Department of Physics and Astronomy

With a major in physics and a minor in music, Alex Johnson '19 is heading to Belgium after graduation to learn more about "the bells” that inspired him in Rochester. “Lots of deciding to do. There isn’t a wrong decision.”

Three members of the University’s Class of 2020 are recipients of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award for undergraduate science majors.

Gourab Ghoshal is using the fundamental laws of physics to untangle the complex systems behind human behavior, urban planning, and social networks.

Donna Strickland ’89 (PhD), pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers and a 2018 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, will deliver the 169th College commencement address on Sunday, May 19.

In addition to their Nobel noteworthiness, Rochester researchers continue to develop new ways to apply lasers in research, medicine, and everyday life in 2018. Because frankly, we’re big on lasers.

Today's Rochester researchers are taking science developed at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics to develop the next generation high-power lasers and to better understand the fundamentals of high-energy-density physics. 

Rochester researchers are part of an international collaboration of scientists that has, for the first time, detected extremely high-energy gamma rays from one of the most powerful star systems in the Milky Way.

It is an issue for women in all academic fields, but especially in STEM fields. After two difficult pregnancies interrupted her career studying quantum optics, a fellowship is helping Asma Al-Qasimi get back to the lab.

“There’s so much to look at, and we’ve done so little of it so far,” Rochester professor of astrophysics Adam Frank told NPR’s All Things Considered.

For 90 years physicists have known that incompatibly opposite properties are inherent in all elementary particles. Now Rochester researchers say they’ve resolved this weird and inescapable wave-particle duality.