Message from the Department Chair
Welcome to the Baylor Department of Physics and Astronomy! Our department is a close-knit community of 20 faculty and staff, several post-doctoral researchers, 50 or so Ph.D. students, and ~60 undergraduate students. Students in physics, astronomy, and astrophysics at Baylor University experience the benefits of a major American university, large enough to support a superior academic program while still allowing opportunities only available within a close-knit community of scholars. We offer programs leading to Bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. degrees in a variety of options. Undergraduate students may choose from programs in physics, astronomy, and astrophysics, including concentrations in pre-health care, physics education, and computational physics. Graduate students may pursue advanced degrees in Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Condensed Matter physics, Elementary Particle physics, Gravitation and Cosmology, Non-linear Dynamics, Plasma physics, Quantum and Nano-optics, and Surface Chemical physics. Please take a look through the departmental web pages to see what we have to offer.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy is housed in the Baylor Sciences Building (BSB), a beautiful 500,000 sq. ft. facility. In addition to our department's 9,000 square feet of lab space in the BSB, we also utilize labs located in the 330,000 square-foot Baylor Research & Innovation Collaborative (BRIC) that opened in 2013. Our facilities are equipped with a wide range of modern experimental resources and specialized research labs, and we take advantages of high performance computing offered by the Baylor High Performance and Research Computing Services as well as off-campus resources.
Physics, astronomy, and astrophysics students enjoy personal instruction from our faculty and are encouraged to join one of the dozen or so research groups. Undergraduate students present the results of their research as talks or posters at the annual Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity (URSA) Scholars Day. Graduate students and some undergraduate students present papers at national physics/astronomy conferences and publish articles in leading journals.
Our department hosts numerous activities in which students and faculty members may interact, including weekly departmental colloquia, graduate colloquia, and research group seminars. Every Friday morning the Society of Physics Students provides doughnuts for our student-faculty coffee. Other department-wide activities include the Annual Departmental Picnic and Christmas Reception.
If you are looking for a vigorous, ambitious, and personable physics & astronomy program, I encourage you to explore our website to learn more about our program. If you have questions on life as a physics, astronomy, or astrophysics student at Baylor, please feel free to contact me. If you are an alumnus of our department, please provide us with your contact information here so that I can update you on what is happening in the department recently. I also encourage you to stop by for a visit if you ever pass through Waco.
Best Wishes,
Lorin Matthews,
Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy