Student Highlights December 2025
Thesis Defenses
The following physics graduate students successfully completed their doctoral dissertation defenses over the past year.
Sourav Roy
Title: “Frustration & Functionality: Geometry & Topology in Mechanical Metamaterials.”
Advisor: Christian Santangelo
Date: February 12, 2025
Eric Yelton
Title: Measurements and modeling of phonon-mediated quasiparticle poisoning in superconducting qubit arrays.”
Advisor: Britton Plourde
Date: March 10, 2025
Pan Dong
Title “Geometry and Mechanical response of Twisted Thin Tubes.:
Advisor: Joseph Paulsen
Date: March 28, 2025
Zac Schrecengost
Title: “Deformations of thin membranes in incompatible geometries and interactions in mechanical hysteron systems”
Advisor: Joseph Paulsen
Date: April 2, 2025
Prashali Chauhan
Title: “Microtubule self-organization with active and passive crosslinkers”
Advisor: Jennifer Ross
Date: April 04, 2025
Clayton Larson
Title: “Quasiparticle poisoning and mitigation strategies in superconducting qubits”.
Advisor: Britton Plourde
Date: April 8, 2025
Thomas Murphy
Title: “Gamma Ray Detection in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers.”
Advisor: Mitchell Soderberg
Date: April 8, 2025
Arnab Pradhan
Title: “Lattice and Continuum Anomalies: Bridging the Gap.”
Advisor: Simon Catterall and Scott Watson
Date: May 2, 2025
He Li
Title: “Holographic Scaling and Cosmological Correlators.”
Advisor: Jay Hubisz
Date: June 12, 2025
Yiming Xu
Title: “Behavioral variability of Drosophila larva under uni- and multi-sensory stimulation”.
Advisor: Mirna Mihovilovic-Skanata
Date: August 21, 2025
Kevin Ching
Titled: “Enzyme active bath affects protein condensation.”
Advisor: Jennifer Ross
Date: August 22, 2025
Xixin Liang
Title, “|Vcb| Measurement from the Decay Lb to Lc mu nu.”
Advisor: Marina Artuso
Date: September 24, 2025
Hang Pham
Titled: “Charmed baryon spectroscopy with \Lambda^0_b semileptonic decays.”
Advisor: Marina Artuso
Date: September 29, 2025
Jadrien Paustian
Titled: “Developing best practice fabrication for niobium superconducting devices.”
Advisor: Ivan Pechenezhskiy
Date: October 3, 2025
Nimisha Krishnan
Titled, “Cargo Transport and Material Properties in Microtubule Networks through the Roles of Mesh Size, Crosslinking, and Dynamics.”
Advisor: Jennifer Ross
Date: October 13, 2025
Sierra Thomas
Title: “Machine-Learning Classification of Gamma-Producing Neutral Current Interactions in Liquid Argon from a Supernova Neutrino Burst.”
Advisor: Denver Whittington
Date: December 5, 2025
Kesavan Manivannan
Title: “Quasiparticle Poisoning of Superconducting Fluxonium Qubits.”
Advisor: Ivan Pechenezhskiy
Date: December 10, 2025
Chandler Martin
Title: “Computationally Efficient Methods for Calculation of Light-Matter interaction in Large Semiconductor Quantum Dots.”
Advisors: Arindam Chakraborty and Christian Santangelo
Date: December 11, 2025
Samay Hulikal Narasimhamurthy
Title: “Surfing Shapes & Breaking Bridges: Geometric Control in Soft Matter.”
Advisor: Christian Santangelo
Date: December 15, 2025
Graduating Seniors - Class of 2025
Congratulations to the May 2025 Graduates
The physics family just grew! Join us in congratulating the May 2025 graduates who are now part of our alumni network.
Mingchang Jia, Caleb Aguirre-Leon, Shan Carter, Po-Yen Chen, Andrew Colosimo, Eric R Frank, JadA Garofalo, Skylar Gorczynski, Yuming Jiang, Wei Kan, Justin Lamoureux, Huangjin Liu, Corinne Motl, Nico O'Neill, Dheemaan Ray, Alexis Reeves, Emma Ross Samaniego, Lucas Sarabia, Alexander Schimke, Xiaoti Wu, Victoria Forsyth, Armani Amanam Isonguyo, August Larson, Jackson Yuen and Sarah Vallejo.
Hooding Ceremony 2025: Many of the students returned in May for the PhD hooding ceremony. Before the official ceremony, the department hosts a pre-hooding celebration event for all the graduates and their advisors. It is so exciting to celebrate our graduates’ milestones.
Awards and Recognitions
The physics department recognizes and congratulates the following students’ awards and accomplishments.
First-year PhD student Yuming Jiang '24 is already making his mark on our program. As an undergraduate, his research on how protein-receptor binding at a single molecule level, was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry and featured in Syracuse University News. He represented Syracuse University Physics at the 2025 APS Global Summit where he presented his work. During this time, he was a member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program and was selected as one of 12 University Scholars, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. (Photo credit: Antun Skanata)
Julia Fancher, a senior majoring in physics and mathematics and minoring in logic in the College of Arts and Sciencs, and a member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program, has been renewed as an Astronaut Scholar for the 2025-26 year by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). She was originally named as a 2024-25 Astronaut Scholar.
Physics teaching assistants Caroline Capuano and Abhishek Samlodia were recognized by the Graduate School with the 2025 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for their significant contribution to teaching.
Junior Paul Chen has been awarded a SOURCE Bridge Award to support his spring 2026 research exploring how embryos' protective layers change shape during early development. Working with Professor Colm Kelleher, Paul is tackling what Kelleher describes as both "a fundamental problem in developmental biology" and "a fascinating mechanics puzzle."
Chloe Britton Naime ’25, who completed a dual major in mechanical engineering and neuroscience and worked for a few years as a peer coach in the physics department, was featured in an article about their plans to study neurodevelopmental and learning differences among individuals with ADHD to better understand how the neurodivergent brain operates. Chloe is currently a Neuroscience PhD student at Florida State University.
PhD student Alexia Chatzitheodorou was selected as a Graduate Student Representative to Syracuse University Board of Trustees, 2025–2026.
Department Community Achievement Awards Recipients
This year's department award winners represent the best of what our community has to offer. Take a look at the 2025 student honorees below, and head over to faculty and staff highlights to see this year's faculty recipients.
- Gelling Award: Yuming Jiang
- Beardsley Award: Nico O’Neill and Jada Garofalo
- Academic Excellence Award: Eric Frank, Jada Garofolo, Yuming Jiang, Corinne Motl, Nico O'Neill, Lucas Sarabia, Victoria Forsyth, Shan Carte
- Social Justice Award: Chloe Britton Naime and SU CU*IP Organizers
- Outstanding Peer Coaching Award: Tova Fink, Ella Burr, Carter Thoompson, Sophie Denham, Lydia McFarland and Erin O’Donnell
Other News
Physics Junior's Research Selected as Editor's Suggestion
Junior physics major Mason Grieb is first author on a new paper, "Multimotor cargo navigation in microtubule networks with various mesh sizes," published in Physical Review E and selected as an Editor's Suggestion. Mason's co-authors are his advisor, Professor Jennifer Ross, and postdoctoral researcher Nimisha Krishnan.
2025 Undergraduate Research Festival
Several undergraduates, including non-physics majors working on physics research, presented at the College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Festival on April 11.
Nico O'Neill, Carter Halpin, and Yuming Jiang delivered oral presentations, while Mason Grieb, Ella Burr, Eric Frank, Zewei Chen, Imara Davis, Elaysia Johnson, Mya Price, Zachary Chen, and Olivia Amy Joly presented posters.
Mason Grieb with his project.
Zachari Chen presenting his research.
Eric Frank showing his research on synthetic biology.
Yuming Jiang presenting his work.
Ella Burr with her research poster on laser frequency stabilization.
Nico O'Neill presenting her research on deterministic DRMI locking.
Carter Halpin presenting his work on 1-megawatt laser cavity mode matching.
PhyGO Leadership and Activities
A new leadership board was selected for the Physics Graduate Student Organization (PhyGO) to represent and serve the graduate students in our community during the 2025-2026 academic year.
- President: Shreyan Goswam
- Vice President: Jandrie Rodriguez
- Treasurer: Dev Goonawardhana
- Event coordinator: Ben Byrd
- Secretary: Tanya Chhabra
- Public relations officer: Luke Matzne
PhyGO is always planning social events to get the graduate students together! Mid-August they went blueberry picking and then to lunch. Labor Day weekend they headed to Sylvan Beach and shared lunch.
In the fall they visited a local pumpkin patch and some of the PhD students organized an autumn crafting party. Participants tackled their works-in-progress projects and learned new skills.
Society of Physics Students (SPS) Leadership Board and Activities
SPS selected a new leadership board to represent and serve the physics undergraduate students for the 2025-2026 academic year:
- President: Abigail Torres
- Vice President: Matt Molnar
- Secretary: Ella Burr
- Treasurer: Chris Lagomarsino
- Social Media Chair: Gill Arend
- Social Event Chair: Willem Huntley
- Outreach & Equity: Valentino Indelicato
Last August, several physics faculty and undergraduate students hosted a table on the Shaw Quadrangle as part of one of the 2025 A&S I Maxwell Welcome events to promote the Physics department to curious undecided undergraduate students. In September SPS representatives participated in the Involvement Fair to generate some interest in their organization.
This fall, SPS hosted several events, including volunteering at the Museum of Science and Technology for a statewide catapult competition, connecting with Syracuse University physics alum Neill Warrington during his fall colloquium visit, and hosting a gingerbread house building competition in the physics lounge.
Published: Dec. 17, 2025
Media Contact: asnews@syr.edu