To request a media interview, please reach out to School of Physics experts using our faculty directory, or contact Jess Hunt-Ralston, College of Sciences communications director. A list of faculty experts and research areas across the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech is also available to journalists upon request.
Those who are allergic to yeast but still crave a pizza every now and then may get a rise out of this report: A materials scientist at the University of Naples Federico II has led a team of researchers to develop a yeast-free pizza dough. The results of the study were published in the Physics of Fluids journal. David Hu, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and an adjunct professor in the School of Physics, was not involved in the study, but weighs in on the function of yeast in pizza dough, .
Roll over sourdough. Italian scientists develop a new way to rise pizza crust 2022-03-22T00:00:00-04:00Black soldier fly larvae devour food waste and other organic matter and are made of 60% protein. But they’re increasingly dying before they reach livestock facilities as animal feed. Researchers, recognizing the culprit is the collective heat generated when the maggots eat in crowded conditions, have found that delivering the right amount of airflow could help solve the overheating issue. A study with those findings, published in Frontiers in Physics, is co-authored by David Hu, professor in the Georgia W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in the School of Biological Sciences; and Daniel Goldman, professor in the School of Physics.
How To Raise Larvae on Food Scraps to Feed Livestock 2022-01-05T00:00:00-05:00The Georgia Tech women's volleyball team has a shot to play in their first-ever NCAA Final Four, and third-year School of Physics major Julia Bergmann is a big reason why. The 6' 5'' outside hitter, the ACC's player of the year, made some key kills and serves in the team's Thursday night win over Ohio State. That gives Georgia Tech its second-ever appearance in the Elite 8. Bergmann, whose hometown is Munich, Germany, went to high school in Brusque, Brazil. (Here's the AJC's story on Bergmann being named ACC player of the year, becoming the first Georgia Tech player to win that honor since 2004.)
Julia Bergmann leads Georgia Tech into volleyball Sweet 16 2021-12-10T00:00:00-05:00Ants are among the most industrious creatures on Earth, so it's only fitting that engineers would look to them for inspiration when designing small robots that can collaborate on complex tasks and maneuver through uneven territory. Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor in the School of Physics, was part of a team that created a simple but effective swarm of six-inch "robot" ants that were able to overcome obstacles and terrain individually, and link up to form longer chains when they couldn't accomplish a task alone.
Engineers design 3D-printed robot 'ants' that can walk over leaves, link up like a centipede and call for help by themselves 2021-11-08T00:00:00-05:00The 17th annual University System of Georgia (USG) Regents’ Scholarship Gala, sponsored by the USG Foundation, included the announcement of the six 2021 recipients of the Felton Jenkins Jr. Hall of Fame Faculty Award. This prestigious teaching award recognizes faculty’s important contributions to their schools and fields of study, and for their strong commitment to teaching and student success. Michael F. Schatz, interim chair and professor, School of Physics, is one of the award recipients.
omsc webinar 2021-10-15T00:00:00-04:00Andras Karsai, a graduate student researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Physics, will present research he has conducted with Dunn Family Professor Daniel Goldman at the 74th annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics in Phoenix November 21-23. Karsai, a member of Goldman's Complex Rheology and Biomechanics (CRAB) Lab, will present the findings of a research study titled Pinned Bubble Dynamics in Locally Fluized Granular Media on Sunday, Nov. 21st.
master of science in cybersecurity 2021-10-12T00:00:00-04:00Researchers have discovered that environments favoring clumpy growth are all that’s needed to quickly transform single-celled yeast into complex multicellular organisms. Georgia Tech scientists report that over the course of nearly two years of evolution, they have induced unicellular yeasts to grow into multicellular clusters of immense size, going from microscopic to branching structures visible to the naked eye. Those scientists include William Ratcliff, associate professor and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences, G. Ozan Bozdag, research scientist, and Kai Tong, Ph.D. student, all School of Biological Sciences; and Peter Yunker, assistant professor, Thomas C. Day, graduate student, and Seyed Alireza Zamani-Dahaj, former graduate student, all in the School of Physics.
Metz Mayor 2021-09-22T00:00:00-04:00
According to a new Georgia Tech study, honeybees have developed a way to convert pollen particles into viscoelastic pellets, allowing them to be efficiently, quickly, and reliably transported to the hive. The study also suggests that insects remove pollen from their bodies at a rate 2-10 times slower than normal grooming rates. College of Sciences researchers who worked on the study include David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences; Peter Yunker, assistant professor, and Gabi Steinbach, postdoctoral researcher, both in the School of Physics. (The study was also reported at Phys.org.)
Nicholas J. Conrad Laboratory 2021-08-25T00:00:00-04:00Scientists are learning a lot about swarm intelligence by studying worms, which have been observed grouping together in balls and acting like a liquid. Researchers at Georgia Tech published an article after studying the behaviors of the California blackworm — and designed a robotic model to mirror the worms’ behavior. The researchers include Dan Goldman, Dunn Family Professor, School of Physics; Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, former Georgia Tech postdoctoral fellow, now assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame; and M. Saad Bhamla, assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
student poster competition 2021-08-19T00:00:00-04:00Astronomers have definitively detected a black hole devouring a neutron star for the first – and second – time. These cataclysmic events created ripples in space-time called gravitational waves that travelled more than 900 million light years to reach detectors on Earth. Many astronomers contributed to the findings, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, including Bhavesh Khamesra, a graduate student in the School of Physics. The study was also covered at Phys.org.
A snake-like robot has been developed that can burrow through sand or loose soil. Researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara & Georgia Institute of Technology have taken their cues from plants & animals that have evolved to navigate subterranean spaces. They say they have "developed a fast, controllable soft robot that can burrow through sand.” The team is working on a project with NASA to develop burrowing for the moon or even more distant bodies, like Enceladus, a moon of Jupiter. The Geogia Tech researchers, all from the School of Physics, include Dunn Family Professor Dan Goldman, former undergraduate research assistant Mason Murray-Cooper, postdoctoral researcher Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, and research engineer Enes Aydin.
stick-slip motion 2021-06-18T00:00:00-04:00Researchers from Georgia Tech and the University of Tennessee–Knoxville uncovered hidden and unexpected quantum behavior in a rather simple iron-iodide material (FeI2) that was discovered almost a century ago. The new research insights into the material's behavior were enabled using a combination of neutron scattering experiments and theoretical physics calculations at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The team's findings—published in the journal Nature Physics—solves a 40-year-old puzzle about the material's mysterious behavior and could be used as a map to unlock a treasure trove of quantum phenomena in other materials. The paper's lead author is Xiaojian Bai, an ORNL postdoctoral fellow who received his Ph.D. from the School of Physics. The Georgia Tech-based co-authors are Associate Professor Martin Mourigal and Postdoctoral Fellow Zhilang Dun.
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Events
Soft Matter Seminar| Prof. Justin Burton | Emory UN | Host: Dr. Itamar Kolvin
Soft Matter Seminar| Prof. Justin Burton | Emory UN | Host: Dr. Itamar Kolvin
School of Physics Fall Colloquium Series- Dr. Zhenghan Wang(UCSB)
Dr. Zhenghan Wang(UCSB) Topological fault-tolerance in quantum computing
Special CRA SEMINAR| Prof. Paz Beniamini | The Open UN of Israel | Host: Prof. David Ballantyne
Special CRA SEMINAR| Prof. Paz Beniamini | The Open UN of Israel | Host: Prof. David Ballantyne
State of the School Address- Dr. Feryal Ozel
Dr. Feryal Ozel- GA Tech School of Physics Chair
CRA SEMINAR | Vikram Manikantan | UN of Arizona | Host: Dr. Matthew Liska
CRA SEMINAR | Vikram Manikantan | UN of Arizona | Host: Dr. Matthew Liska
Georgia Tech Space Week
A campus-wide celebration of innovation in the space domain, bringing together academia, industry, and government.
Experts in the News
Researchers in the School of Physics, working with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, have found that standard methods for identifying chirality in topological phases fail when applied to mixed quantum states. The study reveals that established diagnostics, including bulk-boundary correspondence and the modular commutator, are unreliable in these complex systems. Consequently, the research presents two new measures, based on relative entropy, to accurately diagnose chirality and determine the chiral central charge in decohered topological phases, indicating a need for a new set of tools when investigating mixed-state topology.
Quantum Zeitgeist 2026-07-16T00:00:00-04:00Bacteria have no neurons or memories in the human sense. Yet in a new study, researchers at Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon University — including School of Physics Associate Professor Shiladitya Banerjee and Postdoctoral Fellow Josiah Kratz — found that individual E. coli cells carried traces of past hardship into the future. When nutrients repeatedly rose and fell, the cells changed how quickly they grew, suggesting that even simple microbes can use experience to prepare for what may come next.
ZME Science 2026-06-10T00:00:00-04:00Georgia Tech researchers have recreated the effects of solar wind on lunar minerals in a laboratory experiment, providing new evidence that the constant stream of charged particles from the sun plays a major role in shaping the moon’s surface.
The team exposed ilmenite, a mineral commonly found on both Earth and the moon, to a synthetic version of solar wind. The experiment produced nanophase iron, tiny metallic particles that are widely observed in lunar soil and are considered a key signature of space weathering.
Interesting Engineering 2026-06-10T00:00:00-04:00A new study led by researchers, including School of Physics graduate student Julia Esposito and Associate Professor Gongjie Li, used 1,500 virtual planetary systems to examine how planet-planet scattering may have influenced the formation of Jupiter-sized planets.
American Astronomical Society NOVA 2026-05-22T00:00:00-04:00Researchers have long known that when two galaxies approach each other and merge, the supermassive black holes at their centers form a pair and are eventually expected to merge as well. It is precisely these mergers that are considered one of the sources of the gravitational-wave background — a faint “hum” of spacetime detected in recent years. However, the role played by the geometry of the collision in this process has remained an open question.
Graduate student Sena Ghobadi of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Physics, along with her colleagues, has developed three-dimensional dynamic models of such collisions.
A similar story appeared in Sky & Telescope.
Universe Magazine 2026-04-28T00:00:00-04:00Research led by Georgia Tech physicist Itamar Kolvin has found that the presence of small imperfections or heterogeneities in materials can have a dual effect on their strength and resilience. While heterogeneities were historically believed to make materials stronger by creating an obstacle course for cracks, the new study shows that in some complex materials, heterogeneities can actually accelerate crack propagation and weaken the overall structure. The findings have implications for how engineers design and reinforce materials to optimize their toughness.
Atlanta Today 2026-02-27T00:00:00-05:00
