Lehigh University’s Department of Physics begins a new semester with much to be excited about. After a year of remote instruction, it will be fun to have undergraduate students back on campus along with a new slate of graduate students who will be joining us. We should no longer take these ordinary renewals in our annual cycle for granted.
Many thanks are due to Professor Volkmar Dierolf for the 12 terrific years he has been Chair of Physics. He has made a highly positive imprint on the Department of Physics that will last for decades. Professor Dierolf’s ideas for attracting diverse faculty candidates along with his strong involvement in every search has brought exceptional people to Lehigh. The job of his successor will be to help this new group of junior faculty launch their careers in research and teaching and to guide them through tenure and promotion.
The success of our faculty in winning funding to support our research programs has been remarkable. The following is a selection of recently funded, major research programs:
- Ivan Biaggio, DoE, Singlet and triplet exciton interaction and dynamics in molecular crystals
- Volkmar Dierolf, NSF, Next generation rare earth based light-emitters for solid-state display & quantum information technology applications
- Aurelia Honerkamp-Smith, Kauffman Foundation, Full sail ahead: How do cells sense and decode flow?
- Rosi Reed, NSF Career, Using jets as a probe of the quark gluon plasma
- Ariel Sommer, NSF, Non-equilibrium interfaces in strongly interacting Fermi gases
- Dimitrios Vavylonis, NIH, Modeling mechanisms in cytokinesis, cell polarization and motility
- Timm Wrase, NSF, Research in string theory, supergravity and cosmology
A glance at this list reveals multi-agency support in excess of $4.5M for new Lehigh research programs across a broad range of topics at the frontiers of physics. You can find particle physics, atomic physics, cellular biology, condensed matter physics, and astrophysics all at Lehigh!
The Department has also been the recipient of generous donations for which it is grateful. There has been a gift from a former student to support our astrophysics program and another gift to seed exploratory research.
This is an exciting time for Lehigh Physics. Many thanks for your interest in the Department of Physics. Don’t hesitate to visit us.
All the best,
Michael Stavola