Illinois Physics | The Grainger College of Engineering | UIUC | Physics

Alumna Laurie McNeil receives AAPT's 2025 John David Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Education Award

McNeil is the Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Renowned astrophysicist Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell to visit Urbana

Dr. Bell Burnell will receive the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe (ICASU) Lectureship Award and deliver a talk on February 26 at Loomis Laboratory of Physics.

Illinois Physics Postdoc Aric Tate selected for a 2024 ATLAS Thesis Award

The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN announced Illinois NPRE alumnus Aric Tate is the recipient of a 2024 ATLAS Thesis Award for his doctoral dissertation titled Investigations of Initial State Effects in p+Pb Collisions via Dijet Measurement with the ATLAS Detector. Congratulations, Aric!

Aksimentiev receives DOE INCITE award to develop single-molecule protein sequencing

Advanced nanopore sequencing technique would revolutionize medicine

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Research Highlights

Click on a research highlight to vote for your favorite submission to the Research Highlight Science Writing Contest for graduate students.

Can neutron stars contain dark matter inside of them?

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Research Highlights
February 18, 2025

Quantum motion shapes the melting line of hydrogen at extreme pressure

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Research Highlights
February 18, 2025

A new family of non-Hermitian skin effects from kinetic constraints

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Research Highlights
December 10, 2024

A glimpse into interacting quantum systems with quantum Monte Carlo

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Research Highlights
November 30, 2024

More Research Highlights

Donor support for undergraduate research is funding student participation in cross-disciplinary study of dark matter

Illinois Physics rising junior David Balut, the 2024 A.C. Anderson Undergraduate Research Scholar, has been a member of the Peter Abbamonte research group since November 2022. This summer, his donor-supported research includes collaborating with the Yoni Kahn group on the physics of dark matter, using organic scintillators for anisotropic detection. He will also continue to study strange metals in the Abbamonte lab. In addition to the AC Anderson Award, Balut is a recipient of the T.R. Schlaeder Engineering award, the Robert M. Stephens Engineering award, and has been a James Scholar since Fall 2022.

The A.C. Anderson Undergraduate Research Scholar award is made possible by Illinois Physics donors. The award is named for Ansel C. Anderson, an alumnus (PhD, 1961), faculty member (1962-1992), and department head (1986-1992) who made seminal contributions to low-temperature physics, particularly on the thermal properties of metals and glasses.

Learn more about how to become a donor and support initiatives like undergraduate research opportunities!

Give to the Engineering Visionary Scholarship.

EVS attracts the brightest students, ensures a diverse and talented class, and helps reduce student debt.

“I love cosmology—the study of the large structures of the universe, the Big Bang, and the questions of dark energy and matter. I have a strong interest in developing astronomy instrumentation—telescopes, satellites, and sounding rockets. The Engineering Visionary Scholarship freed me up to pursue these interests while exploring the fundamentals of the universe through physics.”

— Kayleigh Excell, Class of '24, EVS Scholarship recipient

Learn More

Watch Illinois Physics and Astronomy Professor Charles Gammie on The UIUC Talkshow. From the origins of black holes to the nature of time itself, enjoy this captivating odyssey through the cosmos, guided by a brilliant scientific mind.

Watch "The Physics PhD," a parody of the Barbie movie's "I'm just Ken" scene, created by graduate students in the Fahad Mahmood research group with support from the Illinois Physics graduate student community. Earning a PhD in physics is long road that can leave one feeling like they are living in a world of plastic... or maybe a graphene lattice.

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I am working on my science fair project- I am freezing orange juice and soda to see which will freeze faster. My orange juice froze before the soda- is it because of the carbonate water in the soda or the sugar?

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The Illinois Physics Van is a traveling science show for kids! Visit the Physics Van