It has been about a year since our last newsletter, and it has been an eventful year with new hires and growth in our undergraduate and graduate student enrollment. Recent faculty recruitments include Michel Devoret, coming from Yale; Caitlin Casey and Brendan Bowler, coming from UT Austin; and Prateek Agrawal, coming from Oxford. We continue to have a large number of undergraduates in the program, with UCSB recently graduating more physics majors than any other US institution (179 in 2023 and 123 in 2024). We welcomed 35 excellent grad students last year, and the number of applications to our grad program continues to rise (1293 this year vs 1140 last year).
Our updated undergraduate curriculum continues to expand, with the most recent new courses including an optics lab for undergraduates and machine shop training for both graduate and undergraduate students. We also have several special topics courses being taught this year, and a growing number of undergraduate students involved in independent research projects. Developing and maintaining opportunities for our undergraduates to participate in the department’s research remains an important goal. Research experience and other project-based learning are great ways for our students to broaden their technical and critical thinking skills, build confidence in real-world problem solving, and develop pragmatism, which are all a foundation for broad career opportunities. We are thrilled to see a growing number of students successfully engaging in such projects, which is made possible by generous support from donors, mentoring by both faculty and graduate students, and the students' vigorous curiosity!
This past year, we have had several alumni visit campus for workshops, seminars, or colloquia. We take the opportunity to arrange informal lunch chats where students can ask our alumni guests questions about their recent work and career paths; I’ve been pleased to see the students’ enthusiasm to hear about the breadth of paths taken by our alumni. I’ve also had the opportunity during recent travels to connect with several alumni and friends of the department, including chats over coffee, lunch, or dinner, as well as a wonderful alumni reception in NY city in December. We are planning to have a department event during April’s All-Gaucho Reunion, including Broida lab tours; it would be great to see many of you then.
I hope you enjoy reading the updates from the department in this newsletter, and we would be delighted to hear updates from you. If you’d like to subscribe to more frequent news about the department, you can do so at this link.
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David Stuart
Department Chair
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Save the date! Physics Open House at All Gaucho Reunion 2025 |
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Physics Open House to be held on Saturday, April 26, as part of the 2025 All Gaucho Reunion. You will be able to:
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Witness an interactive presentation by Prof. Mark Sherwin on "A journey to the heart of the electromagnetic spectrum" Register here for this event.
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Try one of the biofeedback devices for chronic pain developed by Professor Paul Hansma's group and learn about the successes in chronic pain studies at UC Santa Barbara. Look for a demo table on the Chem Lawn.
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Join Physics Lab Tours. Register for: Dogic Lab tour, Mazin Lab tour, Sherwin Lab tour, Weld Lab tour.
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Three new faculty members join UCSB Physics |
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Brendan Bowler’s research addresses questions about when planets form, how planetary architectures evolve, and the behavior of planetary atmospheres spanning a broad range of timescales. Ultimately his objective is to directly characterize terrestrial worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars to search for metabolic byproducts of life—one of the most formidable but consequential goals of modern astronomy.
Caitlin Casey is an observational astronomer who studies the assembly of the most massive galaxies in the Universe. By finding the most extreme galaxies formed at the earliest times, she can test fundamental laws of physics within our cosmological framework.
Michel Devoret’s research focuses on experimental condensed matter physics, with specific emphasis on a field he and his colleagues initiated, known as "quantronics," Michel’s team showed that it was possible to stop a quantum jump in its flight and reverse it, a milestone in quantum control.
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Physics in the News: September 2023 - August 2024 |
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Read below articles from The Current about some of the impactful research carried out this past year by our faculty, postdocs and students.
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Mark Srednicki has retired |
Article by Gary Horowitz, Physics
Mark Srednicki, Professor of Physics, has retired after 40 years on the faculty at UCSB.
Mark grew up in the small town of Mogadore, Ohio, with a keen interest in math and science that was encouraged by his parents, Casimir and Helen Srednicki, from an early age.
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Mark joined the UCSB Physics Department as an Assistant Professor in 1983. “I felt very lucky to get the offer. UCSB Physics was and is an incredibly vibrant and exciting place. The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics had started up just a few years earlier, and was already bringing through the world’s leading experts in all areas of physics for workshops on various problems of interest.”
Mark has always been generous with his time and very supportive of students, postdocs, and other faculty. People often consult him for advice on many issues. He is highly respected in the department and helped guide its growth and development in many ways. Most importantly, he served as vice-chair from 2000 – 2005, and chair from 2005 – 2010. Especially during this time, the department benefited from Mark’s wisdom and caring nature.
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Alumni in the Spotlight: an Interview with Len DeBenedictis ‘62 |
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Len DeBenedictis obtained his BA in Physics at UC Santa Barbara in 1962. After completing an MS in Physics at San Diego State University in 1964, he went on to be co-founder, CTO, and CEO of Reliant Technologies where he invented and developed the Fraxel brand of medical aesthetic lasers. He then served as CTO of several companies, including Zeltiq Aesthetics from which he retired in 2017.
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He currently lives in Santa Barbara, where he continues to consult for several Bay Area high-tech companies, while also challenging himself with physics graduate courses at UCSB, including Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Cosmology, Relativistic Quantum Field Theory. He currently serves as an elected trustee of the UCSB Foundation and says "I support UCSB because I think that it helps good people become productive contributors, successful entrepreneurs and successful citizens. I am grateful for what it provided for me and want to give back.’’
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The Department’s NSF Physics Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program Completes its 5th Summer |
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Founded in 2019 by Professor Sathya Guruswamy, and supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site grant, the UCSB Physics REU program recently completed its 5th summer of offering research and professional development opportunities to Physics and Astronomy undergraduates from across the country.
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The Department of Physics would like to express its sincere appreciation to the following for their philanthropic support. Your gifts make it possible for the department to continue to advance excellence in our academic program, which continues to be one of the best in the world.
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If you would like to continue to support the Department of Physics, you can give online at the link below or contact Bethany Innocenti for more options. bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu | 805-680-0052
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