institute in Canada. | MORE
 

Ramon Tirado, senior instructor, used a 10-inch diameter telescope to provide a close-up view on the first day of the Fall 2017 semester. | MORE
 

Prof. Celinski's promotion was announced at a November 2016 meeting of the CU Board of Regents. | MORE
 

Physics professors were among those lauded at the 2016 Celebration of Sponsored Programs. | MORE

 

UCCS physics professor recognized with 2015 Excellence in Leadership Award. | MORE
 

at the Front Range Advanced Magnetics Symposium (Sep 2015) and the APS 4 Corners Meeting (Oct 2015) for her theoretical work on magnetic domain walls in nanowires.