Physicists take step toward a holy grail for electron spins
Their breakthroughs came in part by interweaving two fields: 2D materials and spintronics, also known as spin electronics.
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A&S honors 13 faculty with endowed professorships
The professorships are made possible because of gifts from alumni, parents and friends.
Better basketball through theoretical physics?
A Cornell research team has employed a variation of a theory first used to predict the collective actions of electrons in quantum mechanical systems to a much taller, human system – the National Basketball Association.
One tiny particle could complicate predictions of physics theorists
The international, interdisciplinary team measured the magnetic anomaly of the muon – a tiny, elusive particle that could have very big implications for understanding the subatomic world.
Cornell STEM education expert weighs in on NSF funding cuts
"Students across the country are going to miss out on innovative improvements to their science education – innovations that would have critically prepared them for the competitive 21st century technological workforce."
'I love the whimsy of wave equations'
Sabrina McDowell is a physics major.
'I'm proud of my contributions to understanding the stability of insect flight'
Owen Wetherbee is a physics, mathematics & computer science major.
Klarman Fellow honored for outstanding achievement in physics
Paul Malinowski received the 2025 Martin and Beate Block Winter Award from the Aspen Center for Physics.
Don Hartill, longtime physics professor, Lansing mayor, dies at 86
Donald Hartill, a professor of physics emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences and a driving force behind decades of experimental research in particle physics, died on April 16. He was 86.
Alum still lives in the house Frank Lloyd Wright designed for him
Centenarian Roland Reisley ’46, BA ’45, an A&S physics alum, has resided in the Hudson Valley home for more than seven decades.
Cornell Celebrates Breakthrough Prize for LHC Collaborations
Cornell researchers are helping upgrade the CMS detector at CERN, as LHC collaborations win the 2024 Breakthrough Prize for fundamental physics discoveries.
Inside arXiv—the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science
Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv, Sheon Han writes in a Wired feature about arXiv's creator Paul Ginsparg, professor of physics.
Five early-career professors win NSF development awards
Researchers studying novel traits in organisms and the fundamental understanding of extreme weather are among the five Cornell assistant professors who've received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards.
Quantum mechanics with a twist: spring 2025 Bethe lecture
Physicist Shahal Ilani will introduce the emerging field of twistronics, which is revolutionizing our ability to harness quantum phenomena, during a public lecture April 9.
Clearest images yet of 380,000-year-old baby universe released
The new results confirm a simple model of the universe and have ruled out a majority of competing alternatives, says the research team.
Eight students advance to 3MT finals
Students from several graduate fields, including physics in A&S, will compete in the final round of the 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT) on March 19.
Peer recognition crucial for success in physics research
Even when women receive similar amounts of recognition from peers as men for excelling in physics classes, they perceive significantly less peer recognition, new research has found.
Solar solutions: Bio-inspired approach creates bespoke photovoltaics
What if photovoltaic panels were a hinged, lightweight fabric that was aesthetically attractive and could wrap around complex shapes to better absorb sunlight?
Mentorship series: Rebeckah Fussell and Natasha Holmes
In a series of interviews with faculty-graduate student pairs, the Cornell University Graduate School spoke with Rebeckah Fussell, a Ph.D. candidate in physics, and Natasha Holmes, Ann S. Bowers Associate Professor of physics.
X-ray study sheds light on cost-effective fuel cell materials
Cornell researchers have captured an unprecedented, real-time view of how a promising catalyst material transforms during operation, providing new insights that could lead to replacement of expensive precious metals in clean-energy technologies.
New Klarman Fellows to join the College of Arts and Sciences
Fellows will pursue research in the sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Light-activated micro device expands ‘green’ electrochemistry
Cornell chemists and nanofabrication experts have joined forces to create a 2 millimeter-wide, wireless, light-activated device to simplify electrochemistry for broad use.
Micromachines autonomously coordinate using electronic pulses
Microscopic machines engineered by Cornell researchers can autonomously synchronize their movements, opening new possibilities for the use of microrobots in drug delivery, chemical mixing and environmental remediation, among other applications.
Smallest walking robot makes microscale measurements
Cornell researchers in physics and engineering have created the smallest walking robot yet. Its mission: to be tiny enough to interact with waves of visible light and still move independently, so that it can maneuver, and take images and measurements.
New course sets sail on understanding physics–by boat
Students venture out onto Cayuga Lake for hands-on learning about wind speed, velocity, buoyancy, and more
Revealing the superconducting limit of ‘magic’ material
Cornell researchers have identified the highest achievable superconducting temperature of graphene – 60 Kelvin. The finding is mathematically exact and is spurring new insights into the factors that fundamentally control superconductivity.
Physicist Yuval Grossman elected to American Physical Society
Yuval Grossman, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society for seminal contributions in “flavor” physics.
Two-day ‘LepageFest’ honors physicist and former dean of A&S
The conference focused on the current status and future of heavy quark physics while highlighting the science Lepage has done throughout his career.
Student spotlight: Elijah Sheridan
Elijah Sheridan, a doctoral student in physics from Lansing, Michigan, studies string theory under the guidance of Liam McAllister at Cornell.
John Hopfield, Ph.D. ’58, wins Nobel Prize in physics
Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto were honored for their work in training artificial neural networks.
Leading particle physicist headlines fall 2024 Bethe Lectures
Beate Heinemann, professor at Universität Hamburg and director for particle physics at DESY in Germany, will share the stories of two outstanding women scientists in a public lecture.
Indie drama depicts Cornellian couple's role in web history
Set in the 1980s, The Man Who Saved the Internet with a Sunflower chronicles two ’69 classmates in Silicon Valley
Active Learning Initiative welcomes new director, says goodbye to longtime leader
In June 2024, longtime Active Learning Initiative director Peter Lepage handed the initiative's reins to incoming director, Timothy Riley, professor of mathematics.
Microscale kirigami robot folds into 3D shapes and crawls
Researchers created a robot less than 1 millimeter in size that is printed as a 2D hexagonal “metasheet” but, with a jolt of electricity, morphs into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawls.
New Faculty: Jennet Dickinson
Jennet Dickinson, Physics
From portfolios to pizza, fall A&S career events explore diverse fields
"Cornell alumni are generous with their time and efforts to assist students, to answer questions from students, or connect them to people and places."
NSF-funded postdocs to research education across disciplines
Engaging with a whole set of mentors will allow the CIDER postdocs to approach questions about student learning and experiences across disciplinary boundaries and use techniques from multiple fields.
Sound drives ‘quantum jumps’ between electron orbits
Cornell researchers have demonstrated that acoustic sound waves can be used to control the motion of an electron as it orbits a lattice defect in a diamond, a technique that can potentially improve the sensitivity of quantum sensors and be used in other quantum devices.
New A&S dean relishes ‘life in a university’
Peter John Loewen says he's excited to support faculty in their research, meet students and showcase the value of a liberal arts education.
Faculty, students pair up for summer Nexus Scholar research projects
More students can afford to stay on campus to work in faculty labs during the summer thanks to generous alumni.
DOE funds new Cornell accelerator science trainee program
The program’s goal is to “produce a diverse body of broadly educated fellows” in areas targeted by DOE’s Office of Science, including RF superconducting structures, high brightness electron sources for linear accelerators, physics of large accelerators and system engineering, and operation of large-scale accelerator systems.
A&S honors 10 faculty with endowed professorships
With these new appointments, the number of A&S faculty appointed to endowed professorships since fall 2018 has reached 76.
Simons Observatory begins measurements to probe Big Bang inflation
The new Simons Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert may soon answer the great scientific question of what happened in the tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang.
Peter Loewen named dean of Arts and Sciences
Coming from the University of Toronto, where he was the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Loewen began his five-year appointment as the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Aug. 1.
Three doctoral students selected for Department of Energy program
Virginia McGhee, doctoral candidate in chemistry and chemical biology; and Liana Shpani, doctoral candidate in physics, are two of three Cornell doctoral students selected for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (DOE SCGSR) Program’s 2023 Solicitation 2 Cycle.
'I learned to build expertise in new sub-fields from scratch'
Devisree Tallapaneni is a physics, statistical science and College Scholar major.
'I made a major contribution to my research group’s software'
Brandon Li is a physics & mathematics major.
'Be persistent, be passionate, and be true'
Ariel Baksh is a Physics major.
'It was incredibly rewarding to tackle such difficult problems'
Andrew DiFabbio is a physics & mathematics major.
Projects funded by 2024 New Frontier Grants look toward the future
The College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) has awarded five New Frontier Grants to cutting edge projects in science, social science and the humanities led by A&S faculty.