We look at results of the Great Physics Bake-Off, sneak preview the next Department Speaker Series event, and remind you of the upcoming Society of Physics Students graduate school panel event!
Continue reading “Physics Department Friday Newsletter for March 19, 2021”We look at the next event hosted by the Society of Physics students on considering and applying for graduate studies, and we take a peek at the next speaker series event on using the Higgs particle to look for previously unknown forces and particles in nature, and advertise the next Astrophysics (Virtual) Lunch event!
Continue reading “Physics Department Friday Newsletter for March 12, 2021”On Tuesday, March 9, at 9am, Dr. Sijing Zhang will present a seminar entitled “Search for an additional low mass Higgs boson in the diphoton final state with the CMS experiment”. Connecting information is available here: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1015484/
The CMS and ATLAS experiments at the LHC have announced the discovery of a Higgs boson with mass at approximately 125 GeV in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson via, notably, the γγ and ZZ to four leptons final states. However, physics beyond the SM (BSM) can also provide a Higgs boson that is compatible with the observed 125 GeV boson, as well as additional Higgs bosons, some of which could have masses below 125 GeV. This motivates the extension of the search at the LHC for the Higgs boson h1 in the diphoton final state. The H→γγγγ decay channel provides a clean final-state topology that allows the mass of a Higgs boson in the search range to be reconstructed with high precision. With 13 TeV data of 132 fb-1 integrated luminosity, a search for a new resonance decaying into two photons is performed on CMS, for the diphoton invariant mass range between 70 and 110 GeV. The expected 95% confidence level upper limits on the product of the cross-section with the branching ratio into two photons are presented.
We look at virtual visits to our department by prospective doctoral students, announce a break on Monday from the speaker series, and review the expectations to handle the “lost week of instruction” caused by the winter disaster.
Continue reading “Physics Department Friday Newsletter for March 5, 2021”We celebrate Post-Doctoral Researcher Alessandra Betti and Physics Major Jared Burleson; check in on the flood remediation of Fondren Science Building; sneak-peek the fall 2021 courses; and literally look at Gamma Ray Bursts!
Continue reading “Physics Department Friday Newsletter for February 26, 2021”
The memory of water pouring down from ceilings in the Fondren Science Building in 2011 is still fresh. Faculty in our department who were there when the sprinkler system pipe burst in the Fondren Science Building cupola can still recall the devastation to labs, offices and other property. It was truly devastating. To have a high-pressure source of water burst so high up in the building and rain water down on every floor below is not something you easily forget.
What caused this to happen in 2011? Back then, it was under-insulated pipes in a part of the building easily subject to exterior freezing temperatures. Fondren Science Building was then merely a victim of the Laws of Thermodynamics and Mechanics as water expanded as it froze, increasing pressure on the remaining liquid water and eventually cracking the pipe.
On Wednesday, it happened again to Fondren Science Building. All things considered, the 2021 flood, nearly 10 years to the week since the last one, was moderate compared to the 2011 flood.
In this case, a sprinkler system pipe in a graduate student office on the 1st floor of the building ruptured. Water flooded large parts of the first and basement levels. The most significant damage identified so far has been severe damage to a Chemistry research laboratory and flooded offices and hallways. It seems, for now, that widespread damage to a variety of research and teaching capabilities is avoided.
It’s still bad. The Departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology are all continuing to take stock of the damage.
In this issue, we have a look at the flood that unfolded this week, and whose ramifications continue to be understood. In the hopes that next week, as classes resume on campus and we find a way to move forward together, we look at some things going on in the department next week and beyond. There is an election to vote in and a seminar on quantum information science to look forward to!
For now, though, I look forward to helping those of you who have suffered material losses in this flood event. We will rebuild. Again.
Sincerely,
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
The bursting of pipes in Fondren Science Building is an unfolding situation. As we go to press, another burst pipe – this time in an HVAC system in the basement on the west side of the building – has been identified. Below are photos from Prof. David Son (Department of Chemistry) of the situation about an hour after department heads were notified of the leak in the sprinkler system. We are grateful to Prof. Son for traveling to campus in bad winter conditions to assess the damage.
In the gallery below, the one picture showing the interior of an office is that of the office where the pipe burst. It is normally home to four of our graduate students in physics. We were fortunate it was under-stocked with personal items, books, etc. due to the ongoing pandemic forcing people to remain largely away from campus.
The next event of the Spring 2021 Department Speaker Series is on Monday, February 22, at 4pm. We welcome Dr. Maurice Garcia-Sciveres (LBNL) to speak on quantum information science, quantum computing, and the impact and applications for high-energy physics. Major initiatives are in place to support this nascent area of information science, and Dr. Garcia-Sciveres will provide an introduction to both the ideas and the ongoing efforts.
You can catch up on the Spring 2021 (and Fall 2020!) Physics Speaker Series by checking out your favorite subjects from archives! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter or other novel particles or forces, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Physics Speaker Series Talks below.
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!
The winter disaster that struck all of Texas cost us an entire week of instruction. The Provost’s office issued guidance this morning on how to handle this, for now. Not all questions are answered, as is clear from the guidance:
The emphasis in the third bullet is provided by the Department Chair, to make clear that no faculty member or class instructor is allowed to assume that students can do work to prepare for class on Monday (etc.) that is beyond the scope of what would have been expected last Monday, Feb. 15.
The faculty will have to be patient as the Provost and other academic leaders solve the new problem created by shifting the schedule by 1 week without also providing any extension to the semester.
Congratulations to Prof. Jodi Cooley, who stood for and won election to the membership of the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies’ Graduate Council. As noted on the council’s home page, “The Moody School Graduate Council, consisting of faculty representing SMU graduate programs, meets regularly with the Dean of the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies and advises the Dean on policies that apply to graduate students across the university and on procedures of the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies. The Council includes faculty from SMU’s four Ph.D.-granting schools: The Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, the Lyle School of Engineering, the Meadows School of the Arts, and the Simmons School of Education and Human Development.”
The in-office staff schedule for the week of February 22 is nominally as follows:
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.
Full staff in-office calendar for February:
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!
Third-year PhD student Ishwita Saikia was nominated for, and is now standing for election to, the Texas Section of the American Physical Society’s Executive Committee. She is running for Student Member-at-Large. All members of the TSAPS are eligible and encouraged to vote. Voting is open through March 10, 2021 at 11:59:00 PM Central Time.
According to the bylaws of the TSAPS,
The Executive Committee shall consist of the Officers of the Section, the most recent Past Chair, the Council Observer, four Members-at-Large elected to staggered three-year terms and two student Members-at-Large elected to staggered two-year terms …
https://engage.aps.org/tsaps/governance/bylaws
A “member-at-large” is a person serving in an executive council seat, and duly elected to the seat, with no specific duties but often selected for expertise or their area of representation. As noted above, Ishwita is running for election for the student member-at-large, and will bring her perspective as a graduate student to that role.
In the department, Ishwita has served as the physics representative to the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) and presently serves as the graduate student representative on the Physics Chair’s Student Advisory Council, which works with the Department Chair to identify issues that affect students and facilitate departmental action to address those issues.
If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.
Most members of the department have suffered a loss of some kind this week. Some graduate students were without power and heat for over 24 hours. Burst pipes have stopped running water for students, staff, and faculty alike. Even with running water, many people are under “boil water” notices because the water is poorly treated or of insufficient quality for consumption due to systemic failures.
If you need help, there are many resources available for getting assistance. As the road conditions improve again starting today, it will be easier to get out and get things you need. Here are some places you can go for help even as the immediate crisis ends.
A goal of mine since stepping into the Department Chair position has been to enhance the community aspects of our department. Obviously, a global pandemic that demands social distancing as a means to thwart the spread of a deadly respiratory virus is the antithesis of that goal. Nevertheless, the modern digital age provides some opportunities to began stretching our legs on this matter, preparing for a sprint once we can all be together again.
For example, Prof. Simon Dalley (Director of Undergraduate Studies in Physics and the Assistant Chair for Undergraduate Studies in Physics) is developing a new alumni stories web project. The page will feature quotes, photos, stories, and biographies of alumni of our program. We’re looking for stories especially from students who came through SMU Physics and want to share how experiences here shaped them. While Prof. Dalley has done outreach on this, and other professors have echoed that outreach on his behalf, I’d like to amplify the call from all of you! If you are interested in sharing something, especially being featured on the alumni site, please reach out to Prof. Dalley.
We can do other things, too. Inspired by the digital “coffee breaks” being conducted for a recent meeting of the Electron-Ion Collider User Group, Prof. Pavel Nadolsky recommended the use of a platform called “Wonder” (formerly “YoTribe”) to allow for better, all-digital coffee breaks. Academic Operations administrator Lacey Breaux has been test-driving this during our Wednesday “H-bar Coffee Bar” events. In a Wonder space, you can move a little avatar around a board. Pulling your avatar close to someone else’s creates a “conversation circle.” Only people in the circle can talk, and each circle can host up to 15 people at once. Many circles can be ongoing in the same space, each a microcosm of conversation. Wonder is far better than Zoom for this kind of purpose. It promotes a more intimate and fluid digital community. Heck, I even used this to run “Game Night” in my Honors Physics course, conducting a “pub quiz-like” event so teams could compete for resources for their projects.
We can do more traditional things in a digital space, like build networks. This past week, the department was pleased to be able to support a networking event with emphasis on women in physics (students, staff, and faculty) as part of International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Thanks to the hard work of Michele Hill, our Research Operations administrator, the department was able to provide a coupon for Uber Eats to facilitate food delivery to individuals for the event. (We learned a good lessons from this: we need to provide a little more on the coupon for future events to help cover those pesky delivery fees … but, generally, this worked out about as well as we could have hoped!) Not only was this an effort to foster a community within the physics program, but it involved an echo of an old traditional practice: providing food for events.
All of us are constantly working to bring back something resembling community, even as we are forced to remain apart. We strive to do as well as we can, looking forward to the day when we can be back together once more.
In this issue of the Friday newsletter, we reflect on the networking event I mentioned above and look to our next department speaker series event, tracing out dark matter using stars. We also make plans for the inclement weather expected for most of next week, especially in the first half of next week. Community is about preparedness as much as it is about fun … and the cold weather bearing down on North Texas demands caution and readiness!
Sincerely,
|
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
On Thursday, February 11, the physics department was proud to support a virtual event intended to support women involved in our physics program with a networking opportunity. This helped to mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The event was organized by Prof. Durdana Balakishiyeva, Prof. Jodi Cooley, Prof. Allison Deiana, and Prof. Krista Smith, as well as our fantastic department staff.
The organizers were pleased to welcome five faculty, two staff, a post-doctoral researcher, three graduate students, and eight undergraduates to the event. People dropped in and out of the event as their schedules allowed, but the event mixed in some ice-breaker trivia with more serious discussions of individual stories of people involved in the event. Prof. Jodi Cooley said of the event,
For the first time, most of us were able to meet [post-doctoral researchers and research faculty] who are stationed at CERN [in Geneva, Switzerland]. During the event we had a trivia contest themed around women scientist which was used to spur discussion of discoveries, technology and our personal experiences and stories. I think I can speak for everyone who attended in thanking the department for making this event possible.
The next event of the Spring 2021 Department Speaker Series is on Monday, February 15, at 4pm. We welcome Prof. Lina Necib (MIT) to speak on will the impact of stellar motion and dynamics on understanding the particle nature of dark matter in three separate locations: the solar neighborhood, the Galactic center, and dwarf galaxies. She will explain methods for understanding and/or constraining the properties of dark matter in each of these domains and emphasize the need to better utilize dwarf galaxies in this portfolio.
You can catch up on the Spring 2021 (and Fall 2020!) Physics Speaker Series by checking out your favorite subjects from archives! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter or other novel particles or forces, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Physics Speaker Series Talks below.
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!
The Provost helpfully addressed this question in her weekly mailing. For example, you might be teaching remotely but students depend on physically going to a “Zoom room” on campus to attend your class (their dorm room might be too crowded or busy, etc.). What do you do? The simple answer is: keep on teaching, remotely.
Planning for North Texas’ inclement weather forecast February 15 – February 17 – The North Texas weather forecast for this weekend and into next week indicates the potential for a prolonged winter weather event with significant impacts to travel and infrastructure. As we conclude this week, I would encourage faculty and staff to plan accordingly and take any work-related or instruction-related materials home with you for the weekend in the event campus does need to close. If campus does close, all courses will be offered virtually as opposed to in-person.
Provost Loboa, “Weekly Update – February 12, 2021”
If it becomes evident that weather issues will challenge in-person operations next week, members of our leadership team will convene over the weekend to discuss and initiate a response plan. Policy 9.12 University Operations Affected by Emergency Conditions can be reviewed for more information on the campus’ response.
The in-office staff schedule for the week of February 15 is nominally as follows:
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone. Inclement weather may prevent then from traveling safely to campus during the next week. Please be aware that just because they are scheduled to be in the office, weather may prevent that. Health and safety come first!
Full staff in-office calendar for February:
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!
If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.
SPS Faculty Advisor and our department’s informal “Puzzle Master,” Prof. Randy Scalise, invites you to try to solve this month’s physics challenge from The Physics Teacher. The first correct solution he receives (scalise@physics.smu.edu) from a student member of our Society of Physics Students will be awarded a prize. The winner will get to select from the following four books,
Solutions must be complete enough to understand your strategy, reasoning, and methods; providing answers with no explanations are not acceptable. Dr. Scalise urges submitters who believe they have the correct answer to, of course, also submit their solution to The Physics Teacher using the email address challenges@aapt.org. Make sure to follow the journal’s guidelines for submissions (see below). The deadline is the last day of this month.
When: February 9, 2021 at 11am US Central Time
Where: contact Jingbo Ye or Allison Deiana for information
The SMU ATLAS group invites the department to a special seminar by Dr. Lukasz Fulek from AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland. The talk is entitled “Physics with Forward Protons at RHIC and LHC.” It is virtual and begins at 11am US Central Time.
The presentation will be an overview of the diffractive physics at the STAR experiment at RHIC and the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The forward scattered protons, which remain intact after the proton–proton collision are detected in Roman Pot detectors, thus selecting processes proceeding mainly via exchange of a particle carrying quantum numbers of the vacuum, commonly known as the Pomeron. Particular emphasis will be placed on the measurements of the total and elastic cross sections, exclusive processes in double diffractive and charged-particle production in single diffractive dissociation processes. Finally, the predictions of various phenomenological models at the RHIC and LHC energies are discussed.
This event is organized by Prof. Jingbo Ye and Prof. Allison Deiana. For connection information, please contact them!
Go outside tonight. Try to find a really quiet place. Now, sit. Close your eyes. Listen.
Can you hear them?
Well, NANOGrav thinks they can.
To quote the author Douglas Adams,
“The Universe is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore. Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.”
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
Out there, in the vastness of the cosmos, are a large number of galaxies that, over billions of years, have merged together. It’s believed that most, if not all, of these galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their heart, a monstrous region of spacetime containing the masses of 100 million stars. When the galaxies merged, their supermassive black holes should have gone into orbit around each other. Their slow collapse toward a merger into one massive singularity would take immense stretches of time and in the process would make spacetime itself shudder with gravitational waves.
Like low frequency chimes, these orbiting supermassive black holes would make the universe ring with with a chorus of gravitational waves.
Can you hear them?
In this issue of the Friday Newsletter, we are fortunate to have the expert perspective of our own Prof. Joel Meyers on the recent claim by the NANOGrav pulsar timing array experiment that they have evidence of this cosmic spacetime din. In addition, we look to the next event in the Department Speaker Series, which will be rich in deep learning and applications to high-dimensional problems in collider physics. We also have a nice physics problem to tease everyone’s brain over the next week!
Sincerely,
|
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
by Prof. Joel Meyers
The NANOGrav (North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves) collaboration recently published the results of a search for stochastic background of low frequency gravitational waves based on 12.5 years of data. For the first time, the analysis of this type of data has shown an intriguing hint of a non-zero signal that is roughly consistent with that expected from the gravitational waves produced by the coalescence of supermassive black holes throughout the Universe. The signal is not yet significant enough to definitively claim that it represents a detection of a long-wavelength gravitational wave background, though future data from NANOGrav and similar efforts should be decisive within the next few years.
Green Bank Telescope (credit: NRAO)
William E Gordon Telescope / Arecibo Observator (credit: UCF/AO)
NANOGrav is a type of a coordinating observing campaign known as a Pulsar Timing Array. NANOGrav scientists use the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (until its shocking recent collapse captured in a stunning video) to monitor the very regular radio pulses from astrophysical objects known as pulsars situated throughout the Milky Way Galaxy. Pulsars are very rapidly spinning neutron stars that host strong magnetic fields which cause beamed emission from their poles. Observers here on Earth see pulsar emission only when the radiation is beamed toward us, much like the light from a lighthouse is seen by sailors only when the beam illuminates their ship, and as such pulsars appear to undergo regular bursts of radio emission. The extreme regularity of these radio pulses allows scientists to use pulsars as very precise clocks spread throughout the Galaxy. Pulsar timing arrays are used to monitor the radio bursts from many pulsars over several years, and scientists look for tiny deviations in the expected pulse arrival times. (For an excellent overview of Pulsar Timing Arrays and NANOGrav, see the recent SMU Physics seminar by Dr. Stephen Taylor.)
Gravitational waves passing through the Earth stretch and squeeze space, effectively altering the light travel time between distant pulsars and the Earth. As a result, gravitational waves are expected to produce a correlated shift in the arrival times of radio pulses from pulsars. The nature of gravitational waves predicts a specific (quadrupolar) pattern of correlation. While the data from NANOGrav has demonstrated that there is a correlated shift to the pulse arrival times, the signal is not yet strong enough to demonstrate that it has this characteristic pattern. More observing time and correlation with other pulsar timing arrays (including the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array in Australia and the European Pulsar Timing Array) should make it possible to either confirm or rule out the signature correlation pattern expected from gravitational waves.
Pulsar timing arrays are sensitive to very low-frequency gravitational waves, with periods on the order of a year. This frequency range cannot be directly probed with experiments like LIGO and VIRGO, which are sensitive to higher frequency gravitational wave signals. Pulsar timing arrays are currently the most precise tools we have to search for nanohertz gravitational waves, but there are other techniques that can complement the ongoing efforts. Gravitational waves cause a characteristic oscillation in the apparent positions of distant stars, and so very precise astrometric measurements provided by experiments like Gaia can be used to search for long wavelength gravitational waves. A novel method using observations of strongly lensed repeating fast radio bursts (for more about fast radio bursts, see recent SMU Physics Seminar by Kendrick Smith) has also recently been suggested by SMU physicists: undergraduate Noah Pearson, postdoc Cynthia Trendafilova, and Professor Joel Meyers (https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.11252).
Gravitational waves in the nanohertz band are expected to be produced by binary systems of supermassive black holes that are expected to form as the result of major galaxy mergers throughout the Universe. There are expected to be so many of these events that the Universe should constantly be filled with the low hum of the gravitational waves produced in this process – a stochastic gravitational wave background.
Supermassive black holes have been featured prominently in the news in the past few years. In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration produced an image of the environment of the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in part for the observations that confirmed the presence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Results like those from NANOGrav add to the growing list of ways that we can study these astrophysical behemoths. Astrophysicists including SMU Professor Krista Lynne Smith use these and other measurements to study supermassive black holes and the effects they have on their host galaxies (see Professor Krista Lynne Smith’s recent SMU Physics Colloquium).
If the signal seen in NANOGrav data is confirmed to be due to gravitational waves, it will provide an important new piece of information about the population and history of supermassive black holes. Furthermore, it provides an additional example of how gravitational wave observations can be utilized to reveal the secrets of our Universe.
Prof. Joel Meyers is an Assistant Professor of Physics at SMU and an expert in theoretical cosmology and astrophysics. In addition to his research, he teaches a range of courses from General Physics I through graduate-level Quantum Field Theory.
On Thursday, February 11, the physics department is proud to support a virtual event intended to support women involved in our physics program with a networking opportunity. This will help mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The event is organized by Prof. Durdana Balakishiyeva, Prof. Jodi Cooley, Prof. Allison Deiana, and Prof. Krista Smith. If you are interested in participating, please reach out to one of the organizers for more information!
The next event of the Spring 2021 Department Speaker Series is on Monday, February 8, at 4pm. We welcome Dr. Ben Nachman (LBNL) to speak on the problem of high-dimensionality in particle collider data and applications of deep learning to address the need to analyze that data. Examples for application will focus on the Large Hadron Collider and the forthcoming Electron-Ion Collider.
You can catch up on the Spring 2021 (and Fall 2020!) Physics Speaker Series by checking out your favorite subjects from archives! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter or other novel particles or forces, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Physics Speaker Series Talks below.
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!
(By Stephen Sekula, Department Chair)
Faculty are busy people, balancing research, teaching, and service. That makes our schedules pretty incongruent. This is especially true this spring. As a result of mismatches in the schedules of all full-time faculty, we will be forced to have our monthly faculty meetings on different days of the weeks and times so that no one person is overly excluded from participating in the meetings by virtue of class schedules or research meeting obligations. Here is the published schedule for Spring 2021. Connection details are available from Lacey Breaux, and the meetings are intended for full-time faculty only (tenure-line professors or lecturers).
The in-office staff schedule for the week of February 8 is as follows:
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.
Full staff in-office calendar for February:
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!
If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.
We leave you this week with some mental exercise: an example of the “Figuring Physics” feature from this month’s “The Physics Teacher” journal! This is good for physicists of all levels, from introductory physics students to seasoned instructors.
This was a vibrant and busy week. We welcomed students back into our classrooms (most of them virtual) to begin the learning and teaching process for the spring semester. With students more active on campus and fresh off an extended winter break, we also saw more clamoring for new starts on research and teaching assistant work.
I always find the start of term thrilling with all the nuances of that adjective: exhilarating with a touch of terrifying. Even though I’ve experienced now 24 “first weeks of the semester” since joining the faculty at SMU, it always feels like that first week. I find myself fretting over the last additions to my syllabus, like those important office hours (which I always schedule last when all other blocks of time have been stolen away by the many demands of the semester). I find myself nervously fiddling with the slide deck for the first class, balancing talking about the structure and philosophy of the class with the need to press the students into active work as quickly as possible (I hate glazed eyes, and there is no better cure for glazed eyes than turning to students and saying, “OK, your turn!”). I find myself, in these pandemic times, worrying that Zoom will suffer an outage or that this is the day my internet service provider cuts me off.
It all passes when that first class starts. The whole world slips away and you’re in the moment, interacting with students. I love getting to know as many students as possible the first week. I still use my old trick of memorizing, before the first class, the names and faces of 5 students so I can directly interact with them without social hesitation. It sets a tone for the first day: I’ll respect you, so there is no reason you shouldn’t respect me. Setting the tone of the classroom interaction on day one is crucial to all the days that will follow. Learning physics is hard … but it should begin from the proposition of mutual trust and respect.
As the first classes get out of the way, I always then find my thoughts eagerly turning back to research. I think about that project I put down last week to put those finishing touches on the class. I think about the student researcher I am working with who understands that the first week of classes is the schedule equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off; it wipes away all past expectations about accessibility and rewires the reality of the time balance a faculty member has to spend on teaching, research, and service.
In other words, this is going to be a busy semester … because they are all busy. Whether we are teaching in-person or doing so virtually, we start once more the great balancing act of the semester. At the department level, the game is no different. We’ve got a lot to look forward to in the next week apart from classes and research!
We resume the department speaker series on Monday with a Colloquium from Prof. Ahmed Ismail (Oklahoma State University). “Theory lunches” resume next Wednesday with participation in a remote event sponsored by the Cambridge University Physics Society.
No doubt, faculty will have project ideas this semester that will require personnel or material support from the Office of Information Technology (OIT). I outline a sensible process for getting projects launched with all stakeholders involved so that you are supported throughout the process, but also respect and protect the time of everyone involved … including you!
Please keep on being as safe as you can and working to keep others safe in the process. Thanks for all the hard work all of you do to make SMU a wonderful place to think and teach and learn. Here’s to a great semester!
Sincerely,
|
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
(From Dedman College)
Thursday, February 4, 2021, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. — Meet and connect with the college diversity officers and others in the college committed to creating and maintaining an equitable campus. This is an open format town hall to learn about new initiatives and events and share concerns and ideas for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in classrooms, departments, offices and the college. The Zoom meeting link was emailed by the Dedman Dean on January 28, 2021, so please email Cindy Havens in the Dean’s if you cannot find the link.
The SMU Physics theoretical physics program, led by Profs. Joel Meyers, Pavel Nadolsky, and Fred Olness resumes the weekly “Theory Lunches” this week! (virtually, of course)
On February 3, you should connect to a webinar entitled “Scaling down the laws of thermodynamics” by Christopher Jarzynski and organized by the Cambridge University Physics Society. The details of the Feb. 3 webinar are available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/224965769280762
The first event of the Spring 2021 Department Speaker Series is on Monday, February 1, at 4pm. We welcome Prof Ahmed Ismail (Oklahoma State University) to kick off the term with a look at physics beyond the Standard Model and precision measurements or programs that can lead the way into the future.
You can get ready for the start of our upcoming Spring 2021 Physics Speaker Series on Feb. 1 by checking out your favorite subjects from the Fall 2020 series! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Fall Speaker Series Talks below.
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!
(By Stephen Sekula, Department Chair)
OIT has made efforts, aligned with its previous 3-year strategic plan, to provide more personnel and more services for the research community at SMU. This support is expected to grow and strengthen further in the next three years, owing to the Provost’s emphasis on moving SMU to R1 status and the goals of the ongoing University Strategic Plan to emphasize more research investment.
While there is more support available than ever before from OIT for departments like ours, there are also many more departments on campus with existing, growing, or emerging research programs. We have both a “rising tide” and “many more boats” than we used to compete with for support (to overstretch a metaphor). That translates into more needs from across the university for the limited pool of OIT staff. As a result, it’s more important than ever to have a responsible plan of action for requesting the time of OIT staff and expertise.
I provide here the procedure I expect faculty to follow in our department, whether they are looking for OIT support for a grant-related or a teaching-related project need. For example, you might need software developed that addresses custom needs at the interface of ManeFrame II and your research program; or, you might need a piece of important teaching technology updated, upgraded, or improved for a forthcoming laboratory or classroom activity. If the project will touch either OIT personnel or other OIT resources, here is what to do:
This framework will help you to respect the time of staff in OIT whose expertise might be needed, respect your time by establishing the scope of the project, and make sure the various agencies (department, ATSD, etc.) are informed in case the project needs aid to move forward.
The in-office staff schedule for the week of February 1 is as follows:
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.
Full staff in-office calendar for February:
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!
If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.
We all have questions these days about a bunch of things. Here are resources from the Provost’s office to help us all try to find the answers.
COVID-related questions
Information about vaccinations at SMU
Contact tracing protocols
FAQ about COVID-19 notification protocols
FAQ about Red/Blue rotations
Information about Zoom Spaces for Students
COVID-related policies
Spring 2021 attendance options
Information to be included in spring 2021 syllabi
Canvas use expectations
Letter regarding COVID-related tenure extension
Accreditation requirements about modality shifting
Handouts and webinars for COVID-related teaching strategies
Strategies for supporting international students
CTE SMUFlex Guide
CTE Pedagogical Tips for Reducing Student Anxiety
OIT Recorded webinars for Teaching Flex from the January Workshops
OIT Resources for Faculty Teaching Remotely
SMU Libraries Canvas Course Modules
Links to additional campus-wide supports
