Physics

For John Jumper, BS’07, the road to winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry began with an interdisciplinary education at Vanderbilt.  Read More

John M. Jumper, BS’07, is one of three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 9. Jumper currently is a senior staff research scientist for DeepMind, a London-based company that made a huge leap forward in solving the protein folding problem using artificial intelligence. He is the third Vanderbilt alumnus to win a Nobel Prize. Read More

Vanderbilt professor Alex Lupsasca plans to extend Earth's largest telescope network beyond the atmosphere with a space-based dish. It could spot part of a black hole we've never seen before – and perhaps discover new physics. Read More

Vanderbilt graduate student Shaniya Jarrett created a community outreach project that introduces Black girls to astronomy by incorporating music. AstroBeats: Sounds of the Cosmos brings together local middle-school Black girls to translate NASA data into unique musical compositions, teaching the importance of thinking creatively about how to interpret scientific data. Read More

Thomas Weiler, professor of physics and astronomy, emeritus, died December 17, 2023, after enduring a progressive neurodegenerative variant of Parkinson’s disease. He was 74. Read More

Dennis G. Hall, Vanderbilt’s first associate provost and later vice provost for research, dean emeritus of the Graduate School, professor emeritus of physics and professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, died Jan. 6 in Nashville. Read More

Daniel M. Fleetwood, Olin H. Landreth Professor of Engineering, has been named a National Academy of Inventors Fellow, the highest professional distinction awarded solely to academic inventors. Read More

Assistant Professor of Physics and Mathematics Alex Lupsasca has won a 2024 New Horizons in Physics Prize for his theoretical work on the interpretation of black hole images and his proposal of a new method for using super-powered telescopes to look closely at black holes and their invisible fingerprints called photon rings. Read More

The U.S. Department of Energy is funding two Vanderbilt early-career nuclear physicists’ exploration of the universe’s properties and composition. Raghav Kunnawalkam Elayavalli and Jean-François Paquet, assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and members of the multidisciplinary Vanderbilt Initiative for Gravity, Waves and Fluids, have been identified as among the nation’s most exceptional researchers. Read More

Scientists from Vanderbilt and UCAS made a breakthrough in single-atom vibrational spectroscopy in graphene, crucial to understanding materials’ thermal properties and nanophotonics. Read More

David Weintraub, professor of astronomy, was named an American Astronomical Society fellow for his groundbreaking research and his work in communicating astronomy to the public. Read More

Piran Kidambi, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been awarded a grant to further his research into capturing high-resolution images of live viruses in tissues. The three-year grant from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Frontiers of Imaging is one of 20 awarded worldwide with the aim of revolutionizing the study of viruses, human health and vaccines. Read More

Five Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty members were elected 2022 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Read More

Vanderbilt and Chalmers University of Technology are teaming up to build a self-driving biological laboratory that uses microfluidics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a third-generation robot scientist that designs and conducts the massive number of experiments needed to fully characterize cellular signals and pathways and optimize biotechnologies. Read More

Vanderbilt University researchers from the departments of physics and astronomy, math, electrical engineering, and history have received a $3 million National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Award to establish a graduate certificate program in the emerging field of multimessenger astronomy. Read More

Vanderbilt graduate students Luis Bichon and Brandon Tyler Blankenship have been selected for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research program and will pursue their research on high-energy nuclear physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Read More

Theory and experimental data on an electride, a member of a class of exotic materials, unveil new secrets that may impact technology developments. Est. reading time: 2 mins. Read More

Nashville Metro Council has honored Vanderbilt nuclear physicist Joseph Hamilton for his role in the discovery and naming of chemical element 117, known as tennessine on the periodic table of elements. Read More

For graduate students nearing the end of their programs, COVID-19 has created an unexpected challenge: remotely presenting an effective and engaging dissertation defense. That was the new reality for Kyle Godbey, a graduate student of physics at Vanderbilt studying nuclear reactions. Read More

New technique for manipulating graphene opens the door to new breakthroughs in quantum technology. Read More