Topics

George Uhlenbeck described his educational experience with Paul Ehrenfest as adviser this way:

 “He worked essentially always only with one student, and that practically every afternoon during the week. He discussed with him either the 
problem on which he was working or recent papers in the literature which he wanted to understand in detail. It went fast, and at the end of the 
afternoon one was dead tired.  ... The wonder was that after a while the tiredness disappeared, and after a year one worked almost as equals.” 

Astronomy & Astrophysics

• Ground and space based gamma-ray astronomy (Holder)
• Where do fast radio bursts come from? (Holder)
• The formation and early evolution of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs (Gizis)
• Pulsating white dwarf stars and precision asteroseismology (Provencal)
• Scenarios of giant planet formation and evolution and their impact on the formation of habitable terrestrial planets (Dodson-Robinson)
• Variable snow lines affect planet formation (Dodson-Robinson)
• Radiatively driven stellar winds from hot stars (Owocki)
• Magnetic fields of nondegenerate stars (Petit)
• Gravitational waves discovered from colliding black holes (Bianco)
• Accelerating expansion of the universe (Bianco)

AMO Physics

• Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems (Walker)
• The ultimate X-ray machine (DeCamp)
• Ultrafast carrier dynamics in nanostructures for solar fuels (Gundlach)
• The quantum halo state of the helium trimer (Szalewicz)
• Casimir forces: Still surprising after 60 years (Szalewicz)
• Atomic clocks and dark-matter signatures (Safronova)
• Quantum information with Rydberg atoms (Safronova)
• Nonadiabatic mixed quantum-classical dynamics (Kananenka)
• Range-separated density functional theory (Kananenka)
• Quantum optomechanics (Singh at ECE)
• Squeezing quantum noise (Singh at ECE)

Biological Physics

• Molecular dynamics simulations and drug discovery (Lyman)
• Fluid lipid membranes (Lyman)
• Computational amide I 2D IR spectroscopy as a probe of protein structure and dynamics (Kananenka)
• Graphene nanodevices for DNA sequencing (Nikolic)

Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Physics and Nanophysics

• Spin torque building blocks (Xiao)
• Recent advances in spin-orbit torques: Moving towards device applications (Xiao)
• Skyrmions on track (Jungfleisch)
• Magnon spintronics (Jungfleisch)
• Ultrafast magnetism and THz spintronics (Jungfleisch)
• Spin transport in non-magnetic nanostructures induced by nonlocal spin injection (Ji)
• Practical aspects of modern and future permanent magnets (Hadjipanayis)
• Magnetic nanoparticles: Synthesis, functionalization, and applications in bioimaging and magnetic energy storage (Unruh)
• Quantum shot noise (Nowak)
• Shaping optical space with metamaterials (Chui)
• Recent advances in bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (Shah)
• Understanding photocatalysis: Mechanisms and materials (Shah)
• Photonic design principles for ultrahigh-efficiency photovoltaics (Birkmire)
• Graphene spintronics (Nikolic)
• 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures (Nikolic)
• Quantum spin liquids (Nikolic)
• Machine learning meets quantum physics (Kananenka)
• Nuclear quantum effects in condensed-phase (Kananenka)
• Quantum spin Hall effect and topological insulators (Law at MSEG)
• Graphene plasmonics (Law at MSEG)
• Defect center qubits: Computing and sensing applications (Singh at ECE)

Elementary Particles, Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

• Utrahigh energy cosmic rays (Stanev)
• Radio detection of high-energy cosmic particles (Schroeder)
• The origin of galactic cosmic rays (Schroeder)
• Ice cube: An instrument for neutrino astronomy (Seckel)
• Neutrino mass and new physics (Seckel)
• Discovery of gravitational waves (Shafi)
• Experimental cosmology with cosmic microwave background (Shafi)
• Status and implications of beyond-the-Standard-Model searches at the LHC (Shafi)

Space and Plasma Physics

• Magnetic field reconnection: A first-principles perspective (Shay)
• Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and time scales in astrophysical and space plasmas (Matthaeus)
• Spacecraft observations of solar wind turbulence (Maruca)
• Kinetic physics of the solar corona and solar wind (Maruca)