Professor and Chair
Department of Physics
Florida Atlantic University
This is an exciting decade for science in southern Florida.The department is rapidly growing, and is poised to meet the new challenges for the field of physics in today's environment at a research university.
We are augmenting and integrating our core expertise in condensed matter physics with the growing field of the Physics of Biological Systems. Additionally, we are in the process of forming the Center for Spacetime Physics. This center will pull together our current expertise in supernova astrophysics, cosmology as well as classical and quantum gravity. Our growing effort in the Physics of Biological Systems is tightly integrated with the expanding efforts here at FAU within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science in the areas of Biomedical Science, Mathematics, Biology and Biochemistry. We will also be filling faculty lines in areas aligned with, and supporting, the charter of the Scripps Institute that will be establishing a new campus in Palm Beach County.
Our Spacetime Physics effort here already provides numerical and mathematical support for the DOE's TSI initiative as well the NSF's LIGO observatories. In addition to these three general-relativistic astrophysics areas, a major thrust of the center will be the search for the origin of the concept of space and time and will involve fundamental research in the foundations of gravity, and quantum theory.
The department has a strong doctoral and bachelors program in physics. We provide graduate support, scholarships, tuition, assistance and fellowships to over 20 graduate students. We routinely arrange for summer research positions for many of our graduate students at numerous National Laboratories.
I extend a warm welcome to you from the faculty, staff, and students of the Physics Department of Florida Atlantic University!
