Brochure: Graduate Study in Physics at UMass

The Department of Physics of the University of Massachusetts Amherst offers opportunities for graduate students to work with internationally recognized faculty in a variety of research areas. Classes are generally small, and students are encouraged to interact with faculty on a personal level. The University provides excellent facilities-libraries, computer resources, machine shops, and electronics fabrication facilities-which enhance a student's progress in courses and research. Many faculty have a close working associations with prominent national and international laboratories.

The Department

The Department of Physics is part of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The department offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics. Both theoretical and experimental research topics may be selected from the broad areas of physics available in the department (see Research Programs). The faculty of the department have been honored with many awards, including Sloan and Guggenheim fellowships, prizes from the American Physical Society, and the Presidential Young Investigator Award. The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for work done here that demonstrated the existence of gravitational waves. This discovery was made in 1974 by Joseph H. Taylor Jr., a faculty member in the department at that time, and Russell A. Hulse, a graduate student in the program who did a thesis on pulsars with Professor Taylor.

At present about 70 graduate students study under the direction of more than thirty faculty and a number of postdoctoral associates. Major research support is available to several of the department's research groups through the major national research centers such as Fermilab, Brookhaven, SLAC, and other Physics facilities.

The department has excellent computer resources from mainframes to workstations to personal computers. Remote access terminals are availible throughout the department and allow students access to both the university's computing services system and the department's resources. Wireless internet access is availible in most buildings on campus.

In addition to the departmental research facilities, there are, of course, University-wide facilities. These include the computing center, glass blowing shop, copying services, and photographic center, as well as the libraries.

• The computing center provides computing facilities, digital communication networks, personal computer and workstation support, information storage, retrieval, and management capabilities, and a wide variety of consulting services to the faculty, staff, and students of the University.
• The library facilities on campus include a central library and separate biological and physical science libraries. Literature searches can be done from computer data bases.

Department members also use many international, national, and regional facilities. For example, the nuclear and high-energy groups work in collaboration with Bates, Brookhaven, Jefferson Lab (formerly CEBAF), CERN, Fermilab, and SLAC. The University is a member of the Universities Research Association (URA), a national consortium of universities, which manages Fermilab.

The department maintains an active program of colloquia and seminars. There are general-interest colloquiums, sometimes held jointly with other departments such as Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemistry, Geosciences, Computer Science, or Polymer Science and Engineering. Each research area generally runs a weekly seminar with talks presented by outside speakers and occasionally by faculty and graduate students from within the department. In addition, each year the department invites a distinguished physicist or astronomer to deliver the Commonwealth Lectures. Recent speakers have included John Clark, Vera Rubin, and Philip Morrison.

The University

One of today's leading centers of public higher education in the Northeast, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst remains committed to its land-grant mission of education, research, and public service. Its nine schools and colleges offer the bachelor's degree in over 90 areas, the master's degree in 67, and the doctorate in 50. Enrollment of undergraduates and graduate students totals approximately 23,000. The University is actively committed to affirmative action, civility, equal opportunity, and intellectual freedom.

The University's Western Massachusetts location offers a rich cultural environment in a rural setting, with membership in the Five Colleges offering access to classes at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges. Other units in the state university system are the University of Massachusetts Boston, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the University of Massachusetts Worcester Medical Center.

Health Services

The University Health Service is both modern and efficient and is conveniently located on campus. All students who have paid the health fee are entitled to receive treatment and extended care. An optional supplemental health insurance program provides coverage for most medical and surgical services for students and their dependents.

The Community

The town of Amherst has a resident population of about 35,000 and is located in the rural Connecticut River Valley, a fertile farmland surrounded by rolling hills, woods, streams, and lakes. The Berkshire Hills rise to the west and the Green Mountains of Vermont are to the north. Over the years many well-known Americans have made their homes in Amherst, including Noah Webster, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Helen Hunt Jackson, Eugene Field, and Henry Ward Beecher. Nearby the architectural heritage and New England way of life are preserved in Old Deerfield, Old Sturbridge Village, and the Hancock Shaker Village.

The area offers a wide variety of recreational opportunities: both indoor and outdoor skating; skiing at Mt. Tom and the popular slopes in Vermont; and golf, tennis, bicycling, swimming, riding, and fishing. Wildlife centers, conservation areas, and the nearby Holyoke Range provide trails for hiking in the summer and cross-country skiing in the winter.

The University's Fine Arts Center continually offers top cultural events to the entire Five College community. Many of the world's best known classical music performers, orchestras, and ensembles perform here every year. There is also an excellent year-round program of jazz performances. Dance groups, theater productions, and Broadway musicals expand the menu of cultural activities. The other institutions in the Five College community also offer outstanding music and theater. Amherst College, for example, presents an excellent chamber-music series every year. In the summer one may take advantage of the Tanglewood Summer Music Festival and the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires.

The William D. Mullins Memorial Center, a multi-purpose sports and convention center, houses a basketball court over an Olympic-sized hockey rink. Home to the popular UMass basketball team, this arena is also available for major conventions, commencement, cultural events, conferences, concerts, and Fine Arts productions. A permanent ice rink is available for recreational skating, and for practice sessions of the intercollegiate hockey and intramural hockey programs. Seven racquetball courts for intramural and general use are also enclosed in this building.

The entire community is served by a free bus system operated by the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA), which provides transportation from 7 AM to midnight among the Five Colleges and between the University and the major residential areas of both Amherst and nearby communities.

Boston is two hours to the east by car and New York City three hours to the south. Hourly buses from these cities directly serve the center of the campus. Bradley International Airport serves the Springfield-Hartford area and is less than one hour by car to the south. Frequent bus and limousine service connects the campus to the airport.

Back to top