Department News Archive


Vedant Chandra Receives American Astronomical Society’s Chambliss Student Poster Award

Vedant Chandra Receives American Astronomical Society’s Chambliss Student Poster Award
Undergraduate Vedant Chandra has received the Chambliss Student Poster Award from the American Astronomical Society for his digital iPoster on star formation in nearby dwarf galaxies using color-magnitude diagrams. Chandra conducted the research outlined in the iPoster with Dr. Mario Gennaro at the Space Telescope Science Institute. In the iPoster, Chandra demonstrated how the novel […]


Enrico Di Teodoro’s Science Publication Unveils A Galaxy That Ages Like No Other

Enrico Di Teodoro’s <i>Science</i> Publication Unveils A Galaxy That Ages Like No Other
Postdoctoral Fellow Enrico Di Teodoro recently published a paper in Science focusing on a galaxy in the very young Universe that unexpectedly looks like a very old galaxy. A galaxy like this should not exist according to current theoretical models, which is why the research team’s discovery is extremely puzzling. The team used the Atacama […]


Danielle Speller’s Nature Publication Applies Novel Quantum Squeezing to Search for Dark Matter

Danielle Speller’s <i>Nature</i> Publication Applies Novel Quantum Squeezing to Search for Dark Matter
The HAYSTAC team, including Assistant Professor Danielle Speller, have published a paper in Nature reporting on the use of novel new technology they have developed to increase our power to search for one of the most likely candidates for dark matter, axions. The team used vacuum squeezing to circumvent the quantum limit in a search for dark […]


Sihao Cheng Receives International Astrostatistics Association Award for Outstanding Publication

Sihao Cheng Receives International Astrostatistics Association Award for Outstanding Publication
Sihao Cheng, a graduate student in the department working with Associate Professor Brice Ménard, has won the 2020 International Astrostatistics Association award for the Outstanding Publication in Astrostatistics led by a graduate student. Only one student is selected for this honor every two years. The publication that earned Cheng this recognition is titled “A new approach to […]


Space@Hopkins Virtual Symposium – Video Now Available

Space@Hopkins Virtual Symposium – Video Now Available
Space@Hopkins, led by Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Chuck Bennett, connects the array of Johns Hopkins University divisions, departments, and collaborative institutions in their common pursuit of civilian space research. The 2020 Space@Hopkins Virtual Symposium video features astronaut Captain Reid Wiseman (JHU WSE ‘06) and five Space@Hopkins seed grant recipients.


Women in Physics & Astronomy Spotlight – Video Now Available

Women in Physics & Astronomy Spotlight – Video Now Available
JHU Physics and Astronomy Advisory Council welcomed three of the department’s cutting-edge scientists to share their research via Zoom. This video allows viewers to learn first-hand about the exciting research being conducted by a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow and a faculty member. Featuring: Melissa DiamondMelissa is a graduate student working with Dr. David Kaplan. […]


Jared Kaplan’s Research Selected for Best Paper Award by Neural Information Processing Systems

Jared Kaplan’s Research Selected for Best Paper Award by Neural Information Processing Systems
A paper on research by Jared Kaplan and colleagues has been selected by the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) for a Best Paper Award.  This is one of the most prestigious awards a paper can win in the world of Artificial Intelligence.   The paper describes GPT-3, the largest and most sophisticated language model ever constructed. It demonstrates […]


Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Astro-1

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Astro-1
December 2-10, 2020, marks the 30th anniversary of the Astro-1 space shuttle mission (STS-35) aboard the orbiter Columbia. This mission carried the Astro Observatory into space for a dedicated ultraviolet astronomy mission, including the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) for which JHU professor Arthur F. Davidsen was the Principal Investigator. HUT was a 0.9m telescope with a prime […]


Tim Heckman Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Tim Heckman Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Tim Heckman, chair of the Department and the inaugural Dr. A. Hermann Pfund Professoris, is among 489 distinguished scholars recognized this year as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society. Fellows are selected annually for their contributions to their respective fields and the body […]


Junjia Zhang Receives Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award

Junjia Zhang Receives Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award
Physics major Junjia Zhang has been selected to receive the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award for the current academic year. Junjia is working with Assistant Professor Yi Li in theoretical condensed matter physics. Provost Joseph Cooper (1991-1995) established the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award program in 1993 with a generous endowment by the Hodson Trust. The program was […]