Credit: Nick Romanenko

Five assistant professors received National Science Foundation awards for their outstanding work – an unprecedented number for one department. From left: Weida Wu, Charles Keeton, Eva Halkiadakis, Kristjan Haule, and Seongshik Oh.

Amid the festive mood of the holiday season, the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences had special reason to celebrate: An unprecedented five of its assistant professors were selected to receive coveted National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER awards in 2008.

The five-year grants, known as the Faculty Early Career Development Program awards, give outstanding junior faculty a secure financial footing to establish their research programs and share their knowledge with students from grade school through graduate school.

Eva Halkiadakis, Kristjan Haule, and Charles Keeton are receiving the first installment of their awards in 2008, and Seongshik Oh and Weida Wu were notified recently that their proposals are expected to be approved early this year.

CAREER award winners are not unusual at Rutgers. Over the past decade, there have been a handful of recipients annually from engineering, math, computer science, physics, chemistry, and education. But having five named from a single department in one year is an achievement that both the university and the NSF characterize as extraordinary.

For Torgny Gustafsson, professor and department chair, it speaks well for his department’s hiring process.  “This shows we can identify the very best people in our field and attract them to Rutgers,” said Gustafsson, crediting his physics colleagues and the School of Arts and Sciences dean’s office. He also cited direct involvement by Philip Furmanski, executive vice president for academic affairs, and Len Feldman, head of the Institute for Advanced Materials, Devices and Nanotechnology.

It also points to a future of accomplishment and prestige. “Among the physics community, this is great for the stature of our department and the university,” Gustafsson added. “These faculty members will take initiatives that set our direction for many years to come.”

The fact that the Rutgers recipients are from different areas within physics and astronomy also speaks to the overall strength of the department. Halkiadakis is a high energy experimental physicist, Haule a theoretical condensed matter physicist, and Keeton an astrophysicist. Oh and Wu are experimental condensed matter physicists.

The recipients agree that their CAREER awards give them more time to focus on research work. “It removes the immediate pressure to write further grant proposals,” Keeton said. Halkiadakis said the grant will help her analyze data expected to pour in from the new European particle accelerator later this year. “I’m now in a position where I can become a leader in this kind of research early on,” she said.

The recipients also note that the CAREER awards give them a level of recognition that opens doors for collaboration and team building. “The awards are not just funding,” said Oh. “They are the physics community recognizing us as capable, promising members.” Halkiadakis has long been interested in promoting physics education and career opportunities among women, and says that her outreach proposals would not be possible without the NSF’s generous support.

Five assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy were selected to receive CAREER awards in 2008. The five-year awards support research that ranges from understanding invisible subatomic particles to describing dark matter that pervades the universe. The awards will also support projects that aim to teach young people the secrets of modern materials, the nature of cosmic rays, and the skills needed to critically evaluate scientific evidence and arguments.

Eva Halkiadakis has been studying subatomic particles generated at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago and will continue her work at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. She is searching for examples of “new physics,” or particles and phenomena that transcend what high-energy physicists call the “Standard Model” – a collection of particles and interactions that explain the properties of matter.

For the educational outreach component of her grant, she plans to work with high school science teachers and students to build a physics instrument that detects cosmic rays reaching earth’s surface. She hopes to partner with the Douglass Project, a program that supports women interested in studying math, sciences, engineering, and technology.

Kristjan Haule specializes in computer simulations of novel materials, which in turn help scientists better understand the behaviors of these materials. He is developing computational tools that can explain superconductivity in materials at high temperatures. The tools will allow scientists to search for new materials that efficiently produce electricity from heat.

For his outreach project, Haule plans to organize summer research projects that get high school students interested in how materials work, including their quantum mechanical properties.

Charles Keeton is studying new observations and enhancing the theory of gravitational lensing, where massive astronomical objects act like giant lenses and bend light with their gravity. His work aims to better detect and describe dark matter – invisible mass in the universe that influences the formation and dynamics of galaxies.

Keeton’s outreach program focuses on honing critical thinking skills among undergraduate physics majors. Undergraduate education rightly emphasizes physical concepts and mathematical analysis, but Keeton believes that students need an earlier and stronger grounding in evaluating evidence and analyzing arguments. He plans to create seminars, reading groups, and mentorship programs that help students develop these skills early in their university experiences.

Seongshik Oh is developing ways to custom-build oxide materials, atomic layer by atomic layer. This technique, called molecular beam epitaxy, is commonplace for materials used in computer chips, but needs further refining for the complex oxides which will be used in high capacity data storage and high temperature superconductivity.

Learning about today’s materials is a challenge for young people, Oh claims, because the action takes place at invisible dimensions. “Fifty years ago, curious kids could take apart gadgets like radios and mechanical calculators to see how they worked,” he said. “Today, if they open a computer, all they see are semiconductor chips – there’s no way they can figure those out.” As a result, Oh plans to develop hands-on demonstration modules and conduct lab tours for middle- and high-school students.

Weida Wu is examining the magnetic properties of complex materials at the nanoscale – far smaller than conventional microscopes can reveal. He is working on materials that exhibit these miniature magnetic properties and on techniques that scan a material’s surface to detect tiny magnetic domains. Such materials hold promise for high capacity data storage.

Wu’s outreach project will focus on enhancing physics teaching for nonscience majors through the university’s Teacher Education Program.