Department of Physics | March 23, 2026

Happy Monday! 🎉  As always, The Compton Chronicle newsletter is where you'll find department updates, upcoming events, exciting opportunities, and ways to get involved in our growing community. Have a great week! 

Strain-Tuned Electronic Structure in Bilayer Nickelates with Chunjing Jia

TODAY at 3pm | Compton 241

Planet Formation and Evolution Through a Statistical Lens with Sarah Blunt

Tuesday, March 24th at 2pm | Compton 340
Coffee and refreshments at 1:30pm in Compton 245
Please note that this colloquium has been moved to Tuesday at 2pm!

2026 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Colloquium with Andrea Ghez on Our Galactic Center

Wednesday, March 25th at 4:30pm | Wilson 214
Reception begins at 3:45pm

Quantum transport and frustrated magnetism in strained graphene with Christophe De Beule

Thursday, March 26th at 3pm | Compton 241

2026 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Public Lecture with Andrea Ghez on From the Possibility to the Certainty of a Supermassive Black Hole

Thursday, March 26th at 7pm | Whitaker 100

Exciting Stuff: Dynamical Excursions with Tunable Quantum Matter with Gal Shavit

Monday, March 30th at 3pm | Compton 241

Earth Made Its Own Nuclear Reactor—2 Billion Years Ago

Alex Meshik explains that four factors were precisely aligned to create the natural reactors: the extraordinary richness of the uranium ore vein at the site, groundwater that enabled the fission chain reactions, the unique geochemistry of the underground sites that prevented the reactors from overheating and blowing themselves apart, and the particular geological age when the Oklo reactors operated.

Ye Jin Han wins 2nd place at the 31st Annual Graduate Research Symposium in the Science & Math division for her presentation on Unmixing Skin Color: Untangling Chromophore Confounders For Improve Melanin Quantification

Congratulations, Ye Jin!

Please join us in congratulating our Professors Sheng Ran and Shankar Mukherji on their promotions to Associate Professors with tenure!

Their tenure begins on July 1, 2026. We're looking forward to having them with us for many years to come!

Congratulations, Sheng and Shankar!

The Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida (UCF) invites applications for two full-time, nine-month, benefits-eligible, non-tenure earning lecturer positions, anticipated to start in August 2026.

View details here and submit an application here!

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