News

Baylor University physicists Jay R. Dittmann, Ph.D., Kenichi Hatakeyama, Ph.D., Andrew Brinkerhoff, Ph.D. and Jonathan Wilson, Ph.D., are among more than 13,000 global researchers recognized with the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their contributions to CERN’s ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb experiments.

Garritt J. Tucker, Ph.D., The Eula Mae and John Baugh Chair in Physics, is part of a multi-institution, interdisciplinary effort to discover new materials and create innovative pathways for advancing materials performance under extreme conditions. The $12.5 million research team was funded through the Department of Energy (DOE) for the next five years.

Honors College graduates Rahul Banka, Sophie Cope, and Robbie Ridder were recently named the 2023 recipients of the F. Ray Wilson Award for Best Thesis, a recognition that rewards excellence in scholarship of undergraduate thesis writers in Baylor’s Honors Program. 

Local events planned leading up to and on the day of the Solar Eclipse, April 8, 2024

Our current department chair Dr. Lorin Matthews is selected as one of the 2023 APS fellows! Congratulations, Dr. Matthews.

Joining Baylor from Duke University, Benjamin Rose, Ph.D., will serve as co-principal investigator on a project infrastructure team preparing space telescope for use by 2027

Leading interdisciplinary materials science researcher joins Baylor from the Colorado School of Mines

Dr. Zhang received the 2022-2023 outstanding faculty award for her scholarly work. Congratulations to Dr. Zhang! We are very excited for her and we are very honored to have her in our department.

Our undergraduate students had excellent time at the Baylor's Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Achievement (URSA) week, 2023. Aman Patel won the undergraduate outstanding platform presentation award and Jorge Martínez-Ortiz won the outstanding poster presentation award. Congratulations!

We are pleased to announce that our second year graduate student, Jonathan Samudio, is selected to receive the 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.

We are pleased to announce that our former undergraduate student, Nolan Craft, received the 2022 F. Ray Wilson Award for Best Thesis in the Physical and Life Sciences in the Honors Program of Baylor University. Nolan graduated last May, and he is currently in the graduate program at Rice University. Big congratulations to Nolan and his supervisor at Baylor, Dr. Zhenrong Zhang.

A Baylor University physics professor, Dr. Dittmann, who was part of the team that confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson recently gave a lecture on the decade-old discovery. Check out history on Waco Tribune!

Interested in our graduate programs? Check out this 4-minutes video!

It is with a heavy heart that we share with you the passing of our senior Stephen Stec, who died in an automobile accident this past Saturday near Marshall, Texas. Stephen was a presidential scholar majoring in astrophysics.

Dr. Wang is excited to announce that Baylor is now accepted to participate in the international BINGO project. The BINGO Project aims at building a special purpose radio telescope to map redshifted neutral hydrogen emission between z = 0.13 and 0.45. BINGO stands for Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations.

We had a good showing at the 2022 Texas Section American Physical Society (TSAPS) fall meeting hosted by Rice University. About ten students, a mix of graduate students and undergraduate students, presented their research works. And, among them, our undergraduate student, Amen Patel, was awarded the 2022 TSAPS Robert S. Hyer Award! Congratulations to Aman and his mentor, Prof. Zhenrong Zhang.

See this post about a short interview of Dr. Zhang. "We teach students, and we need compassion to be able to educate them. You need to give them challenges so they can grow." At Baylor, research is driven by compassion, curiosity & courage.

Meet Baylor's expert on dusty plasma — also known as 'cosmic dust bunnies'. Picture the dust bunnies that are probably hiding somewhere around your home. (It's okay to admit it; we all have them.) Now imagine those dust bunnies, but on a cosmic level.

At sunrise Monday, a group of Baylor University astronomy students and professors gathered to watch the test flight of NASA’s first Moon rocket in 50 years: Artemis 1.

Even after the uncrewed launch was scrubbed at the last minute, enthusiasm remained high for a new chapter in crewed spaceflight that will see the first woman and first person of color walk on the Moon.

Baylor’s Experimental High Energy Physics group among scientists with significant contributions to the successful maintenance and operation of the experiment measuring one of nature’s force-carrying particles

Meet the Baylor professor whose invention makes tiny reactions visible! How big is a nanometer? To envision something so small, envision the width of a human hair. Now divide the tip of that hair by 100,000. Now, you’re in the ballpark.

Two years from today, a total solar eclipse will take place -- and Waco will be an ideal viewing spot. On April 8, 2024, Baylor University, City of Waco, Lowell Observatory, and Discovery Channel will team for an on-site celebration and special programming viewable worldwide: https://bit.ly/3DSAyoM

Congratulations to Prof. Olafsen, 2021 recipient of the Elizabeth Vardaman Award for excellence in research leadership. This "Betsy" Award recognizes Dr. Olafsen's leadership of the successful Goldwater Scholarship program at Baylor.

Congratulations to physics undergraduate students Aman Patel and Weston Hall, recipients of Outstanding Platform and Poster Presentations at URSA Scholars Week, and their research mentors, Dr. Zhenrong Zhang and Dr. Barbara Castanheira-Endl.

Great Physics Habitat for Humanity workday on Saturday, March 26, with physics grad students and SPS members. Thanks to Dustin Sanford, Baylor Physics alumni, who is the new Construction Supervisor for Waco Habitat.

Congrats to senior physics major Weston Hall for winning an undergraduate research paper award at the Southwest Data Science Conference held at Baylor on March 25, 2022.

We are proud to announce Dr. Barbara Castanheira-Endl's well-deserved promotion to Senior Lecturer.

We are proud to announce Dr. Zhenrong Zhang's well-deserved promotion to Full Professor!

Baylor physicist Dr. Jay Dittmann was highlighted in a Baylor A&S magazine. In this Q&A, he discussed his role at CERN and Baylor’s participation in this important research project. Please check it out.

Mr. Garrett Williams, who graduated Baylor in Spring 2019, won the 2021 Student Essay Competition by the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition.

A nanometer is just 1/1000,000 the width of a human hair — but chemical reactions taking place at that level have significant implications in countless fields. That’s where Dr. Zhenrong Zhang, a Baylor physics professor, comes in.

Many current members and recent graduates made contributions to the 28th International Conference on Supersymmetry and Unification of Fundamental Interactions (SUSY 2021) held virtually over August 23-28, 2021.

Dr. Lorin Matthews, a long time department member, early on as a student and as a faculty member in recent years, will start leading the Physics Department as a new department chair as of August 2021.

The Department of Physics at Baylor University invites applications for a tenure-track position in condensed matter physics at the assistant professor level. Consideration of applications will start immediately, and full consideration will be given until October 30, 2021.

Baylor University students Alexis Simmons, a senior physics and mathematics major from Houston, Texas and Kate Rojales, a senior chemistry major from Milton, Georgia have been awarded Goldwater Scholarships from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program.

On April 15, 2021, Baylor University announced an estate gift from John and Eula Mae Baugh, creating an endowed chair in physics. The Eula Mae and John Baugh Chair in Physics, which will receive matching funds through the Baylor Academic Challenge, will provide faculty funding within the department of physics and focus on innovative research and teaching in the area of materials science.