Assistant Professor Gregory MacDougall of Physics Illinois has been selected for a prestigious NSF CAREER Award. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award of the National Science Foundation is conferred annually in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars by integrating outstanding research with excellent education. Receipt of this honor also reflects great promise for a lifetime of leadership within recipients’ respective fields.
MacDougall is an experimental condensed matter physicist, specializing in synthesizing novel compounds and growing large single crystals in his two labs at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. In his research, MacDougall explores the fundamental properties of these novel materials. Using advanced probe techniques available at national laboratories, such as neutron scattering and muon spin rotation (muSR), his group observes and characterizes emergent phenomena.
Written by Siv Schwink
Asst. Professor Gregory MacDougallGregory MacDougall, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been selected for a prestigious NSF CAREER Award. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award of the National Science Foundation is conferred annually in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars by integrating outstanding research with excellent education. Receipt of this honor also reflects great promise for a lifetime of leadership within recipients’ respective fields.
MacDougall is an experimental condensed matter physicist, specializing in synthesizing novel compounds and growing large single crystals in his two labs at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. In his research, MacDougall explores the fundamental properties of these novel materials. Using advanced probe techniques available at national laboratories, such as neutron scattering and muon spin rotation (muSR), his group observes and characterizes emergent phenomena.
Of primary interest to MacDougall and his lab group are orbital order, the effects of magnetic frustration, the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in correlated materials, and the coupling between spin, charge and lattice degrees-of-freedom in condensed matter systems.
MacDougall received a bachelor's degree in mathematical physics from Simon Fraser University in 2002; he received the Rudy Haering Award for having the highest marks among physics students in his graduating class. He went on to earn his doctoral degree in physics from McMaster University in 2008, where he explored the magnetic properties of unconventional superconductors using techniques such as muSR, magnetometry, and neutron scattering. MacDougall then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in its Quantum Condensed Matter Division. There he used primarily neutron scattering facilities at the Spallation Neutron Source and the High-Flux Isotope Reactor to explore material properties of frustrated antiferromagnets, high-temperature superconductors and thin-film multiferroics. MacDougall joined the faculty at Physics Illinois in 2012.
MacDougall is also the recipient of a 2011 Gordon Battelle Award for Scientific Discovery, conferred by the Battelle Memorial Institute.
Madeline Stover is a physics doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying atmospheric dynamics applied to forest conservation. She interns as a science writer for Illinois Physics, where she also co-hosts the podcast Emergence along with fellow physics graduate student Mari Cieszynski. When Stover is not doing research or communications, she enjoys hosting her local radio show, singing with her band, and cooking with friends.
Daniel Inafuku graduated from Illinois Physics with a PhD and now works as a science writer. At Illinois, he conducted scientific research in mathematical biology and mathematical physics. In addition to his research interests, Daniel is a science video media creator.
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Jamie Hendrickson is a writer and content creator in higher education communications. They earned their M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. In addition to their communications work, they are a published area studies scholar and Russian-to-English translator.
Garrett R. Williams is an Illinois Physics Ph.D. Candidate and science writer. He has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 APS History of Physics Essay Competition and as a finalist in the 2021 AAAS Science and Human Rights Essay Competition. He was also an invited author in the 2021 #BlackinPhysics Week series published by Physics Today and Physics World.
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.