Archived PHY News

• Khanna publishes in a new APS journal, Physical Review X (12/12/2011)
  Physical Review X (PRX) is a new, open-access, online-only journal that boasts a rapid and high-standard peer-review process and is open to all areas of physics.
  
  
• Prof. Khanna receives new $49,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (9/6/2011)
  This new computational physics grant supports a research program to understand and to address the challenges associated to scaling specific gravitational wave physics applications from a prototype cluster of 16 Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) gaming consoles to the largest system now available, that built by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, NY.
  
  
• Prof. Khanna publishes black hole research calculations that made use of several hundred PlayStations (6/3/2011)
  When a large black hole captures a smaller object (say, a star) this process emits gravitational radiation ("ripples" in space-time) in a specific direction.
  
  
• Prof. Khanna is granted access to one of the largest and uniquest supercomputers (4/27/2011)
  The AFRL CONDOR supercomputer was built in Fall 2010 at the Naresky Facility of the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, NY.
  
  
• Researchers Show Exploding Stars Bend Space and Time (3/29/2011)
  Dropping a pebble into a pond sets off a ripple in the surface of the water. Similarly, according to University of Massachusetts Dartmouth graduate student David Falta, the explosion of some stars sets off a wave in space and time.
  
  
• Massachusetts Recovery & Reinvestment Office visits UMass Dartmouth (3/17/2011)
  State officials from the MA Recovery & Reinvestment Office visited UMass Dartmouth on March 2nd, 2011 and met with researchers that have benefited from the federal Recovery Act.
  
  
• Prof. Khanna publishes research article in the high-profile Physical Review Letters journal (12/10/2010)
  One of Prof. Khanna's research articles, titled "Test bodies and naked singularities: is the self-force the cosmic censor?" and co-written with Dr.
  
  
• Sudip Majumder, Physics Graduate student pursuing the PhD program with the intercampus School of Marine Sciences passed two portions of the general exam for his PhD (11/19/2010)
  Sudip Majumder is pursuing the PhD program with the intercampus School of Marine Sciences, in the Physics based track with Physics as his home department.
  
  
• Physics alumnus has been invited to attend this year's Nobel Prize ceremony (11/2/2010)
  Chagaan Baatar (formerly Chagarn Whan), a 1988 Masters Degree graduate from the Physics Department, was honored recently with an invitation to attend this year's Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.
  
  
• Professor Khanna awarded new NSF GOALI grant (8/30/2010)
  The new grant is titled "GOALI: An Exploration of the Use of OpenCL for Numerical Modeling and Data Analysis" and has a total budget of $166,499 for a period of 2 years.
  
  
• National Science Foundation Awards Prof. Fisher Support To Acquire a State-of-the-Art Supercomputer For UMass Dartmouth (5/26/2010)
  The National Science Foundation has awarded $199,480 to Robert Fisher, Assistant Professor of Physics, to acquire a cutting-edge supercomputer, which will become a shared research facility at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus.
  
  
• Dr. Marguerite Zarrillo has been appointed by the National Transportation Research Board to be a Member of the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics (4/28/2010)
  Dr. Marguerite Zarrillo has been appointed by the National Transportation Research Board to be a Member of the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics
  
  
• Physics graduate student Rakesh Ginjupalli publishes research paper in HPC conference (4/5/2010)
  Rakesh Ginjupalli and Prof. Khanna have just published a peer-reviewed conference paper titled "High-Precision Numerical Simulations of Rotating Black Holes Accelerated by CUDA".  
  
  
• The World Scientific Company will soon publish the Proceedings of the 9th International Conference (4/5/2010)
  Chancellor Prof. J.P. Hsu has finished co-editing and making camera-ready manuscripts for the Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Gravitational and Astrophysics that took place in Wuhan, China in July 2009.  
  
  
• NCST Award Winners (2/2/2010)
  Congratulations to two of our COE graduate students for their award: Neda Masoud, Masters Degree student of Physics and Ikechukwu Azogu, PhD candidate of ECE.
  
  
• CANCELLED: UMass Dartmouth Observatory open house, Dec. 19 (12/8/2009)
  NOTE: Due to the inclement weather forecast (winter storm advisory with snow), the Observatory public open house scheduled for Saturday, Dec.
  
  
• Physics professor O'Rielly to be first Faculty Fellow for Teaching and Learning (12/4/2009)
  Selected by the Office of Faculty Development
  
  
• Physics department to hold 2-day symposium (11/9/2009)
  In order to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy and to   highlight the new focus of the Physics Department on Computing and   Simulation, a 2-day symposium "Computing and Simulation in Astronomy   and Physics" is organized.
  
  
• Dr. Hsu participates in the 9th International Conference on Gravitation and Astrophysics (11/9/2009)
  Prof. J. P. Hsu presented a paper and co-chaired a session in the 9th   International Conference on Gravitation and Astrophysics in Wuhan,   China in July 2009.
  
  
• Physics Graduate Student Eric Holmes in Japan for Science Mission (10/20/2009)
  Physics Graduate Student Eric Holmes has reached Japan, and is now onboard R/V Natsushima with other scientists from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, MIT, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to make measurements across the Kuroshio Front and fast moving Kuroshio current!
  
  
• College of Engineering undergraduate Justin McKennon publishes research paper with Prof. Khanna (9/30/2009)
  Justin McKennon, undergraduate engineering student in the Electrical   and Computer Engineering department has just published a research   paper with Prof.
  
  
• Professor Alan Hirshfeld announces the release of his new book "The Life and Legacy of Archimedes" (9/9/2009)
  Prof. Alan Hirshfeld's new book Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes has just been published by Walker Books in New York.
  
  
• Professor Khanna awarded NSF grant under the American Recovery (9/8/2009)
  This proposal is about exploring the use of alternative technologies,   such as the Sony Playstation 3 gaming console, multimedia workstations   and similar hardware for scientific computing.
  
  
• Amit Tandon Awarded New NSF Research Grant (8/28/2009)
  The National Science Foundation recently awarded Dr. Amit Tandon of the Physics Department $328,384 over three years to study the importance of submesoscale ocean processes to ocean productivity.
  
  
• Dr. Robert Fisher attends the Ninth Asia-Pacific International Conference in Wuhan, China (8/13/2009)
  Dr. Robert Fisher, Assistant Professor of the Physics Department delivered an invited presentation on supercomputer simulations of Type Ia supernovae at the the Ninth Asia-Pacific International Conference on Gravitation and Astrophysics(ICGA9) at the end of June at Huazhong University of Science & Tecnology in Wuhan, China.
  
  
• UMass Dartmouth seeks support of Physics alumni and friends of the Hirshfeld-Dowd Observatory (6/29/2009)
  UMass Dartmouth plans improvements to the Hirshfeld-Dowd Observatory to expand and enhance the facility.
  
  
• Playstations settle black hole related controversy (12/18/2008)
  In September 2007, Dr. Gaurav Khanna of UMass Dartmouth clustered eight (8) Sony Playstation 3 gaming consoles together and demonstrated that one could obtain supercomputer-level performance at an extremely low cost.
  
  
• Prof. Khanna has been awarded membership to the Foundational Questions Institute, with an accompanying research grant (10/15/2008)
  The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi: http://www.fqxi.org/ was established in 2005 to catalyze, support and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality.
  
  
• Rotating Tank experiments at the Working Waterfront Festival (10/7/2008)
  Physics Junior Carter Chamberlain and Dr. Amit Tandon, Associate Professor Physics presented rotating tank experiments at the Working Waterfront Festival on September 27th and 28th, 2008.
  
  
• Dr. Amit Tandon, Associate Professor of the Physics Department presents at the ICES Annual Science Conference 2008 (10/6/2008)
  Associate Professor Dr. Amit Tandon attended his first International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Annual Science Conference which was held in Halifax, Canada Sept.
  
  
• Prof. Khanna receives $30,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (6/25/2008)
  This grant is about novel extension of the cost-effective Beowulf cluster approach towards supercomputing, using very low-cost, special purpose gaming hardware, such as the Sony PlayStation 3.
  
  
• Student Article Published in Oceanography (6/17/2008)
  An article by Physics graduating seniors David Beesley and Jason Olejarz co-authored with Professor Amit Tandon of the Physics department and Professor John Marshall of MIT appears in the current issue of the official magazine of the Oceanography Society.
  
  
• Congratulations to the master's degree graduates in physics (6/4/2008)
  Photos of the master's degree graduates in physics are online
  
  
• Observatory Open House (2/5/2008)
  On Saturday, February 2, the Physics Department held its most successful Observatory Open House since the mid-1990s.
  
  
• Physics Undergraduate Students Present Their Research At American Met Society'S Annual Conference (1/31/2008)
  Physics Undergraduate Seniors David Beesley and Jason Olejarz presented their research at the American Meteorological Society's Seventh Annual Student Conference held on January 19th and 20th, 2008 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
  
  
• Golden Key International Honour Society (10/19/2007)
  The Physics Department's Professional Technician, Danielle LeMeur, also the UMass Dartmouth Chapter Advisor of the Golden Key International Honour Society held the annual induction ceremony.
  
  
• Physics professor uses Sony PlayStations for black hole research (10/18/2007)
  PS3 has unique features that make it suitable for scientific computations
  
  
• Sony PlayStations used in Astrophysics Research (9/17/2007)
  Dr. Gaurav Khanna and Mr. Glenn Volkema of the Physics department have built a small supercomputer using eight (8) Sony PlayStations 3 gaming consoles.
  
  
• University Collaborative for Intelligent Transportation Systems (UC-- ITS) (8/31/2007)
  The President's Office of the University of Massachusetts Science and Technology Program has awarded $160,000 to establish a Multi-campus University Collaborative for Intelligent Transportation Systems (UC-ITS).
  
  
• Physics students prototype fluids experiments at MIT (7/24/2007)
  Physics students accompanied Prof. Amit Tandon to Prof. John Marshall's laboratory
  
  
• Dr. Khanna published in Europhysics Letters (6/8/2007)
  Dr. Khanna's recent research was published in Europhysics Letters which is one of the leading European journals for Physics.
  
  
• Summer Internship (4/25/2007)
  An undergraduate summer internship is available for qualified undergraduate Physics,Engineering and Mathematics majors to work on problems relating Ocean Dynamics.
  
  
• Beautiful Patterns from the Atmosphere - Ocean Experiments (3/28/2007)
  Dr. Tandon's Physics 300 class, Undergraduate Seminar, work on a fluids experiment with the goal of creating fascinating Taylor columns, and ultimately to understand the consequences of the Taylor-Proudman Theorem.
  
  
• The Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Limnology" asks Dr. Amit Tandon to continue. (3/20/2007)
  The Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Limnology asked Dr. Amit Tandon, Associate Professor of Physics Department to continue his involvement as the foreign member of the editorial board.
  
  
• Dr. Hsu publishes book on the theory of Relativity (1/25/2007)
  Chancellor Professor of Physics, Dr. J.P. Hsu recently published a new edition of his book titled "A Broader View of Relativity".
  
  
• Dr. Khanna selected to be on the executive committee of MacResearch.org. (1/12/2007)
  Dr. Gaurav Khanna was recently selected to be on the executive committee of MacResearch.org, which is an open and independent community for scientists using Apple computers in their research.
  
  
• Book Review: The Electric Life of Michael Faraday (11/9/2006)
  Alan Hirshfeld's book is reviewed in The American Journal of Physics
  
  
• Gaurav Khanna Awarded 30,000 Hours of Supercomputing Time (10/19/2006)
  Prof. Gaurav Khanna has been awarded 30,000 hours of supercomputing time on the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid computing infrastructure.
  
  
• Rotating fluids in the curriculum - where UMass Dartmouth joins MIT, Penn State, Johns Hopkins University, U. of Wisconsin-Madison and Millersville University (10/2/2006)
  Associate Professor Amit Tandon of the Department of Physics has been awarded a subcontract for $28,475 by MIT along with four other universities to implement a series of atmospheric/ocean dynamics experiments into the undergraduate and graduate curriculum at UMass Dartmouth.
  
  
• Graduate Research Opportunity in Physical Oceanography: Collaborative Research -- UMass Dartmouth and Boston University. (9/29/2006)
  A Ph.D. research assistantship is available to study submesoscale dynamics and its effects on the vertical transport, mixing and distribution of properties in the upper ocean.
  
  
• Discussion and Book Signing by Alan Hirshfeld (9/27/2006)
  On Thursday, September 28, 2006, Dr. Alan Hirshfeld will be giving a talk at Baker Books, 69 State Road (Route 6), North Dartmouth, MA at 7:00 pm on the history of science and of Michael Faraday's special place in that history.
  
  
• Alan Hirshfeld Receives Contract to Write His 3rd Book (9/25/2006)
  Alan Hirshfeld just received a contract to write his 3rd book, entitled "Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes," to be published in late 2008 by Walker Books in New York.
  
  
• Amit Tandon and Collaborator Awarded NSF Grant (9/21/2006)
  Amit Tandon and Collaborator Awarded NSF Grant
  
  
• Amit Tandon and Collaborators Awarded NSF-NOAA Grant (9/3/2006)
  Associate Professor Amit Tandon of the Department of Physics and his collaborators from MIT, UCLA, Princeton University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Florida State University and two federal labs (National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder CO and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Labarotary, Princeton NJ) have been awarded an NSF-NOAA grant to continue their work on mesoscale and mixed layer models as part of the Climate Modeling and Process teams.
  
  
• Dr. Gaurav Khanna pursues black holes with $50,000 grant (11/30/2005)
  A UMass Dartmouth physics professor recently received $25,000 from the Florence M. Glaser Gift Giving Trust to study the interior structure of black holes
  
  
• UMass Dartmouth physicist receives international honor (10/6/2004)
  UMass Dartmouth physicist receives international honor Among the  top winners in the John Templeton Foundation 'Power of Purpose' awards UMass Dartmouth physics professor Alan Hirshfeld s essay about 19th century scientist Michael Faraday was among the top five winners of the prestigious John Templeton Foundation Power of Purpose awards announced recently.