Alex Levchenko honored with H.I. Romnes Fellowship

Posted on June 9, 2023

This post is modified from one originally published by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education

Alex Levchenko

Physics professor Alex Levchenko was one of thirty-five of the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty to be awarded fellowships from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education for 2023-24. The awardees span the four divisions on campus: arts and humanities, physical sciences, social sciences and biological sciences.

“These awards recognize our faculty research, academic and outreach successes and provide an opportunity for continued development of their outstanding research programs,” says Steve Ackerman, vice chancellor for research and graduate education. “I’m grateful that we are able to recognize invest in these faculty in this way, and I look forward to seeing the results of their imaginative use of these funds.”

The awards are possible due to the research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff. Technology that arises from these efforts is licensed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the income from successful licenses is returned to the OVCRGE, where it’s used to fund research activities and awards throughout the divisions on campus.

Eighteen faculty, including Levchenko, have been honored with the H.I. Romnes Fellowships to recognize faculty with exceptional research contributions within their first six years from promotion to a tenured position. The award is named in recognition of the late WARF trustees president H.I. Romnes and comes with $60,000 that may be spent over five years.

Levchenko studies fundamental aspects of condensed matter physics with a focus on electronic phases of matter and quantum transport. Specific areas of expertise include superconductivity, topological order, and nanoscale systems such as graphene and other van der Waals materials. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and recipient of an early career grants from the National Science Foundation and the Binational Science Foundation. His teaching covers all levels of undergraduate and graduate education, and he serves on multiple professional review panels internationally.

Victor Brar, Wisconsin Center for Semiconductor Thermal Photonics earn UW Research Forward funding

Posted on May 31, 2023

Sixteen projects were chosen in the third round of UW–Madison’s Research Forward competition, including one from Physics.

The Wisconsin Center for Semiconductor Thermal Photonics will explore fundamental science at the intersection of semiconductor technology and radiative heat transfer. This cross-disciplinary center will explore thermal radiation in unconventional semiconductor materials, in nanostructures, and in extreme conditions, and achieve control of the directionality and timing of radiative heat transfer at unprecedented scales. New technologies will emerge from these fundamental studies, including low-cost spectrometers, imaging and ranging, and energy harvesting and active cooling.

The project is led by ECE associate professor and physics affiliate professor Mikhail Kats as Principal Investigator, with Physics associate professor Victor Brar as one of the co-PIs.

Research Forward, a competition sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education (OVCRGE), is intended to stimulate and support highly innovative and groundbreaking research at UW–Madison.

The initiative is supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and will provide funding for 1–2 years, depending on the needs and scope of the project.

Wasikul Islam honored with UW Postdoc Association Excellence in Service Award

Posted on May 26, 2023

Wasikul Islam, a postdoc in Sau Lan Wu’s group, was recognized by the UW–Madison Postdoc Association with an Excellence in Service Award. He was nominated for his science outreach activities, promotion of basic sciences, volunteering and mentorship to undergrad Physics students through various non-profit organizations including the American Physical Society.

The Postdoc Excellence Awards recognize current postdocs on the UW-Madison campus that contribute their time, knowledge, energy, and enthusiasm to mentoring, teaching, and service. They were established to encourage and reward excellence, innovation, and effectiveness in the mentoring, teaching, and service of UW-Madison postdocs. The 2023 winners were honored at the Celebration of Postdoc Excellence on May 19.

a zoomed out photo shows a man receiving an award from a woman on an elevate stage, with a screen behind them showing his photo, name, and award won — Wasikul Islam receives his award at the 2023 Celebration of Postdoc Excellence, held May 19.

Ke Fang earns NSF CAREER award

Posted on May 4, 2023

Ke Fang

Congrats to Ke Fang, assistant professor of physics, WIPAC faculty member, and HAWC spokesperson, on earning an NSF CAREER award! CAREER awards are NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Fang’s award is sponsored by the NSF Windows on the Universe: Multimessenger Astrophysics program. In multimessenger astrophysics, scientists search for multiple high energy signals to identify their sources and learn more about the makeup of our universe. WIPAC hosts both the IceCube neutrino telescope and the HAWC gamma ray telescope, and Fang says she is excited to have access to high-quality data from both. In her NSF proposal, she plans to use that data in two ways.

“One is evolving novel data analysis techniques to study the problems that remain outstanding, such as the source of high-energy neutrinos,” Fang says. “The second part is once we have these data analysis results, then we’ll use numerical simulations to understand our observations.”

In addition to an innovative research component, NSF proposals require that the research has broader societal impacts, such as working toward greater inclusion in STEM or increasing public understanding of science. Once again, Fang finds herself well-positioned at WIPAC, where the outreach team has developed Master Classes, a one-day event where high school students come to WIPAC, spend time with scientists, and learn about topics not typically covered in high school physics class. Currently, the students learn about IceCube’s instrumentation and how to analyze the complex detector data.

“The course is already well designed, but from my perspective, I use a lot of numerical simulation in my research, so one thing I proposed to do is that I would design a module that would incorporate some of these modern numerical study techniques into the master class,” Fang says. “The students will now learn how to study physics using supercomputers, using numerical simulations.”

Dan McCammon earns L&S Distinguished Academic Advising Achievement Award

Posted on March 31, 2023

The College of Letters & Science announced this week that Prof. Dan McCammon has been awarded a 2022-23 Distinguished Academic Advising Achievement Award, the highest advising honor the College bestows.

Persons honored with an L&S Academic Advising award are exceptional advisors. Recipients have demonstrated exemplary performance both in terms of their positive impact on students and through distinctive contributions to their department, unit, and/or the College of Letters & Science.

Dan McCammon

“Dan is widely known in the physics department for the care and concern he shows to all our students,” says Prof. Thad Walker, chair of the department’s Faculty Recognition committee. “Literally thousands of students have benefitted from his thoughtful, knowledgeable, and non-judgmental advice.”

McCammon joined the Physics faculty in 1980 and has served in a formal or informal advising role ever since. He works tirelessly on behalf of all students in a role which most of them are likely unaware of — as their representative and defender within the physics department.

Katiya Fosdick was one of those students. She was an astronomy-physics major who had been assigned an academic advisor in the astronomy department, but frequently turned to McCammon for discussions about the major, course selection, and issues with workload in courses.

“Dan fights and advocates to do right by his undergraduate constituents,” Fosdick says. “He is motivated by a sense of responsibility and service to students and acts on it.”

McCammon has served as a research advisor for over 220 undergraduate students, both physics and non-physics majors, in addition to his academic advising role. He has served as the faculty mentor to the Undergraduate Physics Club for three decades, worked with the L&S Honors program to increase the honors section offerings in physics courses, and worked closely with the undergraduate course committees to ensure that physics course requirements are appropriate for all students regardless of their graduate school plans.

“Dan has served as an exceptional advisor to thousands of students over decades of service, and his unique understanding and compassionate mentoring has positively impacted students’ lives in myriad ways,” Walker says. “It is a pleasure that the College is acknowledging his outstanding work over so many years with this Distinguished Achievement Advising Award.”

Justin Vandenbroucke receives Vilas Associates award

Posted on March 30, 2023

This story was originally published by WIPAC

UW–Madison physics professor Justin Vandenbroucke was selected as one of 23 awardees of the Vilas Associates Competition. The announcement was made recently by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education.

The competition recognizes “new and ongoing research of the highest quality and significance,” and is open to tenure-track assistant professors and tenured faculty within 20 years of their tenure date. Recipients are chosen based on their research proposals, with winners receiving up to two-ninths of research salary support for the summers of 2023 and 2024, in addition to a $12,500 flexible research fund each of the fiscal years.

“This award will enable my group and me to build on our recent work by branching out in new directions,” says Vandenbroucke. “I’m grateful for the support we receive from the university, the physics department, and WIPAC.”

Vandenbroucke’s work at WIPAC includes research in neutrino astronomy, gamma-ray astronomy, and cosmic rays. Vandenbroucke leads the Distributed Electronic Cosmic-Ray Observatory (DECO), a citizen science project that allows users around the world to detect cosmic rays and other energetic particles with their cell phones and tablets. Vandenbroucke is a member of the IceCube Collaboration and the Cherenkov Telescope Array consortium and an affiliate member of the Fermi LAT collaboration.

The award will be used to support research in multimessenger astrophysics using IceCube and the IceCube Upgrade, now underway, in combination with gravitational wave and gamma-ray observations to discover and study cosmic particle accelerators.

The award is funded by the William F. Vilas Trust Estate.

Alex Levchenko earns L&S Distinguished Honors Faculty Award

Posted on March 29, 2023

Congrats to physics professor Alex Lechenko for earning a 2022-23 College of Letters & Science Distinguished Honors Faculty Award!

Each year, the L&S Honors Program solicits student nominations of faculty members or instructional academic staff who have had a special impact as instructors of Honors courses, as supervisors of Honors theses, or as teachers and mentors of Honors students. The Faculty Honors Committee reviews these nominations and votes to confer Distinguished Honors Faculty status on the strongest nominees for these awards each spring.

Excerpt from student nomination:

As a classroom teacher, Prof. Levchenko is exceptional at explaining difficult concepts. He is really good at challenging students with homework problems, which are very involved and demanding but [helps them] understand materials and develop invaluable skills as a physicist. […] On top of being extremely competent in his research, he cares deeply about his students on a personal level, making sure students are doing ok in general in life and opening many doors for professional activities. As an aspiring theoretical physicist, Prof. Levchenko is someone I would not only like to work with but also want to be like when I reach that stage.

Awardees will be recognized at an L&S Honors Kick-off event this fall.

Physics students earn 2023 NSF graduate fellowships

Posted on March 29, 2023

Congrats to current Physics PhD students Samuel Hori and Alysa Rogers and undergraduate Emil Pellett on earning 2023 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships! Congrats also to PhD student Spencer Weeden for earning an honorable mention!

The Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) supports high-potential scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers. Each year, more than 12,000 applicants compete for ~2,000 fellowship awards. NSF GRFP awards are highly sought and competitive. The fellowship is awarded to individuals in the early stages of their graduate study, who intend to pursue research-based graduate studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The program provides awardees with three years of financial support consisting of a $37,000 annual stipend and a $12,000 education allowance. UW–Madison contributes toward fringe benefits.

Justin Marquez and Sam Kramer named L&S Teaching Mentors

Posted on March 16, 2023

Sam Kramer

Congrats to physics PhD students Justin Marquez and Sam Kramer on being named 2023-24 L&S Teaching Mentors!

The L&S TA Training & Support Team is responsible for welcoming and training hundreds of new TAs each year. Teaching Mentors are the heart of this crucial undertaking: they serve as facilitators at the annual L&S Fall TA Training event and provide mentorship throughout the semester. Those selected to be Teaching Mentors have not only a proven track record of excellence as educators, but also a strong desire to share their experience and mentor new TAs navigating their first year.

Soren Ormseth earns campus-wide teaching award

Posted on March 16, 2023

This post is adapted from one originally published by the Graduate School

Soren Ormseth

Twenty-one outstanding graduate students — including physics PhD student Soren Ormseth — have been selected as recipients of the 2022-23 UW–Madison Campus-Wide Teaching Assistant Awards, recognizing their excellence in teaching. Ormseth earned a Dorothy Powelson Teaching Assistant Award.

UW–Madison employs over 2,300 teaching assistants (TAs) across a wide range of disciplines. Their contributions to the classroom, lab, and field are essential to the university’s educational mission. To recognize the excellence of TAs across campus, the Graduate School, the College of Letters & Science (L&S), and the Morgridge Center sponsor these annual awards.

Ormseth is a graduate student in the Department of Physics specializing in detector physics. He has taught intermediate physics lab and intermediate electronics lab.

“The best teachers hone their communication skills to make subject material and lessons interesting, relevant, well organized, and right at that difficulty-sweet-spot. At the end of the day though, every student has their own unique way of looking at the world and engaging with a particular topic,” Ormseth said. “When it comes time to deliver a lecture, write a textbook, or create a presentation, a teacher needs to work on those communication skills. But when it comes time to engage with an individual student, the best thing that a teacher can do is be approachable, flexible, and willing to listen with the intent to understand the student’s perspective. Mastering these two teaching modes is a lifelong journey which never stops!”