Department of Physics at Lehigh University

2022 has been a terrific year for the Department of Physics.  Professor Volkmar Dierolf has won the 2022 Libsch Prize for Research, and Professor Rosi Reed has won the Libsch Early Career Research Award.  The Libsch prizes are Lehigh’s annual awards for excellence in research, and Physics has won them both!  Rosi has also been selected to serve on the Department of Energy/National Science Foundation Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, an appointment already approved by Congress.  Professors Bitan Roy and Timm Wrase have received Class of 68 Research Awards.  Professor Paola Cereghetti has been promoted to Teaching Associate Professor.  Others in the department have won a variety of new research awards that are listed below.

2022 has also been a year of transition for the Department.  Professor Joshua Pepper will spend two years as a Program Scientist in the Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.  A visiting assistant professor, Dr. Andrew McNeill, an astrophysicist with expertise in asteroids and minor planets, will join us for two years beginning this summer.  

Two Lehigh staff members who have supported the department for decades, Richard White and Pamela Gescek, retired at the end of the spring semester after careers at Lehigh of 40-plus years.  Joann Deppert, who supported our graduate program in 2021-2022, has also retired.  We thank Rich, Pam, and Joann for their dedication to the Department of Physics and wish them long, pleasant retirements.  To replace retiring staff, we have had the good fortune to recruit Marina Long as our new Business Manager and Alicia Hepner as our new Department Coordinator.  Marina and Alicia are excited to be taking on new responsibilities.  I am confident that we are in capable hands.

Fellowship support from a generous donor has helped expand our graduate program to 48 students.  Several of our graduate students (Autumn Anthony, Ian Crawley, Zhiyu Jiang, Skipper Kagamaster, and Amanda Ratajczak) have earned their Ph.D. in 2022, and 10 new students have been recruited to join our program.  Graduate student Haley Austin won the Graduate Research Prize of the College of Arts and Sciences.  And Joseph Jiang won the University Teaching Award.

The following is a selection of recently funded, major research awards from multiple agencies:

• Sera Cremonini and Timm Wrase, NSF, Strings, gravity, and strongly coupled matter.
• Volkmar Dierolf and H. Jain, NSF, Spatially selective phase transformations of glass to single crystal 3D architectures.
• Volkmar Dierolf and H. Jain, DoE, Early stages of single crystal formation in glass under external constraints.
• Chinedu Ekuma, NSF, Excited-state properties and the impact of random defects in quantum materials.
• Aurelia Honerkamp-Smith and D. Thevenin, NIH, Full sail ahead: How membranes move and respond to flow.
• Daniel Ou-Yang and Aurelia Honerkamp-Smith, NSF, Advanced imaging and characterization at the interface between living and nonliving materials.

It is exciting that several of these research grants have been won by junior faculty members.  The outstanding success of our junior faculty shows that the future is bright for Lehigh’s Department of Physics and its students!

We have emerged from COVID restrictions at Lehigh, and alumni and emeritus faculty have been able to visit in-person.  We have enjoyed visits from Carl Albright, Thomas Cahill, Hyo Sang Lee, and George Watkins.  Many thanks for your interest in the Department of Physics.  If you would like to visit, please don’t hesitate.

All the best,

Michael Stavola