Autumn 2023 Department of Physics Orientation

Welcome to the University of Chicago Department of Physics!

We are excited for you to join our department and the university community. We have developed a schedule to facilitate your transition to graduate school, combining a welcome by the Department of Physics, information sessions, advising meetings, and research talks. As graduate students, you are an important part of the Department of Physics and we hope to do everything we can to help you transition into our community.

This year orientation will take place in-person. 

Newly Admitted Student Resources

Step-by-step instructions to upload proof of vaccination

Orientation Week One: Monday, September 11, 2023 - Friday, September 15, 2023

Week One will consist of an introduction to the department, advising meetings, and information sessions. All sessions will be held in-person and mandatory, unless specified as optional.

Campus tour is Tuesday, September 12, 2023. Location and details will be emailed. Here is the campus video tour as well as the neighborhood highlights

Orientation Week Two: Monday, September 18, 2023 - Friday, September 22, 2023

Week Two will consist of required workshops and faculty presentations. All sessions will be held in-person and mandatory, unless specfied. 

WEEK ONE

Monday, September 11, 2023

All sessions from 10:30 am - 1:30 pm will be in KPTC 206.

10:30 am - 11:00 am Welcome from the Chair of the Department of Physics, Peter Littlewood

Peter Littlewood holds a BA and PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. He was member of technical staff, and later head, of the theoretical physics research group at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. He moved to Cambridge in 1997 as head of the Theory of Condensed Matter group, and later became head of the Cavendish Laboratory and Department of Physics. He came to UChicago in 2011 as Associate Lab Director and then Lab Director, at Argonne National Lab, returning full time to the University in 2017. He serves on the advisory boards of several institutes, including the Faraday Institution, the Simons Foundation, the Paul Scherer Institute, the Carnegie Institute for Science, and the Max Planck Institutes at Halle and Hamburg.

KPTC 106

11:00 am - 11:15 am Physics Department Welcome 

KPTC 106

11:15 am - 11:30 am  Overview of Week One and Two 

KPTC 106

11:30 am - 1:00 pm  Welcome Lunch

A chance to meet and chat some new friends within the department. 

KPTC 206

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm Cheng Chin (Physics)

https://ultracold.uchicago.edu/research

Cheng Chin’s research focuses on experimental atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics. Recent works include laser cooling, Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms and molecules, strongly interacting Fermi gas, Feshbach and Efimov states, quantum information science, novel quantum states and quantum dynamics, thermophoretic levitation, and quantum simulation of condensed matter, nuclear, high-energy and cosmological systems.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm Aaron Chou (Fermi)

Aaron Chou’s research focuses on developing quantum sensors to study ultra-weakly-coupled dark sectors of the universe.  He was the Cosmic Frontier convener for the APS-DPF Snowmass 2021 community planning effort.  He currently serves as deputy head of Fermilab’s Quantum Division, as the Devices/Sensors thrust lead for the Quantum Science Center (one of 5 DOE National Quantum Initiative Science Research Centers), and as lead PI for a multi-institutional DOE “QuantISED” quantum sensor consortium targeting dark matter detection.  Current research interests include 1) detecting axion dark matter with superconducting qubits, 2) detecting dark radiation from dark energy relaxation using Cooper-pair boxes, and 3) developing gravitational wave detectors based on high magnetic fields in order to probe early universe cosmological phase transitions and quantum gravity.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm  Advising Meetings 

Zosia and Stuart will schedule one-on-one meetings with each student. 

KPTC 201, Zosia's office

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm  Staff Office Pop-in (optional)

Meet with staff in KPTC by visiting their offices. 

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

10:30 am - 12:00 pm Campus Tour with Current Students (optional)

Here is the campus video tour and neighborhood highlights.

Meet in KPTC 206

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm  Lunch with LGBTQIA+  and GRIT (Student Groups)

The LGBTQIA+ Physicists Group, formed in 2020, meets occasionally for social events and is in the process of planning what other types of events and advocacy we want to do. The purpose of this group is to provide a space to socialize within the department and to advocate for the needs of LGBTQIA+ members of the physics community. This session will provide incoming students with a chance to meet some current LGBTQIA+ graduate students to learn about opportunities that exist within the department and university. You can join the mailing list here. Mailing list: lgbtqia_phys@lists.uchicago.edu 

The Graduate Recruitment Initiative Team (GRIT) is a team of graduate students committed to building a diverse and strong community of scientists at UChicago. We focus on recruiting and retaining students from marginalized, underrepresented, and non-traditional backgrounds and work to promote equity, inclusion, and justice for these researchers by holding events and advocating for student interests. We operate with an explicitly and enthusiastically intersectional approach. Join us for a session to take a look at some aspects of navigating grad school.

KPTC 206

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm  Advising Meetings 

Zosia and Stuart will schedule one-on-one meetings with each student.

KPTC 201, Zosia's office

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

11:00 am - 11:30 am  Info Session with Putri 

This session will provide graduate students with information about the services and resources provided by the University, give an overview of the University of Chicago Physical Science Division policies and funding structures, and give an opportunity for students to ask questions about it all.

KPTC 206

11:30 am - 1:30 pm Lunch & Games with current students

We will host a game of Family Feud. Lunch will be served. 

KPTC 206

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm  Advising Meetings 

Zosia and Stuart will schedule one-on-one meetings with each student.

KPTC 201, Zosia's Office

Thursday, September 14, 2023

11:00 am - 12:00 pm Crerar Library Tour with Jennifer Hart (optional)

In addition to the general tour of the library by Jennifer Hart, you will be shown some areas which are normally inaccessible to students. 

The Library offers access to physics journal subscriptions, books and other resources, most available online.   We also offer services such as paging and scanning of materials and assistance with questions about finding information and how to organize your work and data. More information about what is available and how to access our collections and services (both on and off campus) is in our physics guide.

5730 S. Ellis Ave, Library Atrium. The library is diagonally across the Science Quadrangle from KPTC.

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm  Lunch with Mohit Verma (& friends) and Wanqiang Liu (GRIT Disability Team)

Come meet with Mohit and Wanqiang in an informal setting for lunch.

KPTC 206

WEEK TWO

Monday, September 18, 2023

10:00 am - 12:30 pm  PHYS 300 Workshop on the Teaching and Learning of Physics 

This workshop will provide students with tools to developing and utilizing skills to be a more effective Teaching Assistant. It is required for all Teaching Assistants to participate. Research Assistants and Fellows are strongly encouraged to attend so that you will be eligible to hold Teaching Assistantships in the future.

KPTC 103, KPTC 105

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm Andrew Cleland (PME)

https://clelandlab.uchicago.edu/

The Cleland group is developing superconducting, mechanical, and optomechanical structures for applications to quantum information. Applying the tools of advanced lithographic processing to a wide range of materials, we can design and build superconducting qubit circuits with excellent quantum coherence; mechanical devices with operating frequencies in the microwave band; structures that convert signals between microwave and infrared optical frequencies; and we are developing means to integrate these devices to provide new functionality in the quantum domain.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm Young-Kee Kim (Physics)

http://hep.uchicago.edu/~ykkim/research/index.shtml

As an experimental scientist, I do research on particle physics to understand how the universe works at the most fundamental level by discovering and understanding the fundamental constituents (elementary particles) and the forces acting among them and on accelerator physics to design and build much more powerful accelerators for future particle physics and other sciences.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

2:00 pm - 2:30 pm Margaret Gardel (Physics)

squishycell.uchicago.edu/

We study how living matter emerges from collections of molecules to control physiology of cells and tissues.  We apply this understanding to design and build new types of active and adaptive soft materials and engineer the shape and dynamics of cells and tissue. Our research interests span fields of cellular biophysics, epithelial and endothelial biology, cell adhesion & migration, active & adaptive matter, cytoskeleton dynamics and mechanics and cell mechanotransduction.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Liang Jiang (PME)

https://pme.uchicago.edu/group/jiang-group

The Jiang Group investigates quantum control and quantum error correction to protect quantum information from decoherence for various physical platforms, with potential applications for quantum sensing, quantum transduction, quantum communication, and quantum computation.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

3:00 pm - 3:30 pm Norbert Scherer (CHEM)

https://schererlab.uchicago.edu/

The Scherer Lab studies non-equilibrium phenomena and nano-scale dynamics in nano-photonic (i.e., optical matter) and biological systems. Recent studies and findings - combining experiments, computer simulation and theory - include: (1) revising the rules (i.e., forces) for optical trapping to include optical magnetic forces; (2) realizing the Photonic Hall Effect and Photonic Spin Hall Effects as manifest in Si nanoparticle trapping; (3) manybody electrodynamic interactions and forces in nanoparticle-based optical matter structures; (4) uncovering a new mechanism for insulin vesicle (i.e., granule) transport in live pancreatic beta cells. We actively collaborate with colleagues at UChicago, Argonne, and Northwestern.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

9:00 am - 10:00 am Dean of Students (In-person event) (optional)

The Division plans to host an in-person orientation event at the Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th St) on September 19, 2023 from 9:00 am - 10:00 am. Students will have the opportunity to meet Dean of Students Office staff and other faculty and staff from the Division. This event is not required, but attendance is encouraged. Please complete this brief survey to let them know you will be attending! 

This event is open to all invitees regardless of vaccination status and, because of ongoing health risks to the unvaccinated, those who are unvaccinated are expected to adopt the risk mitigation measures advised by public health officials (masking and social distancing, etc.) Public convening may not be safe for all and carries a risk for contracting COVID-19, particularly for those unvaccinated. Participants will not know the vaccination status of others, including venue staff, and should follow appropriate risk mitigation measures.

Online Dean of Students Orientation Session

The Division will provide online orientation materials (via Canvas) that incoming graduate students can review at their own pace. Incoming students should have received an email invitation to access the Canvas materials in early August. 

11:30 am - 4:30 pm University-wide Graduate Student Orientation 2023 (In-person event) (optional)

Visit the UChicagoGRAD Graduate Student Orientation Page for more information about University-wide Orientation events for incoming students. 

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

10:00 am - 12:30 pm  PHYS 300 Workshop on the Teaching and Learning of Physics 

This workshop will provide students with tools to developing and utilizing skills to be a more effective Teaching Assistant. It is required for all Teaching Assistants to participate. Research Assistants and Fellows are strongly encouraged to attend so that you will be eligible to hold Teaching Assistantships in the future.

KPTC 103, KPTC 105

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm Karri DiPetrillo (Physics)

https://kdipetri.web.cern.ch/kdipetri/Research.html

Our goal is to understand the fundamental particles and forces that make up the universe. Our work is based in Geneva, Switzerland at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where we study the highest energy particle collisions ever produced in a laboratory. We collaborate with thousands of physicists from across the globe on operating and upgrading the ATLAS Experiment, a massive detector designed to reconstruct the byproducts of LHC collisions. We use the resulting data to characterize known particles with unprecedented precision and to search for evidence of new fundamental particles.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm Luca Delacretaz (Physics)

I am interested in understanding collective and emergent phenomena in condensed matter physics, in particular through the lens of quantum field theory. Conversely, quantum field
theory – a cornerstone of theoretical physics developed throughout the 20th century in symbiosis with experimental particle physics – now receives some of its most powerful tests from experiments in condensed matter, cold atoms, and other complex systems; my research takes inspiration from these experiments to further develop the framework of quantum field theory. Some of my more specific research focuses include Fermi liquids and non-Fermi liquids, fluctuating hydrodynamics, thermalization of quantum many-body systems, and effective field theories.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

2:00 pm - 2:30 pm Zoe Yan (Physics)

https://sites.google.com/view/yan-lab

Highly dipolar ultracold molecules for quantum simulation: We are interested in building two-dimensional systems of highly polar molecules.  Cold molecules form a frontier in AMO physics, with rich internal structures and electric dipole moments, lending them dipolar interactions that are long-range and tunable.  Combining the creation of ground state fermionic molecules with a state-of-the-art imaging system, we will study novel phenomena including topological p-wave superfluidity and controlled ultracold chemical reactions.

A programmable tweezer array of fermionic atoms: We will develop a programmable quantum simulator of electronic lattice systems, using strongly interacting ultracold atoms in software-defined optical tweezer arrays. Unlike in most existing tweezer array platforms, here, atoms will coherently tunnel between sites, giving access to the physics of itinerant systems of relevance to high-temperature superconductivity.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Alex High (PME)

http://highlab.uchicago.edu/index.html

The High Lab studies solid state optical and quantum science. We explore methods to integrate, structure, and control quantum materials to create new technologies and explore new regimes in physics. Our expertise integrates semiconductor physics, quantum optics, nanofabrication, and photonics. Currently, we are developing quantum technologies in diamond membranes, exploring novel forms of interaction between quantum systems, and exploring physics and technologies of excitons and correlated electrons in 2D materials.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

3:00 pm - 3:30 pm Aash Clerk (PME)

https://clerkgroup.uchicago.edu/

The Clerk group is broadly interested in driven-dissipative quantum phenomena occurring in engineered quantum systems. Our research is at the intersection of condensed matter physics, quantum optics, and quantum information. While we are theorists, we work closely with a number of leading experimental groups around the world.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

Thursday, September 21, 2023

10:00 am - 10:30 am Arvind Murugan (Physics)

http://muruganlab.uchicago.edu/

Arvind works on problems in quantitative biology, materials design, nonequilibrium dynamics, disordered systems, and theoretical computer science. Recent advances in computational intelligence have relied on the emergent collective behavior of simulated dynamical and statistical systems. I aim to implement such smart collective behaviors usually seen in “software” (error correction, neural networks, associative memory) directly into ”hardware” (biochemical reactions, self-assembly, robotics). Bringing such emergent learning and adaptive behavior back home to physical and chemical systems can shed light on underlying principles, reveal completely novel behaviors, and lead to new forms of designer matter.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

10:30 am - 11:00 am Elizabeth Jerison (Physics)

https://jerisonlab.uchicago.edu/

Our immune system mounts swift, strong responses to pathogen invasion. However, the same highly nonlinear responses that protect us also have the potential to wreak havoc. This balance, and its failure, arise from a dynamical interplay amongst cells and signaling molecules throughout an organism. While we have an ever-growing list of the components of this system, understanding how they combine to control its behavior remains a vast challenge. However, technological advances now give us unprecedented opportunities to make quantitative measurements of the molecular and cellular underpinnings of immune responses, up to the scale of whole organisms. We leverage these experimental technologies, combined with tools from statistical physics and dynamical systems, to investigate tipping points and collective behavior in immunity and inflammation. Our main model system is the zebrafish, which has the same cellular components as the mammalian immune system, but is transparent and orders of magnitude smaller in size. This enables optical imaging of cellular and gene expression dynamics in the whole live organism, and opens opportunities for precise spatial perturbations with light. Our primary objective is to understand how spatiotemporal control of inflammation is achieved in this system, and why it sometimes fails. Ultimately, we seek to discover mathematical principles that underly the function and failure of these responses, towards predicting and controlling them.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

11:00 am - 11:30 am Hannes Bernien (PME)

http://www.bernienlab.com/

The Bernien lab focuses on finding answers to the questions: How can we scale fully controlled quantum systems from the current few-particle level to many particles and large distances? How can we study the fascinating effects that arise from the increased complexity in these systems? How can these phenomena be utilized for quantum technology?
The lab combines techniques from quantum control and quantum optics with ultracold atoms and nanotechnology in order to develop new ways of engineering large, fully controlled quantum systems and studying the phenomena that arise in such systems.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

11:30 am - 11:30 am David Miller (Physics)

http://millerlab.uchicago.edu/

The Miller Lab explores the properties of fundamental particles at the edge of current technologies, ranging from the highest energy particle collisions ever produced in a lab at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland using the novel instrumentation of the ATLAS Experiment, to searches for axion-like particles using small-scale experiments, to building dedicated high-speed electronics and real-time data processing, and cutting-edge data analysis and machine learning algorithms. Recent efforts in the Miller Lab on the ATLAS experiment have focused on operating the ATLAS level 1 trigger system for Run 3, designing triggers for the HL-LHC, measuring detailed properties of jets and jet substructure, and searching for new particles. In the arena of machine learning, we’re working on symmetry-group based architectures that provide interpretable physics-informed outputs, and allow for a principled approach to both classification and regression tasks. Our new efforts in searching for dark matter include both dark photons and axions using the BREAD (Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection) experiment. 

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm Noah Mitchell (Biophysics)

 https://mitchelllab.uchicago.edu

The Mitchell Lab studies the physics of organ morphogenesis. In feats of dynamic self-organization, embryonic tissues transform into specific shapes that are vital for function. While genetic inputs are well-studied, how tissues pattern mechanical forces to sculpt complex organ shapes has remained elusive. We investigate the collective cell behaviors and mechanical interactions between tissue layers that link genes to visceral organ geometry. This effort invokes advanced microscopy techniques for whole-organ live imaging, optogenetic perturbations, computational image analysis, differential geometry, and analytic approaches from condensed matter physics & dynamical systems. 

After a PhD in physics from the University of Chicago, I moved to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. The Mitchell Lab will open in the spring of 2024 and holds openings for ambitious PhD students. We value curiosity, creativity, and courage to tackle cross-disciplinary perspectives. 

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm Philippe Guyot-Sionnest (Physics)

https://pgslab.uchicago.edu/pgs/

Chemistry and physics share tremendous potential at the nanoscale. This is where chemistry excels and where physics predicts that many properties can be tuned. For example, charging properties, spins, phonons, and plasmons show pronounced effects in this regime. We investigate these fundamental states in nanocrystal quantum dots created by colloidal synthetic chemistry. Alongside basic studies utilizing optical spectroscopies, electrochemistry and transport measurements, we also integrate nanocrystals into optoelectronic devices for applications in infrared imaging and light emission. Our research is motivated by physical concepts and enabled by advances in chemical synthesis.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

2:00 pm - 2:30 pm Tian Zhong (PME)

https://pme.uchicago.edu/faculty/tian-zhong

Tian Zhong’s research focuses on developing enabling nanophotonic and molecular technologies for building an efficient, global-scale Quantum Internet. In the past decade, Prof. Zhong’s work has contributed to significant progress in nanoscale quantum network nodes and high-throughput quantum communication links interconnecting distant nodes. His efforts from atomic-molecular physics and photonics aspects converge to a vision to advance state-of-the-art quantum information technologies to bring Quantum Internet one step closer to reality.

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Carlos Wagner (Physics)

https://www.hep.anl.gov/cwagner/index.html

Much of the work of high-energy physics concentrates on the interplay between theory and experiment. The theory group of Argonne’s High Energy Physics Division performs high-precision calculations of Standard Model processes, interprets experimental data in terms of physics both within and beyond the Standard Model, and makes predictions for new, well-motivated experimental searches that attempt to provide answers to open questions.

The group addresses theoretical questions in the following areas:

  • Collider Physics
  • Higgs Physics
  • Perturbative QCD
  • Beyond the Standard Model Physics
  • Physics of Quarkonia
  • Cosmological Interface: Dark Matter and Baryogenesis
  • Neutrino Physics
  • Parton Distribution Functions and Nonperturbative QCD

Presentation will be held in KPTC 206. 

Friday, September 22, 2023

10:00 am - 12:30 pm  PHYS 300 Workshop on the Teaching and Learning of Physics 

This workshop will provide students with tools to developing and utilizing skills to be a more effective Teaching Assistant. It is required for all Teaching Assistants to participate. Research Assistants and Fellows are strongly encouraged to attend so that you will be eligible to hold Teaching Assistantships in the future.

KPTC 103, KPTC 105

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm  Physics Field Day

KPTC Courtyard (west side of KPTC)