Department of Physics

Welcome to the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison!

The UW–Madison Physics Department awarded its first PhD in 1899. Since then our students have earned degrees in virtually every area of physics, and our faculty have played key roles in myriad important research efforts. We are training over 170 PhD students as the next generation of physics researchers who are already earning recognition and making significant accomplishments in their field. Each year, our instructional teams teach introductory physics to nearly 2000 undergrads from majors across campus. And we’re proud to have the longest-running hands-on science museum (the Ingersoll Physics Museum), one of the longest-running science demonstration shows (The Wonders of Physics), and the first MS in Physics–Quantum Computing program in the country.