The Department of Physics

Uniquely versatile undergraduate and graduate programs, an unrivaled breadth of research training, and Nobel Prize-winning work in world class facilities, defines the Department of Physics at Cornell University as a national and global leader in physics training and education. The department has more than 40 active professors, approximately 180 graduate students and 65 undergraduate majors, and offers a full range of university-level work in physics, from general education courses for nonscientists to doctoral-level independent research.

Physics Links

Graduate Program Undergraduate Program Faculty Profiles Research Areas

Physics News

Student wins fellowship to continue quantum computing education

2/06/2023

“This program focuses on the social good that can come from interactions between science and policy."

Attendees at the CUWIP conference at Cornell University and Ithaca College Simon Wheeler

Accelerating the Power of Women in Physics

2/03/2023

For most undergraduate women studying physics, they’ll likely experience being one of just a few women—if not the only one—in the classroom. Faculty and student leaders from the physics departments at Ithaca College and Cornell University recently joined forces to host the 2023 American Physical Soc...

Tweezers untangle chemotherapeutic’s impact on DNA

1/30/2023

New research is providing a fresh view into the ways a common chemotherapy agent, etoposide, stalls and poisons the essential enzymes that allow cancer cells to flourish, advancing the study of cancer inhibitors.

A&S welcomes 10 new Klarman Fellows to expanded program

2/01/2023

The fourth cohort of Klarman Fellows is the largest since the program’s launch in 2019, includes scholars investigating quantum phases of two-dimensional materials, mechanisms of social mobility, housing politics of metro areas, and gaps between neuro cognition and artificial intelligence, among oth...

A&S Klarman Fellows program renewed and expanded

1/23/2023

Thanks to additional significant support from Seth Klarman ’79 and Beth Schultz Klarman, the Klarman Postdoctoral Fellowship program has been expanded to support 10 fellows per cohort.

Cornell to lead new semiconductor research center

1/05/2023

Dan Ralph, Ph.D. ’93, the F.R. Newman Professor of Physics, is among the center’s 25 principal investigators.

Fruit flies use two muscles to control pitch for stable flight

12/14/2022

The finding provides evidence for an organizational principle in which each muscle has a specific function in flight control.

Physicist receives DOE grant for particle accelerator research

12/13/2022

With $410,000 Ivan Bazarov will research long lifetime spin-polarized electron sources in particle accelerators.

More News

Physics Research News

Graphic showing gold balls and blue waves

Research Spotlight

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.