Awards and Recognitions

Physics Graduate Student, Merrill Asp, has been selected to receive a summer dissertation fellowship. Merrill’s research in the Patteson Lab was selected from a large pool of 112 outstanding applications.

This spring, the Physics Department presented three department community members with the inaugural Social Justice Award. Two of them were students: Undergraduate student Ruell Branch for his work with Black Lives Matter in the city of Syracuse; Graduate student Liz Lawson-Keister for her work organizing PHY-Go and the “Picture and Scientist” colloquium. The third awardee was Professor Jen Schwarz for her work starting and leading the departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee.

Physics Graduate Student Scott Ely was awarded the Early Career Scientist Prize at the LHCb week ceremony. Scott is recognized for his extraordinary leadership of the Upstream Tracker project and the exceptional and well-organized coordination of all activities during a very difficult time at CERN. Scott is advised by Professor. Marina Artuso.

Academic Performance awards recognize undergraduate students who have demonstrated academic excellence and provide outstanding service over the duration of their time at Syracuse University. We were pleased to honor this year awardees: The Paul M. Gelling Scholarship Award was awarded to Nguyen Phuc Nguyen and Carter Gustin! The Niel F. Beardsley Prize was awarded to Laurel White and Yantao Wu! The Academic Excellence Award was awarded to Nicholas Otero, Ethan Stocum, Danielle Germann, Jin Young Kim, Sondre Norheim, Aaron Trowbridge, Michael Glass!

Physics Graduate Students, Bharath Sambasivam and Goksu Toga have been selected as Outstanding TA Award recipients for 2021. These awards are reserved for teaching assistants in good academic standing who have made truly distinguished contributions to teaching at Syracuse University. The Outstanding Coach Award was given two Physics Community Members for their outstanding coaching in the past year! Adam Aly and Xinning “Lisa” Li were recognized for their outstanding contributions to our teaching mission!

Student News

Undergraduate Physics Major, Catherine Campbell was featured in Syracuse University News talking about her life and work. Click here for more information.

Graduate Student, Michelle Berry, had her awesome work on Materials Geometry highlighted in an article in the APS News as part of a story on “Programmable Matter.” Michelle works with Professor Chris Santangelo on Soft Matter Theory.

The Undergraduate Research Festival was held on April 30, 2021, where our undergraduate students working in physics presented their research. Wonderful work was presented from Erin McCarthy (Manning group), Danielle Germann (Patteson lab), Isa Lee (Patteson lab), Nick Otero (Movileanu lab), Paul Franco (Soderberg lab), Jakub Kochanowski (Soderberg lab), Daniel Paradiso (Soderberg lab), Carter Gustin (Freeman group), Aaron Trowbridge (Freeman group), Eric Frank (Stone lab), Matt Cufari (Coughlin group), Hong Lee and Stephanie-Kayla Bien-Aime (Ross lab), Nicholas Sawyer and Kavita Sarathy (Ross lab)!

Graduate students Merrill Asp and Sarthak Gupta are the recipients of a new outreach grant to visit local schools to talk about physics for 2021-2022. The grant was awarded by the New York State Section of APS.

Physics Graduate Student, Julia Giannini, is attending a conference and summer school on Glassy systems and interdisciplinary applications in Cargèse, Corsica, France.

Physics Undergraduate Student Hong Beom Lee ’23 was featured in Syracuse University News article highlighting his research in the Ross Lab.

Mike Senatore, PhD candidate in the Plourde group received acknowledgement in an Air Force press release regarding new measurements he helped to make. See the news here.

Physics Undergraduate Student Laurel White’21 was highlighted in a Syracuse University News article for her work on gravitational waves with Stefan Ballmer and Duncan Brown. Her article is currently featured on the University’s home page.

Physics Major, Yantao Wu, was honored as a 2021 Syracuse University Scholar, the highest undergraduate honor that the University bestows. Check it out here.

Congratulations to all our 2021 graduates from Syracuse University Physics! Danielle Germann, Michael Glass, Carter Gustin, Jin Young Kim, Pierce Miller, Nguyen, Sondre Norheim, Nicholas Otero, Ethan Stocum, Vaishnavi Varma, Laurel White, Yantao Wu.

The Society of Physics Student election results are final. The new leadership board is President: Matt Cufari, Vice President: Daniel Paradiso, Treasurer: Jamie Harford, Secretary: Nathan Magers, Social Chair: Anthony Mazzacane.