Craig Wiggers grew up in Alabama. During his 25-year career in the U.S. Marines he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. So when he moved to Ithaca as a Cornell ROTC instructor in 2012, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with snow.
Like restless children posing for a family portrait, electrons won’t hold still long enough to stay in any kind of fixed arrangement.
New and extremely sensitive instruments are allowing scientists to use a novel source of information – gravitational waves – to understand fundamental principles of nature.
Research in the department is organized in two laboratories, the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics (LASSP) and the Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP). Explore the links below to learn more about the major research areas of the department and the facilities available to researchers.
I was lucky enough to find two incredible research mentors.
Mahiro Abe '20
Read more about Mahiro's story here.
I'm most proud of the fact that I've been able to become involved in cutting-edge physics research. For example, with Professor Julia Thom-Levy's group, I have worked on the CMS detector at CERN, which investigates the properties of the fundamental particles that make up the universe. I am lucky to have been able to contribute to upgrades to the detector, as well as to perform analyses aiming to measure unobserved physical phenomena, working both at Cornell and at CERN. Working on such projects enabled me to utilize skills learned in both my physics and computer science classes, as well as develop new skills.
Chase Goddard '19
Read more about Chase's story here
