Ph.D. candidate Shangjia Zhang (Physics and Astronomy) has been selected as a 2024 NASA Hubble Fellow. The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program supports promising postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research that contributes to NASA Astrophysics, using theory, observation, experimentation, or instrument development.  Zhang's work was…

Carrie Coppa (Physics and Astronomy) was nominated for and recently graduated the Administrative Academy Academy Path C.  The UNLV Administrative Assistant Academy is a training series designed to foster a culture of continuous improvement for all administrative assistants. The eight-week program outlines six competencies that UNLV…

Zhaohuan Zhu (Physics and Astronomy) with UNLV’s Nevada Center for Astrophysics is part of an international research team that recently published findings and images supporting the theory of gravitational instability in planet formation. Zhu, a co-author on an article published July 25 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, had published…

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) recently held their 241st AAS meeting in Seattle, Washington. During the meeting students from across the nation participated in the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Poster Competition where students present their posters and are judged by volunteer judges.  Margaret Johnston (Physics and…

Each year during the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium, OUR recognizes and honors UNLV undergraduate researchers who demonstrate and exemplify excellence in research. OUR awards one undergraduate researcher in Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (AHS) and one undergraduate researcher in Health and…

UNLV researchers Pedro Santos-Florez, Byungkyun Kang, and Qiang Zhu (all Physics and Astronomy) recently published a paper, "Size-Dependent Nucleation in Crystal Phase Transition from Machine Learning Metadynamics," in the journal Physical Review Letter (PRL). This work has also been featured in the cover of the latest issue of PRL. In…

UNLV researchers add an important computational capability to a widely-used, open source software. Specifically, a summer undergraduate researcher working with Jason Steffen (all Physics and Astronomy), along with a graduate student and an outside collaborator, added the Yarkovsky effect to the REBOUND software. This is a force that affects…

Michael Pravica (Physics) was awarded a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct research into the mechanisms of X-ray induced photochemistry.   Experimental Investigation of the Control Mechanism of X-ray Induced Structural and Chemical Synthesis at Extreme Conditions (DE-SC0023248)  

Craig Schwartz and colleagues (Nevada Extreme Conditions Lab) were recently awarded two grants from the Department of Energy: 1.) Next generation solar cells probed at the interface with exceptional precision (PIE): Towards new device design – Summary: Generating solar energy via photovoltaic (PV) devices is one of the most promising routes…

Ashkan Salamat (Physics and Astronomy) is the joint recipient of The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Grant, along with colleagues Ranga Dias (University of Rochester) and Audrey Grockowiak (CNPEM, Brazilian synchrotron). The project, “Exploring the Limits of High-temperature Superconductivity,” is funded at $1,624,838 for 48 months (of which $…

Jason Steffen (Physics and Astronomy) was the lead organizer for a major international conference on Exoplanets (planets that orbit distant stars). The conference took place the M Resort in Henderson, and brought together more than 500 scientists from around the world for a week of scientific talks, discussions, and collaboration.

David Rice, Jason Steffen (both Physics and Astronomy) and their collaborator, Chenliang Huang from the University of Arizona, published an open-source software package that models the interior structures of rocky and water-rich planets. This code was designed to facilitate the collaboration between UNLV astronomers who study extrasolar planets,…