News

I was very excited to be invited to speak at a joint meeting of the Astrophysics and Astronomy clubs of Highland Park High School. The students were extremely welcoming and filled with outstanding questions about how to see the universe without using light. I look forward to more interactions with […]

I am very pleased to be once again teaching PHYS 1303, “Introductory Mechanics,” during the Spring 2022 term. Here is a teaser of the theme for the course!

An entirely new course, available to all students at SMU who’ve taken calculus and any of the introductory course sequences in Chemistry, Earth Science, or Physics, will launch in Spring 2022. “Astro-eXtraordinary: The Universe Beyond Earth” is modeled on programs offered by leading institutes and schools, such as the Aspen […]

After nearly a year of work, the ATHENA Proto-Collaboration has submitted its proposal for an Electron-Ion Collider )EIC) detector at Interaction Point 6 (IP6) of the future EIC. SMU’s contributions, in partnership with colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and University of California-Riverside, were well-represented in the […]

Big News! “Reality in the Shadows (or) What the Heck’s the Higgs” (“Heck” for short) becomes an Amazon Kindle e-book on Nov. 1! The e-book is available for pre-order until then, so if you’ve been curious about the universe, curious about this book, or just want an electronic copy of […]

I am pleased to report that as of September 1, 2021 I have been promoted to the rank of Full Professor. This positively concludes a process that began in 2020 with a departmental, then college, then university level review of my candidacy for this promotion. I am extremely grateful to […]

The theme of the Fall 2021 PHYS 1010 (Honors Introductory Physics) theme is unveiled in the trailer posted to Twitter and on the course website: the physics of cartoons! More information about the course will be posted later, but as of now this may be the largest class of students […]

The global nuclear and particle physics communities received wonderful news today: the Electron-Ion Collider project, to be sited at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), achieved “CD-1” project status from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). A news release on this subject was made available by BNL. CD-1, or “Critical Decision 1,” […]

Rising junior and Biophysical Science major, Stephanie Gilchrist, was awarded an SMU Hamilton Research Scholar Award to support her proposed research on the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) during the summer of 2021. Her proposed research is to study and employ simulated particle identification systems and observe their impact on the selection […]