Physics & Astronomy
Apr 13, 2020
Coronavirus is affecting everyone, and our School is no exception. This piece is one of a series of snapshots about the people of the School and how they’re doing during the pandemic.
Apr 7, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed life as we know it with tremendous impact to our work, our homes, families and everything in between. With so many changes, staying motivated and connected to research interests is hard! Through the Physical Sciences #UCIReignite campaign we hope to spur our research community to reconnect with their passion for science.
Apr 3, 2020
For work, Francisco Mercado spends his days thinking about stars and metals. He usually does his thinking at UCI in Frederick Reines Hall where he works during the week as a third-year graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. But when there’s a pandemic, Mercado can do his work just as well at home where he lives in the Campus Village. Mercado’s an astrophysicist who studies how metals distribute themselves in faraway galaxies, and since he does all his work on a computer,…
Apr 2, 2020
When Katy Rodriguez Wimberly came to UCI in the fall of 2016 to start her PhD in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, she came straight from a summer program offered by the university called “Competitive Edge.” The program gave her six weeks to get to know UCI, and to meet faculty and fellow grad students who gave her tips on how to do well in the years to come. The connections she made that summer helped her feel like she belonged in grad school, and that she was a part of the UCI…
Mar 26, 2020
We know it’s there, but we don’t know what it is: this invisible stuff is dark matter. Scientists are fairly certain it dominates the cosmos, yet its ingredients are unclear. For a while astrophysicists have been excited by two potential signals of dark matter in space: an unexplained excess of gamma-ray light in the center of the Milky Way and a mysterious spike in x-ray light spotted in some other galaxies and galaxy clusters.
Mar 18, 2020
Rebecca Riley remembers feeling drawn to the stars since she was less than three years old,
when she — and this is her first memory — would go outside with her grandparents in Clay
County, Alabama and lay on a blanket and watch the night sky.
Mar 13, 2020
Come July 1, Stephanie Sallum will become a new assistant professor of astronomy in the
Physics and Astronomy Department. She comes to UCI from her postdoctoral position at UC
Santa Cruz with plans to capture, along with a team of other researchers, direct images of
exoplanets that are still forming around distant stars.
Mar 10, 2020
In February, Virginia Trimble, an astronomer in the UCI Department of Physics and Astronomy, became a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). This is the first time in its 121-year history that the AAS has given fellowships of any kind to its members, and, through its Legacy Fellows, the society is shining a light on members who sculpted astronomy into the field it is today.
Mar 8, 2020
In physical sciences, we celebrate #InternationalWomensDay and #WomensHistoryMonth. Here are a few inspirational women with pioneering research in our school:
Mar 6, 2020
On February 19, Professors Eric Rignot, Timothy Tait and Jenny Yang all received 2019-2020 Distinguished Faculty Awards from the UCI Academic Senate during an evening ceremony at the Newkirk Alumni Center. The professors swept the Senates’ research awards categories; Professor Rignot received the Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, while Professors Yang and Tait received the Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research and the Distinguished Early-Career Faculty Award for…
Mar 1, 2020
In February, Virginia Trimble, an astronomer in the UCI Department of Physics and Astronomy, became a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). This is the first time in its 121-year history that the AAS has given fellowships of any kind to its members, and, through its Legacy Fellows, the society is shining a light on members who sculpted astronomy into the field it is today.
Feb 20, 2020
Using the Habitable Zone Planet Finder instrument, a team of scientists – including UCI astronomer Paul Robertson – has confirmed that an object previously detected by the Kepler space telescope is an exoplanet, a planet orbiting a star outside our solar system.