Department of Physics | January 20, 2026

Happy Tuesday! 🎉 I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. 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. Looking forward to this semester together. Have a great week! 

New Frontiers in Electrical, Thermal, and Thermoelectric Transport Predictions with Jenny Coulter

Wednesday, January 21 at 3pm | Crow 204

Magnetic and electronic properties of Kitaev quantum spin liquid candidates Cu2IrO3 and Na2IrO3 under pressure with Gilberto Fabbris

Monday, January 26 at 3pm | Compton 241

Gilberto is an alumnus of our department, having earned his PhD in Physics here in 2014. We're excited to welcome him back and to hear about the work he's been doing since his time with us!

Neutrino-nucleus interactions and the quest for new and precision physics searches in neutrino experiments with Vishvas Pandey

Wednesday, January 28 at 3pm | Crow 204

Condensed Matter / Biophysics Seminar with Shizeng Lin

Monday, February 2 at 3pm | Compton 241

Emergent phases in Kitaev spin-orbital magnets with Onur Erten

Tuesday, February 3 at 3pm | Compton 241

Please note that while Condensed Matter / Biophysics Seminars typically fall on Mondays, this seminar will take place on Tuesday, February 3rd at 3pm. 

From January 4-8, ten people from WashU Physics attended the  247th American Astronomical Society (AAS) Meeting in Phoenix: Tansu Daylan, Manel Errando, Ekrem Esmer, Zifan Lin, Mike Nowak, Aysu Ece Sarıcaoğlu, Jacqueline Vazquez, Aavik Wadivkar, Bryce Wedig, and Nathan Whitsett. In addition to participating in sessions and discussions, our team hosted a booth to connect with prospective graduate students.

Krawczynski wins prestigious award from the American Astronomical Society

Henric Krawczynski has won the 2026 Bruno Rossi Prize, the most prestigious prize from the High Energy Astrophysics division of the AAS. The prize was awarded for Krawczynski's “pioneering contributions to the theory, instrumentation, and scientific interpretation of X-ray polarimetry."

mosAIcs & brAIns: Reimagining Art, Aesthetics, and Intelligence—One Tessera at a Time

What happens when one of humanity’s oldest art forms meets some of its newest scientific ideas? At the recent symposium mosAIcs & brAIns, the answer was a vibrant, provocative, and deeply human conversation—one that bridged contemporary mosaic practice, computational aesthetics, and emerging forms of computational creativity.

A Neutrino Mystery with Dr. Bhupal Dev

Bhupal Dev was recently interviewed by John Michael Godier for the Event Horizon podcast. They explored the perplexing 200 PeV particle detection beneath the Mediterranean Sea, nicknamed the “impossible neutrino.” 

Putting the Moon under a quantum diamond microscope

In an exercise that shows the potential of quantum sensing, Chong Zu & Chuanwei Zhang used their quantum diamond microscope — a device that runs on a flawed diamond crystal — to measure the magnetic properties of a tiny piece of Moon rock.

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