News

The Microanalysis Society has awarded the Macres Award for the Best Instrumentation/Software Paper to the paper Paul Carpenter presented at the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2023 meeting.

Charlie Fallon, class of 2025, has been awarded the Baines Family Planetary Sciences Scholarship this year.

After four years with the instrument encased in snow, the SuperTIGER "Rescue Rangers" were finally able to send it home this year.

NASA’s Stardust mission to Comet Wild 2 has revealed its secrets very slowly. They’re finally coming together, however, and the results are showing that the outer Solar System in its early days was not the simple place previously thought. How one comet came to have dust from widely separated parts of the early Solar System remains unanswered, however.

The Department of Physics and the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences participated in the Graduate School and Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Fair held on January 7, 2024, during the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in New Orleans.

Faculty and university leadership selected Jia Gwee, a graduate student in biology, as the winner of the 2023 Dean’s Award for Graduate Research Excellence. Ten additional graduate students were also recognized.

A team of researchers including physics professor Kater Murch has found a shortcut to establishing a baffling phenomenon of quantum physics.

Research supported by the Center for Quantum Leaps advances the field of quantum simulation using an atomic-level quantum system.

WashU is a leading partner in NASA research, from the first Moon missions to future journeys probing the distant reaches of the cosmos.

Sohee Chun was recently awarded one of NASA’s prestigious FINESST grants to support her Ph.D. work.

Researchers in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis received $1.5 million from NASA to fund a new flight of XL-Calibur, a balloon-borne telescope built to examine the most extreme objects in the universe. XL-Calibur will be launched from Esrange Space Center in Sweden, north of the Arctic Circle, in May 2024.

As part of the Center for Quantum Leaps, Chong Zu and colleagues study the quantum power of atomic flaws.

As part of the Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures, faculty members across Arts & Sciences are working together to decode the relationship between technology and the mind.

Congratulations to this year's award winners and honorees

The Office of Graduate Studies will host a series of activities April 3-7, 2023, to acknowledge and celebrate graduate students.

Zohar Nussinov helped find an elegant solution to a beguiling physics puzzle.

Brian Rauch and his team are working on big science questions: Where does the matter that makes the world come from, and how did that happen? Rauch’s journey will lead to outer space. In March, he and his team made their first steps toward a cooperative agreement with NASA with their TIGERISS project.

Graduate students working on the balloon-borne XL-Calibur mission, led by Henric Krawczynski, encountered numerous obstacles and gained valuable experience during the highly sensitive instrument's first launch and flight.

Graduate student Lindsey Lisalda details challenges and triumphs from the XL-Calibur mission.

NASA selects WashU’s experiment concept to probe origins of elements

This summer, the Outreach Committee collaborated with the Claver House to participate in a summer camp for children who live within the historic The Ville neighborhood located in northeast St. Louis.

‘Coarse-graining’ can help scientists understand complex microbial ecosystems, theory suggests

Students selected for the National Science Foundation (NSF) five-year Graduate Research Fellowship Program will receive both research funding and professional development opportunities.

The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) is once again excited to host a Celebration of Undergraduate Research at WashU this spring.

We are now accepting applications for our 2022 Arts & Sciences Pre-College Program staff positions.

Senior Abdullah Kuziez has received the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which provides American students the opportunity to earn an advanced degree in the United Kingdom.

A new chapter in astronomy is unfolding as astrophysicists launch the first dedicated X-ray polarimetry missions into space.

WashU physicists recently completed construction on XL-Calibur, a new balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of high-energy X-rays.

Researchers in A&S are poised to explore fundamental questions about electronic structures and quantum phenomena.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis reveals that neurons in the visual cortex — the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli — change their responses to the same stimulus over time.

Brian Rauch, research assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, co-authored a recent study in Physical Review Letters (PRL) suggesting that carbon, oxygen and hydrogen cosmic rays travel through the galaxy toward Earth in a similar way, but, surprisingly, that iron arrives at Earth differently.

Congratulations to this year's award winners and honorees

Jackson Butler, a junior studying physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award that honors students who conduct research in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Fourth-year physics doctoral student Lindsey Lisalda's story is about not giving up, setting and achieving goals, and breaking through barriers.

The Office of Undergraduate Research is to host a month-long Spring Celebration of Undergraduate Research in April following the success of virtual Undergraduate Research Week this past fall.

Physicists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered how to locally add electrical charge to an atomically thin graphene device by layering flakes of another thin material, alpha-RuCl3, on top of it.

A panel of undergraduate researchers from across the disciplines describe how they pivoted their research in response to COVID-19 to achieve a productive summer research experience.

Using a distant galaxy as a magnifying glass, physicists in Arts & Sciences will use X-ray emissions to gain insight into a supermassive black hole.

Erin Barillier received the Baines Family Planetary Science Scholarship.

In nuclei, all the fundamental forces of nature are at play. The dense region at the center of an atom — where the protons and neutrons are found — is a place where scientists can test their understanding of the fundamental interactions of the smallest building blocks of matter in the universe.

Several Washington University in St. Louis physics undergraduate students will be presenting at the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science (MCMS) Virtual Undergrad Research Symposium in the Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science held on November 6-7, 2020.

Physicist Ryan Ogliore’s lab works to gain insight into something no longer observable: the formation and evolution of the early solar system.

Congratulations to this year's award winners and honorees

Experimental research groups in Arts & Sciences share how they have adapted to the shift to remote operations.

Scott Hershberger, a senior at WashU double-majoring in physics and math with a minor in Spanish, has been named an AAAS Mass Media Fellow.

The Washington University in St. Louis chapter has earned the designation of a Society of Physics Students Distinguished Chapter for 2018-2019.

Criticality is a hallmark of normally functioning neural networks in the intact brain

Hacking into brain signals may be more straightforward than once thought.

Senior physics major Royce Dong has been selected as a 2019 Barry Goldwater Scholar from the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation and the Department of Defense National Defense Education Programs.

Professor Ken Kelton's recent paper was chosen as an Editor's Pick.

Historical perspectives differ not only from culture to culture but also across our own Danforth Campus. Physicist Brendan Haas and historian Joohee Suh each explain how their research grapples with "old" subject matter.

Jared Lalmansingh selected as recipient of Washington University’s 2019 Gerry and Bob Virgil Ethic of Service Award

“SuperTIGER may launch any day now, and X-Calibur will be flight-ready right after them,” said Henric Krawczynski, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences. While they wait for launch from Antarctica, the team is eating well, skiing and seal watching. Follow their blog to see how the missions featuring WashU technology fare.

Student-Led Physical Sciences Organization is Honored with Award from the National Office of the Society of Physics Students as an Outstanding Chapter

It’s going to be a sunny, cold summer this December for scientists headed to Antarctica. McMurdo Station, the continent’s bustling metropolis of roughly 1,000 residents, will be home to researchers hoping to understand more about some of the most exotic phenomena in the universe – neutron stars and black holes.

A cross-disciplinary team of chemists and physicists from Washington University in St. Louis is building a better computer chip to improve detection and surveillance for the illegal transport of nuclear materials at U.S. borders.

Professor Henric Krawczynski's group and an international team of scientists and engineers are preparing the X-Calibur telescope for a stratospheric balloon flight launched from McMurdo (Antarctic) in December 2018.

Graduate student Yicong Sui has received a PITT PACC travel award to attend the Pheno2018 conference in Pittsburgh

On the fifth Monday of each semester, a new source of productive procrastination becomes available: Course Listings go up on WebStac.

Nathan demonstrated his commitment to active learning approaches, his ability to make complex topics approachable to students, and a knack for getting students to ask questions that further their understanding

This year the Ambassadors sang a ballad from the Sound of Music, Something Good, and an uptune medley, Top of the World, combining Sitting on Top of the World and the Carpenter's Top of the World. The uptune has already been shared on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xH0U4m1rJLk