News

Two of our very own Department of Physics and Astronomy professors are 2023 REACH Award winners: Dr. Julio Navarro - David H. Turpin Gold Medal for Career Achievement in Research Dr. Andrew Macrae - Gillian Sherwin Alumni Award - Excellence in Teaching

World Health Day, celebrated every year on April 7, is a global health awareness day that aims to raise awareness around various health issues. Here in the Faculty of Science, we’re working some of those issues every day. Our researchers are developing new therapeutics and treatments for diseases, uncovering the molecular mechanisms by which viruses and bacteria are operating, evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions, uncovering the physiology of diseases and much more. This World Health Day, explore some of the health-related research happening in our Faculty, across five of our six departments.

Mark Hartz and Dean Karlen receive a second round of CFI funding ($6.3M) for constructing and installing precision calibration systems in the Hyper-K particle detector under construction near Kamioka, Japan and to ensure the accuracy of the measurements performed by the Hyper-K instruments.

The Optical Reference Calibration Satellite (ORCASat), designed and built by researchers and students at the University of Victoria was deployed from the International Space Station into a low-Earth orbit at the end of 2022. Since then, it has led the way in terms of callibrating ground telescopes using an artificial light source in orbit, thereby allowing for increased precision with calibration. Project leader, UVic Professor Justin Albert is excited to be leading work that could have major implications in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics. For more information on this ground-breaking project, check out the following news release.

This Thursday and Friday, the department is hosting a memorial symposium, to celebrate the scientific career and legacy of Werner Israel, one of the leading figures in the development of our modern understanding of general relativity and black holes. Further details and the schedule of talks are available at the symposium website: https://meetings.triumf.ca/event/332/.

A UVic research paper by Johannes Gemmrich and Leah Cicon entitled "Generation mechanism and prediction of an observed extreme rogue wave" has been included in NATURE's Journal Top 100 of 2022. This collection highlights the most downloaded research papers published in 2022. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from the international community.

UVic research on gold nanoparticles could make cancer treatments more effective—and easier on patients.

Undergraduate students who are interesting in summer research opportunities in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Victoria are invited apply for Summer 2023 research awards. Information and application procedures can be found here.

Sara Ellison's latest paper about merger driven quenching is featured in New Scientist.

2022 Dunlap Award for Innovation in Astronomical Research Tools: Dr. JJ Kavelaars 2022 Qilak Award for Astronomy Communications, Public Education and Outreach: Dr. Karun Thanjavur

UVic's Prof. Justin Albert (together with Profs. Dima Budker at Mainz, and Hossein Sadeghpour at the Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) are the authors of the cover article in this month's Natural Sciences journal. This article provides an overview of how a laser photometric ratio star (a novel light source generated by laser excitation of the Earth's upper-atmosphere sodium layer, which will radiate equally brightly at wavelengths of 589 nm and 820 nm) can help us precisely calibrate telescopes at observatories (such as the Vera Rubin Observatory, presently completing construction in Chile) in order to understand the nature of dark energy.

The EAGLE (Evolution and Assembly of Galaxies and their Environments) team of which includes UVic's Professor Julio Navarro, has been awarded the Group Achievement Award in Astronomy by the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK.

Kim Venn, UVic Professor in Physics & Astronomy and Director of the Astronomy Research Centre (ARC) provides insightful answers to questions about galactic fossils and opens a unique window into galaxy formation from when the big bang occurred.

A recent paper entitled "Confined Magnons" in which UVic professor Rogerio de Sousa and his M.Sc. graduate student, Seamus Beairsto, are contributors has been selected as an Editors' Suggestion in the recent edition of the Physical Review B. These selected papers are of particular interest, importance, or clarity.

Six University of Victoria researchers in the fields of science, social sciences, engineering, and humanities have been elected to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), a council of distinguished scholars and leaders recognized with the country's highest academic honours. Alan McConnachie (an adjunct faculty member at NRC Herzberg) is one of them. Read more : https://www.uvic.ca/news/topics/2021+royal-society+news

Superconducting circuits workshop is the first of-its-kind to teach graduate students how to design, fabricate, and test quantum devices

The American Astronomical Society recently issued a featured article introducing the results published by, Jiaqing Bi, a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Read more: https://aasnova.org/2021/07/12/featured-image-do-planets-make-only-puffy-gaps/

Devika Chithrani has authored an analysis piece in The Conversation, highlighting the findings of her research into the possible application of gold nanoparticles for cancer therapy and treatment. This piece was also picked up by the Canadian Press, National Post and 12 other publications.

UVic physicist Art Olin is part of a Canadian team of researchers who are the first in the world to manipulate antimatter using lasers. Their discovery was published as the cover story in the journal Nature and garnered media coverage nationally and internationally.

Honorary Research Professor and Research Scientist with the Institute of Particle Physics Randall Sobie (Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Victoria) has been elected Chair of the Researcher Council for NDRIO, the national organization tasked with redeveloping digital research infrastructure. Further details are provided in the associated news release here.

With powerful international partnerships, equipment and facilities, University of Victoria researchers are seeking answers to the universe’s greatest mysteries, boosted by $7.4 million in funding announced today by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). Learn more here.

This week's question featured on Quirks & Quarks has to do with planetary motion -- If the sun is round, why are the planets in elliptical orbits? Assistant Professor, Ruobing Dong, from the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Victoria provides an answer as well as insight into planetary motion.

UVic physics professor, Dr. Dean Karlen, has accurately predicted how the Covid pandemic would unfold. In a recent interview, he discusses how he has accomplished this and what he expects next.

This T2K Nature article from April 2020 has been highlighted by Nature as one of their ten remarkable discoveries of 2020.

UVic's senior physics undergraduate students, Tristan Zaborniak and Sam Tomkins, take part in a Quantum Computing Q & A. Both have presented their honours thesis research at the prestigious IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing & Engineering (QCE20) and both have coauthored publications.

The Times Higher Education (THE) 2021 rankings are out and the Physical Sciences at UVic score well. Check out this and other rankings here.

UVic's REACH awards celebrate the vital impact of teaching and research and this year's Silver Medalist, Sara Ellison, is being honoured for being a global leader in defining galaxies. Find out more about these awards and about Dr. Ellison's work here.

Dr. Laura Ferrarese, an Adjunct Professor in our department, has just been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. Julio F. Navarro has been selected as a 2020 Citation Laureate by the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate.

The Aspen Center for Physics colloquium series featured a virtual talk on July 21, 2020 by Pavel Kovtun entitled "Pushing the Limits of Hydrodynamics". This talk on new developments in the well-established field of hydrodynamics was well received with over 300 attendees. Pavel Kovtun is a theoretical physicist and Associate Professor working in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Victoria. Another theorist with experience in this field, Kristan Jensen, will join the UVic Particle Theory Group as a faculty member later this fall.

As one of the three innovative and interdisciplinary research projects in the Faculty of Science supported by the New Frontiers in Research Funds (NFRF), Alexandre Brolo (Chemistry) and Rogério de Sousa (Physics) are exploring a low-cost, low-power molecular approach to generate entangled photons, a key resource for the development of quantum technology. Learn more about their project.

For the April 16 2020 edition, Nature chose to publish and highlight results from the T2K collaboration.

Ruobing Dong, Assistant Professor in UVic's Department of Physics & Astronomy, is the recipient of a 2020 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship for his outstanding research in the field of observational planet formation. The fellowship is given to early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise.

UVic astronomer, Jon Willis, reports on his search for the oldest galaxies in the universe in The Conversation.

UVic Astronomer, Jon Willis, answers questions on galaxy clusters in light of recent images of a galaxy cluster taken from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Japan is set to build the largest neutrino detector in history, known as Hyper-Kamiokande, after a cabinet committee approved billions of yen for its construction on 13 December, 2019.

Dr. Thomas Ruth, TRIUMF Emeritus Senior Scientist and Adjunct professor with the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UVic has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Mary-Louise Timmermanns, who received her undergraduate degree in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Victoria in 1994 has been named by the American Geophysical Union as this year's Sverdrup Lecturer. The Sverdrup Lecturer is named in honour of geophysicist, Harald Sverdrup, and is awarded for "exemplifying Dr. Sverdrup’s work with outstanding contributions to the basic science of the atmosphere and the oceans and/or unselfish service promoting cooperation in atmospheric and oceanographic research". Professor Timmermans has also received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE - Connecticut) for her work with the physical oceanography of the Arctic Ocean.

On July 23, 2019, UVic issued a statement on the TMT project on Mauna Kea.

International Astronomy Day 2019 is being celebrated on Saturday, Apr 27, 10am - 4pm at the Royal BC Museum. The event is jointly hosted by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) and the Royal BC Museum. The UVic Observatory outreach team will also have several displays and demos. This public event is free and is accessible to all ages, with many fun activities including Astrophotography, telescope making, children's Astro crafts, a cosmic ray detector and more! The day is capped off by a star party held at the Centre of the Universe from 7:30 to 11pm.

In a CBC program celebrating Black History Month, UVic alum Dr. Louise Edwards, who is an observational astrophysicist, shares her experiences studying astronomy at the University of Victoria and discusses her current work on the evolution of galaxies. She is an active advocate for more people of colour in the fields of science and engineering.

UVic alum Pramodh Senarath Yapa is this year's winner of the Dance Your PhD contest hosted by Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This contest challenges scientists to explain their research through interpretive dance. Watch Pramodh's video to see the social behaviour of sub-atomic particles illustrated through swing dance!

The skies were mostly clear over Greater Victoria on the evening of Sunday, January 20th, (a rarity at this time of year!), allowing hundreds from the general public to view the spectacular total lunar eclipse through UVic's telescopes. The eclipse was visible (and safe) to view with the naked eye, but a telescope viewing provided an added bonus of being able to discern surface features. News coverage of this exciting event can be found at: News coverage of this exciting event can be found at: CTV News Victoria News Times Colonist

Professor Emeritus, Werner Israel, recently donated a portion of his personal library to UVic Libraries which included a 1973 first-edition copy of The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time by Stephen Hawking and G.F.R. Ellis. Even more remarkable than this extraordinary historical gift was the personal letter from Hawking to Israel found tucked inside. This letter revealed a close personal friendship between the two that lasted over half a century. Learn more about this friendship and Professor Israel's notable career and contributions to Theoretical Physics at: https://www.uvic.ca/news/topics/2019+hawking-werner-israel-letter-libraries+news?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=general

Astronomers at the European Space Agency have recently discovered that our Milky Way galaxy was involved in a 'cosmic collision' 10 billion years ago when another galaxy slammed into it. The resulting merger gives us a greater understanding of the processes at work in other galaxies. Professor Kim Venn, Director of UVic's Astronomy Research Centre (ARC), comments on this exciting research in a recent CBC news article.

Dr. Magdalena Bazalova-Carter at the University of Victoria is working on a prototype machine for delivering lower-energy radiation to cancer patients making treatments more cost effective and accessible. Find out more on Bazalova-Carter's research.

University of Victoria astronomers are part of an international collaboration in search of ancient stars - the Pristine Survey. Dr. Kim Venn, Director of UVic's Astronomy Research Centre (ARC) discusses a recent publication on this topic of Galactic Archaeology. Read more.

Current research is challenging the present theory of planetary formation. Find out how.

ARCNet aims to establish UVic as a major centre for astronomy data science. Encompassing research groups GalNet, PlaNet, and StarNet, these collaborations are applying cutting edge data science and machine learning techniques to astronomical data.

Prof. Mary-Louise Timmermans, Yale University, is the first author of a recently published paper that examined historical data which indicates the heat content of a vast section of the Arctic Ocean has doubled in the last 30 years. Interviewed by the Times Colonist, Timmermans discusses her paper's findings in terms of consequences to sea ice. A graduate of the University of Victoria Physics and Astronomy department, Prof. Timmermans spent several co-op work terms with the Arctic science group at the Institute of Ocean Sciences. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge after which she worked as a post-doctoral research fellow with colleagues at IOS and UVic before moving on to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and then Yale.

Magdalena Bazalova-Carter, Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics, is the recipient of the 2018 American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) John Laughlin Young Scientist Award that recognizes outstanding scientific achievement in medical physics for a young scientist member of the AAPM.

Federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan announced that Canada will contribute $10 million for the cryomodules of the crab cavities of the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) in response to a request from CERN, vigorously supported by IPP. Crab cavities are a critical component of the HL-LHC upgrade and are essential to achieve the high luminosity goals of this next generation of the LHC. TRIUMF will manage the production of the components and will make a $2 million in-kind contribution for a total project value of $12 million.

As R&D magazine reports Herwig and his collaborators have used "Canada’s most powerful research supercomputer to simulate life of a star”. To understand a star’s structure, researchers simulate them on a supercomputer using complex hydrodynamics calculations over a long series of time steps. These very detailed simulations of the core convection in a massive star reveal the turbulent flows of the interior and stellar oscillations that can be observed with space telescopes like Kepler or TESS. These simulations provide exquisite detail on how different parts of the stars are mixed, which in turn improves our understanding how the elements form in stars and stellar explosions.

Congratulations to Dr. Kim Venn and the RAVEN team of being this year's REACH Award recipients.

Dr. Arif Babul was interviewed by CBC News about a study he co-authored on findings of a new galaxy cluster that could be the most massive structure in the universe.

A new study co-authored by Don Vandenberg is cited in a CBC News article about technologies—old and new—that astronomers are using to measure the distance to one of the oldest globular clusters, a tight mass of hundreds of thousands of stars.

There is a very rare event this month: a blue moon lunar eclipse! For Victoria, totality occurs in the early hours of Wed, Jan 31st. For full details, please see http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/blue-moon-lunar-eclipse-1.4502210

NSERC Undergraduate Research Awards (USRA) tenable in the 2018-19 academic year are now available for application. Project descriptions and application procedures/deadlines can be found here.

According to NASA, the Geminid meteor shower will reach a spectacular peak on December 13th from 7:30pm onward. Gazing up at the sky from any dark location is the best way of viewing, no telescopes or other aids are needed.

New Technologies for Canadian Observatories (NTCO) is a new NSERC CREATE training program designed to address the need for technological innovation in the next generation of astronomical instrumentation. The first NTCO AGM and project launch will be held on December 14 - 15, 2017.

Congratulations to Dr. Julio Navarro for being on the 2017 Thompson-Reuters(Web of Science) list of highly-cited researchers.

The Times Colonist followed up with doctoral student Clare Higgs on her chance encounter at a Chilean observatory this summer. She was at the observatory when two neutron stars collided and merged, the first time the celestial event has been seen and recorded on Earth. Ondrea Clarkson was also interviewed for this article.

A UVic, Astronomy doctoral student visiting an observatory in Chile unexpectedly became a participant in the observation of the first recorded gravitational wave signature caused by a neutron star collision – a discovery that is transformational to our understanding of the universe.

UVic astronomers and engineers will use their adaptive optics expertise to develop and test a key component of this novel instrument.

Dr. Sara Ellison in Physics and Astronomy at University of Victoria has discovered an inspired method of finding the elusive pairing of supermassive black holes that mark merging galaxies, a discovery that may provide clues to the future of Earth’s own galaxy. Read more: https://www.uvic.ca/home/about/campus-news/media-releases-tips/2017+when-galaxies-collide+media-release https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/seeing-double-scientists-find-elusive-giant-black-hole-pairs.html

The 2017 UVic Astbury Lecturer Barry Barish (Caltech) along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics earlier today, for their contributions to LIGO and the observation of gravitational waves. For details see: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2017/.

The UVic observatory will host two special events as part of the Science Literacy Week 2017, a nationwide celebration of science set to take place this September 18th-24th for the fourth year running. Coast to coast we're expecting some 700 events, ranging from nature hikes to chemistry demos, astronomy nights to public talks and more (scienceliteracy.ca).

Braulio Antonio, an undergraduate student at National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City participated in the MITACS Globalink program this summer at the University of Victoria. Under the supervision of Dr. Sara Ellison in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, he shares his experience working on the phenomenon of galaxy mergers.

Join us on Monday, August 21 from 9:00-11:30am for a special public open house at the UVic Observatory (5th floor of Bob Wright Centre) to view the solar eclipse. The eclipse will be visible at 90% coverage from Victoria. The eclipse begins at 9:08am, reaches maximum coverage at 10:20 and will end at 11:38. The event is free and no pre-registration is necessary.

Randall Sobie in Physics & Astronomy at University of Victoria has been collaborating with Microsoft to store the hundreds of petabytes of data created by ATLAS, a detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Join UVic Physics and Astronomy professor Jon Willis as he ships out on the Nautilus on June 6th for a three week science cruise in support of Ocean Networks Canada’s 2017 Wiring the Abyss expedition.

Close pairs of supermassive black holes are predicted to exist, but have been hard to find. Thanks to a new strategy, UVic astronomer Dr. Sara Ellison has found a novel way to uncover these elusive monsters. Dr. Ellison discusses her research on this topic in a recent article in New Scientist.

Dr. Barry Barish (Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus, Caltech), will give a public lecture on Thursday, May 4, at 7:30pm in Bob Wright Centre B150.

Dr. Jon Willis was interviewed by the Times Colonist about the IdeaFest session Quarks to Quasars. Willis hopes the graduate students presenting will excite the younger members of the audience....that, and a lego model of a large particle accelerator built entirely to scale.

Dr. Julio Navarro spoke to Science magazine about a new theory on dark matter which could explain the univeral pattern in the motions of spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way.