Promotion News

Department Welcomes Two New Faculty Members

100908: The Department extends a warm welcome to our two new faculty members: Assistant Professor Aran Garcia-Bellido (photo, left) and Assistant Professor Eric E. Mamajek (photo, right).

Assistant Professor Garcia-Bellido studies the properties and interactions of the fundamental building blocks of matter. His research is primarily conducted at large particle accelerator facilities in Illinois and Geneva, Switzerland, where the experiments on which he collaborates study the production of new states of matter using the world's highest energy proton beams. His recent work focuses on searching to uncover new phenomena that must exist in order to complete the theory of the microphysical origins of mass.

Assistant Professor Mamajek comes to us from Harvard University, where he was the first Clay Postdoctoral Fellow to receive this prestigious fellowship directly out of graduate school. Mamajek is an observational astronomer, who works mostly at infrared, visible, and X-ray wavelengths, and who uses both ground-based and satellite observatories. Studies of the origins and evolution of stars, brown dwarfs, and planets occupy the center of his research activities.

Appointments and Promotions in 2007

	Professor Nicholas Bigelow (Experimental and Theoretical Quantum Optics) was elected to his first three-year term as Department Chair (July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2010).
	Regina Demina (Experimental Particle Physics) was promoted to Professor of Physics in Fall 2007.
	Professor Jianhui Zhong (Experimental Medical and Biological Physics) was re-appointed to his third 3-year joint appointment term as Professor of Radiology and Physics (July 1, 2007 - July 1, 2010).
	Phillipe Fauchet (Experimental Condensed Matter Physics), Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Optics, was re-appointed to his second joint appointment term as Professor of Physics (July 1, 2007 - July 1, 2010).
	Assistant Professor John Howell (Experimental Quantum Optics) was recommended for promotion to Associate Professor of Physics with unlimited tenure in Fall 2007.