Physics

Early-Career Honors at IFS Drive Discovery Beyond the Lab

PHYSICS -At the University of Oregon’s Institute for Fundamental Science, a growing number of faculty have earned prestigious honors from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, which signal both individual excellence and the institute’s positive research trajectory. The most recent winner is CAS physicist Tien-Tien Yu, who received an NSF CAREER Award followed by the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Scientists find a black hole spewing more energy than the Death Star

PHYSICS - A supermassive black hole with a case of cosmic indigestion has been burping out the remains of a shredded star for four years — and it’s still going strong, new research led by University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences astrophysicist Yvette Cendes. Cendes and her team published findings about this one-of-kind black hole in the Feb. 5 issue of Astrophysical Journal Astrophysicists.

Physicist Kayla Nguyen earns early career innovation award

PHYSICS - An assistant professor of physics at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences, Nguyen has been named the 2025 recipient of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Maria Goeppert Mayer Award. Named after a German American theoretical physicist who was co-awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics, this award honors exceptional achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career.
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Preparing for a Quantum Leap

PHYSICS - A team of physicists in the College of Arts and Sciences are part of a $1.245 million US Department of Defense research project, along with the UCLA and MIT. The goal of the project is to improve the function of quantum computers. The work is being done in the Oregon Ions Group research lab, which is led by CAS’s 2012 Nobel Prize recipient and Philip H. Knight Distinguished Research Chair David Wineland and physics assistant professor David Allcock.

CAS physicists honored with prestigious fellowship awards

PHYSICS - University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences physicists Eric Corwin and Ben McMorran were awarded 2025 American Physical Society Fellowships. Corwin was recognized for his outstanding contributions to the physics of the glass and jamming transitions using simulations and experiments. McMorran was recognized for his contributions to electron matter wave physics.
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Summer workshop sparks inclusive teaching across UO science courses

During the summer, 25 faculty members from the college’s Division of Natural Sciences took part in the Mobile Summer Institute for Scientific Teaching. The weeklong workshop offered faculty members ways to transform traditional lectures to be more inclusive and hands on that puts students at the center of learning. It brought together instructors not only from disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and physics—and across the campus.
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Cracking the Cosmos: How particle physics is helping unravel the mysteries of our universe

PHYSICS - Far from home, Eric Torrence, a physics professor at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences, will spend the next year and a half as the ATLAS Run Coordinator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). After being elected to the position fall 2024, Torrence ensures the largest particle accelerator in the world continuously produces usable data from May 2025 to July 2026.
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