Department News Archive


Brice Ménard Leads the Johns Hopkins Helium Balloon Project to Great Heights

A team of Johns Hopkins students led by Prof. Brice Ménard recently launched cameras and other devices more than 16 miles into the Earth’s atmosphere to collect data, then tracked and recovered the payload nearly 50 miles away. The May 4 flight came down among the confused employees and patrons of the Greystone Golf Course. […]


Graduate and Undergraduate Students Receive Annual Department Awards

Awards Day
Graduate Student Awards Gardner Fellowship:  Melissa Diamond The Gardner Fellowship was founded by William Gardner (Ph.D., ’68), who received his Ph.D. in physics under Prof. Warren Moos and had a successful career in fiber optics and telecommunications at Bell Laboratories. Gardner now generously provides support for one of the department’s highest priorities-enabling graduate students to […]


Marc Kamionkowski Named to National Academy of Sciences

Marc Kamionskowski was among 100 new members and 25 foreign associates to be selected for membership to the National Academy of Sciences this year. The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Kamionkowski was honored for his research focuses primarily on […]


Physics Fair This Saturday, April 27, 11AM – 5:30PM

This Saturday, April 27th, is the department’s 16th annual Physics Fair! Bring your friends and family to enjoy a day of science, food, and fun — there’s a 0% chance of rain and a forecast high temperature of 17.778°C! The fair offers over 200 hands-on physics demonstrations, Two (2) Professor Extraordinaire Shows, The Science Challenge […]


Prof. Marc Kamionkowski Invited to Give Halley Lecture at Oxford University

Prof. Marc Kamionkowski has been invited to give the Halley Lecture at Oxford University. This lecture is named for Edmond Halley, for whom the comet is named and is intended to honor scientists who have made important contributions to astronomy or geophysics. Prof. Kamionkowski’s talk will be held 19 May 2019 and will be titled, […]


France Córdova to Present Robert Resnick Lecture on Thurs., April 11 @ 3:30

France Córdova, Director of the National Science Foundation, will present the department’s annual Robert Resnick Lecture on Thursday, April 11, at 3:30 PM in Schafler Auditorium. Córdova is an astrophysicist and the 14th director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)


Adam Riess to Present Department-Wide Colloquium on March 28th at 3:30

This week’s department-wide colloquium, on Thursday, March 28th, will be given by our own Adam Riess, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, senior member of the science staff at STScI, and 2011 Nobel Laureate in Physics. His title is “A New Measurement of the Expansion rate of the Universe: Hints of New Physics?” The talk will take place at 3:30 […]


Kirsten Hall Selected to Participate in the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Congratulations to Ph. D. student Kirsten Hall, who has been selected to participate in the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting taking place from June 30th to July 5th 2019 in Lindau, Germany. Only the 600 most qualified young scientists are given the opportunity to enrich and share the unique atmosphere of the Lindau Nobel Laureate […]


Prof. C. Megan Urry Elected a Member of the JHU Society of Scholars

Prof. C. Megan (Meg) Urry has been elected a member of the JHU Society of Scholars. She received her PhD at JHU in 1984. She was a member of the senior science staff for many years at the Space Telescope Science Institute, before moving to Yale where she served as Chair of the Physics Department. […]


Brice Ménard Receives President’s Frontier Award

On Tuesday afternoon, Associate Professor Brice Ménard, received the $250,000 President’s Frontier Award to support his exploration of new ways to analyze astronomical data. He said it was unexpected to see university President Ronald J. Daniel Provost Sunil Kumar, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Dean Beverly Wendland, and other colleagues walk into the classroom […]