Physics
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UC Santa Cruz Physicist Joel Primack wins 2024 AAAS Abelson Prize
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has awarded the prestigious 2024 Philip Hauge Abelson Prize to Joel R. Primack, distinguished professor of physics emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a key architect of the Cold Dark Matter theory.
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UC Santa Cruz will lead development of next-generation telescope alignment system
The National Science Foundation recently awarded $3.9 million to researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz as the lead institution for the development of a next-gen telescope alignment system. The researchers will work with an international team to build and test systems in Santa Cruz and eventually install the final designs in seven telescopes…
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Cal-Bridge awarded $4 million to diversify STEM
The Cal-Bridge program, which supports students from historically underserved backgrounds in STEM, was recently awarded $4 million in the 2023-2024 California state budget. The funding will provide scholarships, mentorship and professional development opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students around the state in physics and astronomy, computer science, and math.
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National Postdoc Appreciation Week: Featuring Priya Crosby and Will DeRocco
National Postdoc Appreciation Week, organized by the National Postdoc Association (NPA) since 2009, takes place this year from September 18-22. This year, the UC Santa Cruz Science Division is highlighting the work of two outstanding postdocs: Priya Crosby and Will DeRocco.
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UC Santa Cruz now offers graduate degrees in materials science and engineering
The interdisciplinary program will serve students interested in developing new materials for next-generation technologies.
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Undergrad Samantha Contreras wins prestigious Goldwater Scholarship
Samantha Contreras, a junior majoring in physics at UC Santa Cruz, has been named a 2023 Goldwater Scholar by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
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Graphene quantum dots show promise as novel magnetic field sensors
Physicists found that speeding electrons trapped in circular loops in graphene quantum dots are highly sensitive to external magnetic fields.
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UC Santa Cruz leads DOE program to train computational high-energy physicists
The Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) at UC Santa Cruz is leading a consortium of western research universities and national laboratories in a new program to train the next generation of computational high-energy physicists.
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Physicist Jairo Velasco Jr. wins $1.25 million award from Moore Foundation
The Moore Foundation’s Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative supports outstanding U.S. experimental physicists pursuing transformative research.


