Past Events

Jan

29

Seminar

Physics Colloquium: "Strategy configuration determines interaction patterns in partner-switching evolutionary games" Presented by Dr. Hsuan-Wei Lee - Lehigh

Location:

LL 316

January 29, 2026, 4:25 - 5:25pm

According to prior research on partner-switching games, altering partners could stabilize cooperation. Yet the role of per-edge (interactive diversity, ID) vs. per-node (interactive identity, II) strategies under a single co-evolutionary rule remains deficiently understood. In this…

Jan

22

Seminar

Physics Colloquium: "Decoding Mechanical Signals at the Subcellular Level" Presented by Dr. Zheng Shi - Rutgers

Location:

LL 316

January 22, 2026, 4:25 - 5:25pm

The surface of a cell experiences frequent stretching and compression. The resulting membrane tension is converted to intracellular electrochemical signals via mechanosensitive proteins such as Piezo channels. However, our understanding of the subcellular sorting and activation of…

Dec

4

Event

Physics Colloquium: "DNA-assembled molecular aggregates as materials for quantum information science" Presented by Dr. Ryan Pensack - Boise State University

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

December 4, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Materials composed of conjugated organic molecules mediate energy conversion essential to life on earth, as in photosynthesis, and have great potential in quantum information science (QIS). For example, Josephson junctions based on superconductors, which are currently the primary…

Nov

20

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Vacuole membranes of hungry yeast are tiny, living, phase-separating thermostats" Presented by Dr. Sarah Keller - University of Washington

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

November 20, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Liquid-liquid phase separation in living biological membranes is usually described as occurring on sub-micron length scales. A stunning counterexample occurs in S. cerevisiae. When the yeast shift from the log stage of growth to the stationary stage, huge, micron-scale liquid domains…

Nov

13

Event

Physics Colloquium: "High rank multipole order: feeling the strain" Presented by Dr. Ian Fisher - Stanford University

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

November 13, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Interactions can lead to a wide variety of ordered states in materials. Phase transitions in which local atomic states develop spontaneous high rank multipole order provides a particularly rich arena for new insights. A key element in the study of such systems is the ability to couple…

Nov

6

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Resolving the Proton Spin Puzzle: Insights from RHIC and the Road to the EIC" Presented by Dr. Kenneth Barish- UC Riverside

Location:

LL 316

November 6, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

The proton is a composite object, consisting of quarks and gluons, that possesses an intrinsic angular momentum, or spin. As a fundamental quantum mechanical property, spin profoundly influences the proton’s physical characteristics, including its optical, electrical, and magnetic…

Oct

30

Event

Physics Colloquium: May the Force Be with Her: Nuclear Envelope Dynamics in C. elegans Oocyte Development" Presented by Dr. Chenshu Liu - Lehigh University

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

October 30, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Sexual reproduction depends on meiosis—the specialized cell division that halves the chromosome number—and the successful maturation of oocytes into viable eggs. In humans, this is an unusually prolonged process that can take up to 50 years to complete. Errors during meiosis or oocyte…

Oct

23

Event

Physics Colloquium: “Phases: Geometric, topological and localized” Presented by Dr. Rahul Roy - UCLA

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

October 23, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

What makes one phase of matter different from another? For much of physics, the answer has been guided by symmetry and its breaking. Yet we now know that this is only part of the story. Topological phases of matter defy this framework: they can have no local order parameter and yet…

Oct

16

Event

Physics Colloquium: “Exploring order and disorder in quantum and classical networks” Presented by Dr. Bryce Gadway - Penn State

Location:

Lewis Lab 316

October 16, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Interactions can lead to ordering and synchronization in a range of physical systems, from the flocking of birds to the alignment of spin domains in magnets. Understanding the mechanisms for stabilizing or destabilizing synchronization and ordering is important in the classical world,…

Oct

9

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Quantum geometry beyond single flat bands and Euler exact projected entangled pair ground states" Presented by Dr. Robert Jan-Slager - Cambridge

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

October 9, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

The past few years have seen a revived interest in quantum geometrical characterizations. Although the metric tensor has been connected to many geometrical concepts for single bands, the exploration of these concepts to a multi-band paradigm still promises a new field of interest. I…

Oct

2

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Back to fundamental QCD - a tale of quarks and gluons!" Presented by Dr. Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli - Vanderbilt University

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

October 2, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

Collider experiments have proven themselves immensely useful in studying the behavior of fundamental particles such as quarks and gluons. The last few years in particular have seen a push towards an exploration of QCD, the theory of strong interactions, that has hitherto been…

Sep

25

Event

Physics Colloquium: "Two-channel Kondo Physics: from intrinsic criticality to unconventional orders" Presented by Dr. Rebecca Flint - Iowa State

Location:

Lewis Lab, 316

September 25, 2025, 4:25 - 5:25pm

The interactions between local moments and itinerant electrons gives rise to a rich array of ``Kondo'' physics, from heavy Fermi liquids to unconventional superconductivity and quantum criticality.  Here, I'll introduce the even richer two-channel Kondo physics, where two…