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Home / NewsNewsletters of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology International Symposium on Mesoscale and Fluctuation ThermodynamicsApril 6, 2012. An International Symposium on Mesoscale and Fluctuation Thermodynamics will be held on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Mikhail Anisimov. The symposium will deal with contemporary issues in thermodynamics and statistical physics emerging at mesoscales in a variety of soft condensed matter systems. The symposium will take place on Friday, April 27, 2012, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Jeong H. Kim building, at the University of Maryland, College Park. Research work by Murthy Gudipati gets wide news coverageApril 6, 2012. Murthy Gudipati's paper, "Survival Depths of Organics in Ice Under Radiation", published in Astrophysical Journal, has received wide news coverage. In particular, Astrobiology Magazine has written a story on Gudipati's research, which attempts to determine how deep life must lie beneath the crust of Europa in order to survive. This will be important for future missions looking for life on this Jovian icy moon. Gudipati is a part-time senior research scientist at IPST. John Fourkas gets Regents Faculty Award for Research, Scholarship and Creative ActivityFebruary 29, 2012. At its Executive Session meeting on February 17, 2012, the Board of Regents approved the recommendation to give Professor John Fourkas -- Chemistry, Biochemistry, and IPST -- its Board of Regents' Faculty Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity. The award ceremony will take place at a future Board of Regents meeting. Wolfgang Losert elected vice-chair of the Division of Biological Physics of the APSFebruary 27, 2012. Wolfgang Losert, Director of the Maryland Biophysics Graduate Program, and a faculty member of IPST and the Department of Physics, was elected vice-chair of the Division of Biological Physics (DBIO) of the American Physical Society (APS). DBIO is composed of individuals who are interested in the study of Biological Phenomena using Physical techniques. As such, they are usually members of Physics departments, but in addition have many contacts with others in related fields such as Biophysics, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science. DBIO is one of the growing APS divisions with about 2100 members. Eitan Tadmor receives major NSF grantFebruary 24, 2012. The National Science Foundation (NSF) renewed the Research Network in Mathematical Sciences (RNMS) proposal "Kinetic description of emerging challenges in multiscale problems of natural sciences," for the five-year period strating March 1, 2012. Professor Eitan Tadmor is the Principal Investigator for this NSF grant. Work by Jan Sengers included in new IAPWS standardFebruary 24, 2012. For decades, the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS) has expressed what is known to calculate the thermodynamic and transport properties of water by recommending standard formulations used by academia, research, and industry. In January 2012, IAPWS officially announced the new International Formulation for the Thermal Conductivity of Water. Professor Jan Sengers, together with scientists at NIST in Boulder, contributed a theory to the new standard that defines the thermal conductivity of supercritical water (water at temperatures above 647 K) and that incorporates the effects of fluctuations associated with the vapor-liquid transition of water at high temperatures. 2012 Chemical Physics/Biophysics Spring ReceptionFebruary 23, 2012. On Friday March 16, 2012 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. all Chemical Physics and Biophysics students, faculty, and staff are invited to the Chemical Physics/Biophysics Spring Reception. The reception will take place on the second floor atrium of the new wing of the Computer and Space Sciences building. Please RSVP to Debbie Jenkins by Monday, March 12, 2012. Donald Reames awarded Hale prizeFebruary 14, 2012. The George Ellery Hale Prize of the AAS Solar Physics Division (SPD) is awarded to a scientist for outstanding contributions to the field of solar astronomy. The 2012 prize goes to Don V. Reames (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) and now also of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, "in recognition of his pioneering work on the composition and transport of solar energetic particles." Cell Dynamics Symposium at UMCPFebruary 9, 2012. On March 13, 2012, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Arpita Upadhyaya and Wolfgang Losert will host a Cell Dynamics Symposium at the University of Maryland, College Park. The symposium will feature a series of talks that will highlight the latest research on the biology and biophysics of cell migration. Talks will feature both experiments and modeling of cell dynamics from multiple angles, from the dynamics of the actin scaffolding during immune response to the collective dynamics of ensembles of cells. Faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students, as well as researchers from nearby institutions are invited to attend this symposium. There is no registration fee. James Drake elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical UnionJanuary 20, 2011. James F. Drake has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Only one in a thousand memebers is elected a Fellow each year. Professor Drake will be honored in person at the December 2012 Fall AGU meeting in San Francisco, CA. Ellen D. Williams interviewed in Physics TodayJanuary 20, 2012. Distinguished University Professor, and IPST faculty member Ellen D. Williams was interviewed by Jermey N. A. Matthews on page 18 of the January 2012 issue of Physics Today. After spending three decades in academia conducting nanotechnology research, Professor Williams, a chemist-turned-physicist, is now tackling the energy problem in the faster-paced industrial environment. She is currently on leave from the University of Maryland to serve as British Petroleum's chief scientist. Dynamics Days organized by IPST facultyJanuary 20, 2012. Michelle Girvan and Wolfgang Losert, among others, organized Dynamic Days 2012, an annual conference on topics in nonlinear dynamics. The conference took place from January 4th to the 7th, and it included a celebration of Ed Ott's 70th birthday and his seminal contributions to the field of nonlinear dynamics. Daniel P. Lathrop, new Associate Dean for Research in CMNSJanuary 3, 2012. Daniel P. Lathrop has been appointed Associate Dean for Research for the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS). The announcement was made by Dean Jayanth Banavar, "Dan will work on identifying new opportunities for funded faculty research through large scale grants and on encouraging and supporting the development of successful proposals for these; strengthening old and building new partnerships with federal labs and agencies, increasing program development with support from private foundations, and enhancing opportunities with the private sector; and encouraging new areas of interdisciplinary collaboration by college faculty." Dionisios Margetis to speak at local SIAM chapter meetingOctober 10, 2011. Dionisios Margetis will be the plenary speaker of the fall 2011 SIAM Washington-Baltimore Section meeting on November 16 at 8:30 p.m. in the Clipper Room in Shriver Hall on the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University. Professor Margetis will present the lecture entitled "A Tale of Two Scales: From discrete schemes to Partial Differential Equations in epitaxial growth." Frank Olver to receive USDOC Gold MedalAugust 8, 2011. Frank Olver has
been selected to receive the Gold Medal of the US Department of Commerce
(USDOC) for his work on the Digital Library
of Mathematical Functions. The Gold Medal of the USDOC is the highest
honorary award granted by USDOC's Secretary. "A Gold Medal is defined as
distinguished performance characterized by extraordinary, notable, or prestigious
contributions that impact the mission of the Department and/or one or more
operating units, which reflects favorably on the Department", reads the
criteria for this prestigious award. The 2011 Burgers Symposium on Nov. 16July 18, 2011. Jim Wallace, Chair, Burgers Board invites you to the 2011 Burgers Symposium on Wednesday, November 16th, in the Kay Boardrooms (1107 & 1111) of the Kim Engineering and Applied Science Building. The annual Burgers Lecture will be given by Marie Farge, Directrice de Recherche CNRS - Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. We will also be celebrating the 80th birth-year of Jan Sengers with lectures by Katepalli Sreenivasan, Gijs Ooms (Scientific Director of the J.M. Burgerscentrum in the Netherlands) and Jutta Luettmer-Strathmann (one of Jan's former students and a Physics Professor at the University of Akron). A gala reception will follow the symposium with opportunities to further wish Jan well. The 2011 Shi-I Pai Lecture on Nov. 15July 18, 2011. The Seventeenth Annual Shih-I Pai Lecture, in conjunction with the Physics Department, will be presented on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. A reception begins at 3:00 pm in the Math Rotunda, followed by the lecture at 4:00 pm in the Physics Lecture Hall, room 1410. We are delighted to announce that this year’s lecture will be presented by Dr. Andreas Acrivos, Albert Einstein Professor Emeritus of Science and Engineering at the City College of New York, where he was formerly the Director of the Benjamin Levich Institute for Physicochemical Hydrodynamics. He is concurrently an Emeritus Professor at Stanford University, where he was a Professor of Chemical Engineering for many years. Professor Acrivos is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and he was awarded the prestigious 2001 National Medal of Science, which was presented to him by the President of the United States, George W. Bush. Interview with Michael E. Fisher in Europhysics NewsMay 24, 2011. In the January-February issue of Europhysics News (Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 14-16) José M. Ortiz de Zárate, a regular visitor to IPST, interviewed Michael Fisher during his visit to Spain on the occasion of the ceremony of the Frontiers of Knowledge Prizes, which Professor Fisher shared in the category of Basic Sciences with Richard N. Zare. In this interview, Fisher talks, among other things, about the work of his colleagues Jan Sengers, Mikhail Anisimov, and Chris Jarzynski. A copy of this article can be found in the About Us/History section. Jie Chen receives inaugural University of Maryland Distinguished Dissertation Prize
Andrew Ballard awarded a 2011-2012 Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship
Davit Potoyan receives award from Biophysical Society
Michael Warehime receives a 2011 Graduate School Summer Fellowship
Jan V. Sengers receives the Clark School's Faculty Outstanding Commitment Award for 2011April 4, 2011. Our colleague Jan V. Sengers has been honored by the A. James Clark School of Engineering with its prestigious Faculty Outstanding Commitment Award for 2011. A ceremony will take place at 2:30 pm on April 20 at the fountain gracing the Glenn L. Martin Engineering building immediately followed by a reception. Eighth Monroe H. Martin Prize LecturesMarch 31, 2011. It is our pleasure to announce that Adam Oberman, from Simon Fraser University, and Joel A. Tropp, from the California Institute of Technology, have been awarded the Eighth Monroe H. Martin Prize. Each winner will give a Monroe H. Martin Prize lecture on April 13, 2011. For those interested in attending, please visit our seminars section for more information. The event is sponsored by the Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling, the Department of Mathematics, and the Institute for Physical Science & Technology, all at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Special Functions in the 21st Century: Theory & Applications / April 6 - 8, 2011 / Washington, DC Alexander published in Science MagazineJanuary 31, 2011. Professor Millard H. Alexander, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology, was published in the January 28, 2011 issue of Science. His article entitled "Chemical Kinetics Under Test" can be viewed at the Science website. Stochastic Dynamics: Models, Analysis, and NumericsJanuary 25, 2011. A new Research Interaction Team (RIT) on "Stochastic Dynamics: Models, Analysis, and Numerics" is being organized by Maria Cameron, Sandra Cerrai, Leonid Koralov, and Dionisios Margetis, from the Mathematics Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. This RIT might be of interest to scientists and engineers alike. The first formal meeting will be held on February 9. For more information, please visit the RIT webpage. |
April 22, 2011. Dr. Jie Chen, a former 
April 22, 2011. Mr. Andrew Ballard, a 
April 22, 2011. Mr. Davit Potoyan, a 
April 22, 2011. Michael Warehime, a 
We proudly announce SF21, a conference dedicated to
College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
Updated: April 30, 2012
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2431
Phone: (301) 405-4814 | FAX: (301) 314-9363