Department of Physics
University of Oregon

UO Physics Department News Items

• 2 June 2008 Physics Senior Research Associate Robert Schofield played an important role in the recently released LIGO results which set important limits on the gravitational radiation from the Crab Nebula. See the UO press release for details.
• 1 February 2008 Prof. Raghuveer Parthasarathy has been awarded an NSF CAREER award for "Bio-Membrane Mediated Colloidal Assembly."
• 6 April 2007 Prof. David Sokoloff has been awarded the 2007 Robert A. Millikan Award of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). The award honors his leadership in redesigning lecture demonstrations to make them effective learning experiences.
• February 2007 Prof. Raghu Parthasarathy has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. This two year fellowship from the privately endowed Alfred P. Sloan foundation is very competitive. There were 23 fellowships in physics this year.
• January 2007 Prof. Brian Matthews has been named editor-in-chief of the journal Protein Science. [Recorded 2 February 2007]
• November 2006 Prof. Michael Raymer has been named Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences by the University of Oregon in recognition of investigations into the quantum nature of light and his success in undergraduate teaching. [Recorded 2 February 2007]
• September 2006 Prof. James Brau has been named Knight Professor of Natural Science by the University of Oregon in recognition of his singular accomplishments in experimental high energy physics. [Recorded 2 February 2007]
• 13 November 2006 Profs. Wang and Toner have been elected to be Fellows of the American Physical Society.
• Spring 2006 The University of Oregon Foundation has received a very nice gift in support of graduate student education in physics from Mr. Les Matson of Roseberg, Oregon. Mr. Matson has a deep interest in physics and has taken several graduate classes in our department. [Recorded 13 November 2006.]
• Spring 2006 The University of Oregon Foundation has received a very nice gift in support of gradudate student education in physics from Dr. Ruibin Meng, who earned his Ph.D. degree here. Recorded 13 November 2006.]
• Spring 2006 Prof. James Brau has been appointed to the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council. This board is the principal forum for issues connected with the fields of physics and astronomy for the National Academy of Science and the other National Academies. [Recorded 13 November 2006.]
• Winter 2006 Prof. James Brau has been appointed to the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the United States Department of Energy. This panel advises the federal government on the national program in experimental and theoretical high energy physics. [Recorded 13 November 2006.]
• 21 March 2006 The Science section of the New York Times has a "Science Illustrated" story on the work of Prof. Heiner Linke on the ratchet effect that can make a liquid droplet march up a staircase that is at a temperature much larger than the boiling temperature of the liquid. The article is "Making Water Flow Uphill (Think of It as a Hovercraft)." It recommends movies of this process at Prof. Linke's website. In a subtle reminder of where the first movie is from, the size scale is indicated by a quarter dollar coin featuring Crater Lake.
• 6 March 2006 Professor Jim Brau has been appointed to the U.S. government's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel. The panel provides advises the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation on the national high energy physics program. As a panel member, Brau will provide advice on the program's long-range plans, priorities and strategies, and recommend appropriate levels of funding to assure a world leadership position, while maintaining an appropriate balance between competing elements of the program. There is a story about this in Inside Oregon.
• 27 February 2006 Thomason Scientific, the people who do ISI Web of Knowledge, has named Professors Brau, Frey, and Strom among the ten researchers in all fields of science with the "hottest" papers. The researchers named in their proprietary newsletter Science Watch published the most of what they call Hot Papers, defined as recent papers with lots of citations, in the latest two-year period. The papers in question are from the LIGO and BaBar experiments. This kind of crude citation count may not be a good way to judge scientific research, but it's nice to be noticed. See also the 9 January 2006 item.
• 13 February 2006 In response to a request from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, Professor Richard Taylor has analyzed the fractal structure of six paintings claimed to be by abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollok. His results were reported in a news feature in Nature. "I found significant deviations from Pollock's characteristics," says Taylor, while cautioning that criteria other than the fractal structure he examined need to be considered. The story was picked up by the New York Times and the Eugene Register Guard.
• 5 February 2006 Professor Michael Raymer has been appointed a Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review Letters, with responsibilities for Laser Science. See the PRL Masthead. Physical Review Letters is arguably the premier physics journal in the world. The Divisional Associate Editors help in the selection of referees and in deciding on acceptance or rejection of papers in disputed cases.
• 9 January 2006 Inside Oregon reports that two UO researchers were selected as among the "most cited" scientists by ISI Web of Knowledge. The two are Greg Bothun and Brian Matthews of our department.
• 9 January 2006 Cascade, the CAS publication, has a nice story "Honoring the Hundredth Time" on the UO Physics Department. This story was beautifully written by Jill Leininger with input from Russell Donnelly and Bernd Crasemann.
• 4 January 2006 Professor Dan Steck has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant for "Continuous Measurements of Quantum Dynamical Systems." This one year award from the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is renewable for a total of five years and should get his program off to a very good start. For 2006, the NSF Physics Division across all fields awarded only 9 CAREER grants nationwide, and Professor Steck's was one of them.