Faculty Prizes and Awards
UF Physics Professor Juan Guan Receives NIH MIRA Grant to Study Molecules Involved in Key Cellular Processes
Professor Juan Guan has been awarded a $1.9 million Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Prof. Guan’s project will explore the mechanisms behind the assembly and regulation of non-canonical biomolecular condensates. The NIH’s early-stage investigator MIRA program supports broad research programs of young investigators through a single grant rather than through individual project-based grants. The goal of the program is to enhance scientific productivity of early-stage investigators by providing stable and flexible support.
UF Physics is now a recipient of two MIRA grants. The first was awarded to Professor Purushottam Dixit (see his article in Research News).
UF Physics Professor Xiao-Xiao Zhang Wins DOE Early Career Award
Professor Xiao-Xiao Zhang has been awarded the Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Program Award for 2022. Xiao-Xiao’s project, Optical manipulation of magnetic order in van der Waals heterostructures, will be funded by the DOE for five Xiao-Xiao is one of 83 US scientists who received this highly competitive award this year.
The Department of Energy’s selection of scientists from across the nation included 27 from DOE’s national laboratories and 56 from U.S. universities. The program, now in its 13th year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by supporting exceptional researchers during their crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.
Earlier this year, Professor Zhang also received a CAREER award from National Science Foundation. Way to go, Xiao-Xiao!
UF Physics professor Hai-Ping Cheng leads $12.6M research effort in next-generation quantum materials
The Center for Molecular Magnetic Quantum Materials (M2QM) at the University of Florida has received a $12.6 million, four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue its work developing next-generation quantum materials for advanced applications in computing and energy.
UF Professor of Physics Hai-Ping Cheng leads the M2QM center, along with deputy director and Florida State University physics professor Stephen Hill. Established in 2018 with a $10.4 million grant from the Department of Energy, the center is one of 41 centers across 34 states. It is the only Energy Frontier Research Center in Florida.
Comprising dozens of physicists and chemists, the M2QM center focuses on three central areas of research. The first area, led by National High Magnetic Field Laboratory scientist Vivien Zapf, focuses on the ability to control quantum systems through both electric and magnetic fields. The second area of research, led by UF chemistry professor George Christou, studies the strange ability of quantum materials to entangle themselves into partnered units, which is vital for the development of quantum computers. Led by UF Professor of Physics Xiaoguang Zhang, the third focus area examines how quantum materials are influenced by the surfaces they interact with. California Institute of Technology chemistry professor Garnet Chan and Professor Mark Pederson from the University of Texas at El Paso supervise theoretical work that advances the development and control of these new materials.
Applications of M2QM research include moving toward practical quantum computers, which could outperform classical computers at a fraction of the energy cost, and developing materials that would make other electronics more energy efficient.
M2QM principal investigators also include Art Hebard, Richard Hennig, Talat Rahman, Michael Shatruk, John Stanton, Neil Sullivan, Sam Trickey and Xiao-Xiao Zhang.
