Events and News

09/06/2007 :: Dr. Miguel Jose Yacaman is the new Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy

Dr. Yacaman, whose duties as new Chair of the department will start in the spring of 2008, is a distinguished scientist of international reputation who has made fundamental contributions to nanoscale physics. He has done research in many areas of physics and nanotechnology, particularly the synthesis and characterization of new materials, most of them nanoparticles, surfaces and interfaces, defects in solids, electron diffraction and imaging theory, quasicrystals, archaeological materials, and catalysis. Dr. Yacaman has published close to 400 papers and his work has been extensively cited. He has received, among many other honors, the National Prize in Exact Sciences of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, the National Prize of Sciences in Mexico, the Melh Award and Distinguished Lecture of the U.S. Metals and Materials Society, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Dr. Yacaman received his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the National University of Mexico, and did postdoctoral work at the University of Oxford and at NASA-AMES Research Center. Over the years he has served in many academic and professional positions. He has been professor of physics at the National University of Mexico and Director of its Institute of Physics, professor of physics at West Virginia University, and Deputy Director for scientific research of The National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT), Mexico. He has also been General Director of the National Institute of Nuclear Research in Mexico, and Executive Secretary of the National System of Research (Mexico). From 2001 to the present, he has been the Reese Professor in Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering and Texas Materials Institute, at The University of Texas at Austin.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy and the entire UTSA community will benefit enormously from the presence of professor Yacaman. We all look forward to a bright future under his stewardship.

09/15/2006 :: Dr. Eric Schlegel is the new interim Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy

Dr. Schlegel, a noted astrophysicist (see 08/24/2005 news below), joined the department in the fall of 2005. He replaces Dr. Patrick Nash, who served as the first chairman of the department from the fall 2000 until the present. The department has been given permission by the Dean of the College of Sciences, George Perry, to start a search for a new permanent Chair, who would start duties in the fall of 2007.

08/24/2005 :: Physics and Astronomy Department has hired four new graduate faculty

A faculty search started in the fall of 2004 concluded with the successful hiring of three new professors and the promotion of an existing Lecturer to Assistant Professor. Dr. Andrey Chabanov, who has been appointed as an Assistant Professor, received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York in 2002, working under Professor A.Z. Genack. He had previously received an M.S. degree in Physics with Honors, from the Kharkov State University, in Ukraine. Dr. Chabanov brings an extensive research experience, having worked at the Institute for Single Crystals of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the Queens College of the City University of New York, the University of Minnesota, and Northwestern University. His research expertise includes experimental and theoretical studies in the areas of nanostructures for optical applications, photonic band gap materials, photon localization and lasing in disordered nanostructures, and microwave cavities and waveguides.

Dr. Chonglin Chen has been appointed as Associate Professor. He received his Ph.D. in Solid State Science from The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in 1994, working on surface diffusion. He also has a Masters degree in physics from Penn State, and an M.S. in Materials Engineering from the Institute of Metal Research, The Chinese Academy of Sciences. Before coming to UTSA, he was Associate Research Professor of Physics and Materials Science, and Task Leader of Oxide Thin Film Science and Nano Structures, at the Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston. Dr. Chen is an experimentalist with an impressive publication record in the physics of epitaxial thin films, nanostructures, and advanced materials in
general.

Dr. Eric Schlegel, who has been appointed as an Associate Professor, is an observational astronomer coming to UTSA from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he was the Team Lead and Research Astrophysicist at the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Indiana University and he was a triple major (Physics, Astronomy, and Atmospheric Science) at the State University of New York at Albany. In the past he has also held appointments at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, and at Indiana University. Dr. Schlegel is a world expert on X-ray Astrophysics, and has also done research in cataclysmic variable stars, supernovae, and galaxies. He has published a very large number of papers in the leading refereed journals in Astrophysics, and also a well-received popular book, "The Restless Universe" (Oxford University Press, 2002.)

Dr. Zlatko Koinov, who was until recently a full-time Lecturer at our department, has been promoted to the position of Assistant Professor. His expertise is in theoretical solid state physics and received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University, Russia. Before coming to the U.S., he was a professor at Sophia University in Bulgaria. More information about Dr. Koinov can be found on his page on this web site.

We, at the Physics and Astronomy Department, are all very happy and fortunate to have these four new professors joining us now that the graduate programs start operations. We wish the best of luck to all of them.
 
04/21/2005 :: The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Approved Today the M.S. and Ph.D.
Programs in Physics

In their Board Meeting today, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board swiftly approved the new M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Physics at UTSA. The graduate degrees in Physics will be offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy in collaboration with the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Space Science and Engineering Division. The programs will start operations in the Fall of 2005. For more information, please go to Physics Graduate Programs.