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Letter from the DEO

As I begin my first year as DEO of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, I look forward to working with fellow faculty, staff, students, and University administration to position our Department for success in a rapidly changing research, educational, and fiscal environment. The challenges that I'll face have been substantially reduced by the hard work of my predecessor, Professor Wayne Polyzou. I thank him for his leadership and tireless efforts over the past four years in making our Department a better and more productive place. While the DEO can help guide the Department, the students, staff, and faculty define the quality of the Department. This third annual newsletter offers a glimpse into this quality by outlining just a few of our outstanding accomplishments and exciting events that have occurred during the past year.

Tom Boggess

There are several changes that have occurred in our faculty this year. To begin, I hope you'll all join me in welcoming our newest faculty member, Assistant Professor John Prineas. John will help to fill the gap left in our condensed matter and laser program by the departure of Prof. Tom Hasenberg, who was recruited away from us by JDS Uniphase. Tom is now Director of Wafer Fabrication at JDSU. This is also the first year of Emeritus status for our friend and colleague Ed McCliment. We wish Ed and his wife, Genie, the best in this new phase of their lives.

This has been another banner year for research in our Department with new external grants and contracts totaling well over $10,000,000, more than doubling that of the previous year. Total expenditures associated with external grants exceeded $11,700,000, placing our Department at the top of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (approximately 36% of CLAS total) and third amongst all departments in the University (including those in the College of Medicine). While the space physics group continues to contribute enormously to our overall funding, major new awards in astronomy, condensed matter physics, and plasma physics helped to move us up from our prior-year, campus-wide, 8th place position.

The ingenuity and hard work of our faculty, staff, and students continues to be recognized outside the confines of our Department. Several examples include: Prof. Amitava Bhattacharjee was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Cheryl Reardon and Marcia Rogers received the Mary Louise Kelley Staff Excellence Award, and graduate student teaching assistant, Ugur Akgun, received one of this year's Outstanding TA Awards.

In closing, I'd like to thank our many friends and alumni for their continuing generous support. Your gifts have provided funding resources that have helped to make our Department the great place it is today.