On Thursday April 18, 2022, the Department of Physics held a reception in honor of Sarah Fisher, who successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled: “An investigation into nonstandard theories of gravity“. Dr. Fisher’s thesis was completed under the direction of Professor Eric Carlson.
The Department of Physics would like to welcome Candace Ring as our new Academic Coordinator. Candace earned her BS in physics at UNC Greensboro before working at Vanguard. We are very excited to have her join us!
A team of researchers at Wake Forest University, the University of Kentucky and Princeton University have received a rare and coveted National Science Foundation Special Creativity extension for their current grant. This award allows the group to take on high-risk, high-reward opportunities in electronic materials. Physics professor Oana Jurchescu leads the Wake Forest effort… [Read More]
Dr Ajay Ram Srimath Kandada received his PhD in Physics from Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 2013 for his work on ultrafast spectroscopy of organic photovoltaic materials. He subsequently moved to the Italian Institute of Technology as a post-doctoral researcher to investigate the excited state dynamics and defect physics of bulk metal-halide perovskites. In 2016, he received the Marie Sklodowska Curie global fellowship from the European Commission to investigate coherent exciton dynamics using advanced optical spectroscopies at University of Montreal (Canada), Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) and at the Italian Institute of Technology (Italy). He was appointed as Adjunct Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University in 2020 and later as tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2022. His research interests include electronic and optical properties of emerging semiconductors probed by ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy and quantum-optical methods.
Stephen Winter received his PhD degree from the University of Waterloo (Canada) in 2014, for his work in the area of strongly correlated organic materials. He subsequently moved to the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Frankfurt (Germany) as an NSERC postdoctoral scholar to develop new theoretical approaches for quantum materials with strong spin-orbital coupling. He continued there as a Junior Project Leader. His research career has spanned a variety of topics in chemistry and physics, which has included a combination of synthetic, experimental, and theoretical efforts. Before joining the faculty at WFU in Fall 2020 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, he had coauthored over 45 papers in materials research. His current research interests include theoretical modelling of complex materials with coupled spin, charge, and orbital degrees of freedom.
The Physics Department and Wake Forest University are saddened by the recent loss of retired physics professor Richard T. Williams who passed away July 5, 2021, after a brief struggle with AML leukemia. He was 75.
Professor Williams earned a BS in physics at Wake Forest in 1968 and was the first Speas Award recipient for distinguished work in physics (the highest undergraduate award). He then earned an MA in 1971 and a PhD in physics in 1974 at Princeton.
After a successful early career at the Naval Research Laboratory, he was recruited back to Wake Forest as the Reynolds Professor of Physics. Professor Williams increased the reputation and visibility of the Wake Forest physics department by helping to establish its PhD program in the 1980s. He mentored the first physics PhD graduate and was the first endowed professor within the department.
After formally retiring from the University in 2017, Professor Williams remained active in research at the Wake Forest Nanotech Center.
A complete memorial and obituary can be found at https://www.salemfh.com/obituaries/Dr-Richard-T-Williams?obId=21659950#/obituaryInfo.
Ph.D. graduate, Hamna Iqbal, wins the 2021 Gordon A. Melson Outstanding PhD Student Award. This is a university award that recognizes performance in research productivity, quality, originality, importance, and impact in the field, along with outstanding academic record, activity in the discipline and university, and departmental citizenship.
Professor Oana Jurchescu was awarded the 2019-20 Graduate School Student Association Faculty Excellence Award. This award is to recognize a graduate school faculty member for his/her service to advance the graduate school program. The recommendation letters for the award were provided by graduate students and focus on the time devoted to interaction with the students, the commitment to the educational process, and excellence in teaching/mentoring.
On Thursday, April 22, 2021 Physics Department grad student, Melissa Pashayan successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled: “Tunable Collagen I Matrices for Cellular Migration Assay and Mechanical Properties of Mitotic Mammary Cells“. Ms. Pashayan’s thesis was completed under the direction of Professor Jed Macosko.
On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 Physics Department grad student, Ren Ton successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled: “Considerations on Two Types of Solid-State Dosimeters for Ionization Radiation“. Mr. Tong’s thesis was completed under the direction of Professor J. Daniel Bourland.
