Prof. Jordan A. Goodman, Chair, Physics Department

By Jordan A. Goodman,
Physics Chair

Dear Readers,

In a few weeks we will begin yet another academic year here at the University of Maryland Department of Physics. Before we do, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to several new additions to our Department. Several of these names may sound familiar to you. This is because these are faculty from other units on campus who have been involved in our Department for many years, but have recently been named affiliates. The affiliate title is important because it formalizes the ties to the Department of Physics and gives our students the opportunity to strengthen their educational experience at Maryland by working with these accomplished faculty from different but related fields across campus. In the field of physics, which is rapidly reaching into other disciplines, it is important that we offer our students these opportunities.

So, we are very happy to welcome Professors Steven Rolston, Luis Orozco and affiliate Professors Wendell Hill, Howard Milchberg, John Weeks, Gottlieb Oehrlein and Raymond Phaneuf. Our distinguished faculty are one of our greatest resources and an integral part of our success. We are very fortunate to have each of these outstanding individuals as part of the Maryland Physics team.

Drs. Rolston and Orozco join us as full professors who will be working with Nobel Laureate William Phillips to establish our new atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics group. Dr. Rolston joins us from the National Institute of Standards and Technology where he has already enjoyed numerous successes in laser cooling and trapping and work with Bose-Einstein condensates. Dr. Orozco works in two rather different fields of research, both of which have strong connections to present work at the University of Maryland. These are the laser cooling and trapping of short-lived, radioactive atomic isotopes and cavity quantum electrodynamics, the study of atoms strongly coupled to an electromagnetic field through a resonant cavity. He comes to us from Stony Brook University. Both Dr. Rolston's and Dr. Orozco's work here will be strengthened by collaborations with Dr. Hill and Dr. Milchberg, two of our new affiliate professors. Dr. Hill, a professor in the Institute for Physical Sciences and Technology (IPST) who has taught in our Department for many years, and Dr. Miltchberg, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Institute for Physical Sciences and Technology (IPST), have been working in the field of AMO physics here at the University for at least the last ten years.

The Department is also very pleased to officially appoint Dr. Weeks, a Distinguished University Professor in IPST, Dr. Oehrlein of Materials and Nuclear Engineering and Dr. Phaneuf of Materials and Nuclear Engineering as affiliate professors. These three individuals have collaborated with our condensed matter group and the Materials Research Science & Engineering Center, which is housed within the Department, for many years. We are happy to officially welcome them to Maryland Physics.

I am also very happy to announce the promotion of a very important member of our physics family. Dr. Richard Berg, who has spent the last 30 years building our lecture demonstration facility into the best in the nation and the world, has been promoted to professor of the practice. Professor Berg has revolutionized the field of lecture demonstration and physics education. The Department is extremely pleased to give him this title that he so richly deserves.

Each of these people strengthens our Department and plays a key role in helping us reach our goal to become one of the top physics departments in the country. Please join me in welcoming them to Maryland Physics, as we begin another exciting academic year.

Sincerely,

Jordan A. Goodman
Chair, Physics Department