Department News Archive


Johannes Staguhn Leads Research on New Space Image of Cosmic ‘Candy Cane’

Johannes Staguhn Leads Research on New Space Image of Cosmic ‘Candy Cane’
Principal Research Scientist Johannes Staguhn is the lead author on a paper recently published in The Astrophysical Journal that describes a new image from Milky Way galaxy’s center of a cosmic “candy cane.” The image—captured by a NASA-designed and built instrument called the Goddard-IRAM Superconducting 2-Millimeter Observer, or GISMO—shows the inner part of our galaxy, […]


Colin Norman Becomes American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow

Colin Norman Becomes American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow
Prof. Colin Norman has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is lifetime distinction in honor of his invaluable contributions to science and technology. Fellows are elected each year by their peers serving on the Council of AAAS, the organization’s member-run governing body. The tradition of electing […]


Alex Szalay’s Big Data Cancer Research Featured on CBS News

Alex Szalay’s Big Data Cancer Research Featured on CBS News
On November 26, CBS aired an interview with IDIES member, Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, and Director, Dr. Alex Szalay that discussed their research collaboration on pancreatic cancer and patients who had a dramatic response to chemotherapy, “extraordinary responders”. In the interview, Dr. Jaffee explains that her research of pancreatic cancer and “extraordinary responders” brought her to […]


Physicist Richard Zdanis, a Former Vice Provost at JHU, Dies at 83

Physicist Richard Zdanis, a Former Vice Provost at JHU, Dies at 83
Richard A. Zdanis, an alum went on to serve in the Johns Hopkins University administration and as professor in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Physics and Astronomy for many years, died in Columbus, Ohio, where he lived. He was 83. A Baltimore native, Zdanis spent two years at Princeton after earning […]


Three Undergraduates Receive Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards

Three Undergraduates Receive Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards
The Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) is an award program offering a $3000 stipend to help offset expenses related to working on an independent research, creative, or scholarly project during the academic year. This year, three undergraduates in the department received the award thanks to their outstanding research.  Below is a listing of the award […]


Professors Armitage and Chien on the Anniversary of the Hall Effect

Professors Armitage and Chien on the Anniversary of the Hall Effect
Edwin Hall’s discovery at JHU in autumn of 1879, which came to be called the “Hall Effect,” may be one of the most underappreciated achievements in the history of Hopkins. Over the past 140 years, the Hall effect has become an indispensable tool for measuring the strength of electromagnetic fields. In a new article in […]


Sounding Rocket Mission to Observe Star-Forming Galaxy M33 a Success

Sounding Rocket Mission to Observe Star-Forming Galaxy M33 a Success
JHU experimenters Brian Welch, Anna Carter, Russ Pelton, and Stephan McCandliss are pictured here before their launch of NASA/JHU sounding rocket 36.352 UG from White Sands Missile Range on October 27.  The mission is to observe far-UV emissions from the star-forming galaxy M33 for the purpose of understanding how metals created in clusters of hot […]


C.L. Chien’s Team Report New Superconducting Material

C.L. Chien’s Team Report New Superconducting Material
Prof. C.L. Chien’s team of researchers have found a superconducting material that could someday power quantum computers. The material naturally exists between two states, a finding that could pave the way for more complex computing in the future. “We’ve found that a certain superconducting material contains special properties that could be the building blocks for […]


Tarini Konchady Named Media Fellow of the American Astronomical Society

Tarini Konchady Named Media Fellow of the American Astronomical Society
Tarini Konchady (B.S. 2017) has been named the new Media Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. She is currently studying Mira variables to help calibrate the extragalactic distance scale. Tarini is an active member of the broader astronomy community: she’s an author and editor for the graduate-student-run astronomy blog Astrobites, she co-organizes a chapter of […]


APS Physics Elects Andrei Gritsan, Michael Falk & Oleg Tchernyshyov as Fellows

APS Physics Elects Andrei Gritsan, Michael Falk & Oleg Tchernyshyov as Fellows
Professors Andrei Gritsan, Michael Falk (joint with Materials Science And Engineering), and Oleg Tchernyshyov have been elected as Fellows of the American Physical Society. No more than ½% of APS members can be elected as Fellows in any year, so this is indeed a great honor. The citations are as follows: Andrei Gritsan: “For significant […]