Chair’s Letter

March 23, 2022

Dear alumni and friends,

I am pleased to update you with spring 2022 news from the UF Department of Physics.

In this newsletter, Professor Imre Bartos provides a research update on what we are learning about black holes from data gathered from the LIGO observatory, a Nobel-prize winning scientific collaboration in which UF has played a leadership role. We report on four faculty who have won major prizes and prestigious, new-investigator awards: Peter Hirschfeld, Yuxuan Wang, Xiao-Xiao Zhang, and Purushottam Dixit. News from our graduate program includes student award winners as well as a brief history of our Physics Graduate Community. In undergraduate news, our department is one of the first in the nation to have its own chapter of the National Society of Black Physicists. Physics alumnus and entrepreneur Aleksander Levental and graduate student Alexandria Tucker are also profiled. Thanks to graduate student Davis Chen for organizing the graduate student news.

We are grateful to the alumni and friends of the department whose support and participation help us to improve and expand our research and education activities. Faculty recruiting, graduate and undergraduate research, student travel and awards, and the enhancement of student life all benefit from your support. If you would like to help advance these activities, please email me or make a contribution online.

Best regards,