Iowa State's Massimo Marengo is ready to use the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope to study distant clouds of dust in a galaxy with a "primitive environment" that resembles the conditions of the early universe. Webb's data will help Marengo and his colleagues understand the "galactic ecosystem" and the early steps in "the cycle of life of the universe."

See full press release here.

Professor Mayly Sanchez is among three professors in Iowa State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) have been honored with an LAS Dean’s Professorship, one of the college’s most prestigious recognitions of faculty excellence. 

Sanchez studies neutrino physics, a highly specialized branch of particle physics. Her research promotes a deeper understanding of how the universe works and has led to the development of new technologies that detect neutrinos, which are difficult to detect. Sanchez spearheads three neutrino experiments, and she has earned numerous awards for her research. She was elected a 2020 Fellow by the American Physical Society and received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. 

Iowa State physicists are contributing their expertise and sending thousands of pounds of Ames-manufactured hardware to the sPHENIX experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. The experiment's particle detector is designed to explore the flowing, liquid-like, quark-gluon plasma. That plasma is an exotic state of matter and part of the universe’s earliest history.

Full news release

As interest in the transformative potential of quantum computing continues to grow, the Department of Physics and Astronomy is excited to offer a new course, “PHYS 422X/ 522X: Foundations of Quantum Computing”. It is taught for the second time in the spring semester of 2022. The course is aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, with the goal of understanding how quantum mechanics can be applied to solve hard computational problems.

Starting summer 2021, the department of Physics and Astronomy has several new courses available. Courses Phys 131X, 131L, 132X, 132L, 231X, 231L will replace Phys 111, 112 and 221. PHYS 111, 112 and 221 have been split into separate lecture and laboratory courses. For example, PHYS 131X includes the lecture and recitation components of 111, and 131L is the lab component. The content of the new courses remains the same, but they offer greater flexibility and choice to students. The lab course can be taken concurrently with the lecture course, or after it. Online options are available in some semesters.

FAQ about new courses. 

Learn more about our new courses

Iowa State high-energy physicists Chunhui Chen, Jim Cochran and Soeren Prell have moved their research from the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to the Belle II experiment in Japan. It's a chance to search for new physics at the intensity frontier of more and more particle collisions.

A full coverage of this exciting news can be found here. 

Mayly Sanchez was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). This honor is bestowed on a maximum of one-half of one percent of the membership each year. Her citation reads: "For significant contributions to experimental neutrino physics, in particular for conducting measurements of long-baseline neutrino oscillations, and for leadership in advancing novel neutrino detection techniques with the ANNIE experiment." She has been nominated by the APS Division of Particles and Fields. 

Paul Canfield, who designs and discovers new materials and properties, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.