Seminars & Colloquia

Biological Physics Seminar
Fri, Feb 8 1:30pm SEMINAR CANCELED: Effects of non-taxane small molecule stabilizers on microtubule stiffness
Megan Valentine, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara
Condensed Matter Seminar
Thu, Jan 24 11:15am Stick-slip sounds, jumping jaws and smashing shrimp: the evolutionary mechanics of biological movement
Sheila Patek, Dept. of Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Thu, Jan 31 11:15am Ionic Specific Effects beyond the Poisson-Boltzmann Theory: Electrolytes, Surfaces & Membranes
David Andelman, University of Tel Aviv
Thu, Feb 7 11:15am Wandering amongst Feynman Diagrams for strongly correlated fermions
Nikolay Prokofiev, Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Thu, Feb 14 11:15am Computational modeling of viral assembly: encapsulation of nucleic acids and envelopment by lipid membranes
Michael Hagen, Department of Physics, Brandeis University
Thu, Feb 21 11:15am Membranes, Interfaces and the Intriguing Role of Curvature
Anthony Dinsmore, Dept of Physics, UMass Amherst
Thu, Feb 28 11:15am Atomically thin MoS_2 - a new two-dimensional semiconductor
Jie Shan, Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University
Thu, Mar 7 11:15am A Geometric Approach to Predictive Computation of Thin Structures
Eitan Grinspun, Department of Computer Science at Columbia University
Thu, Mar 14 11:15am Live together, die alone: multi-scale infection dynamics in worms
Erel Levine, Department of Physics, Harvard University
Thu, Mar 28 11:15am Shocks in Fragile Matter
Vincenzo Vitelli, Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden
Thu, Apr 4 11:15am Coupling in a Critical System: 4He in an Array of Microdots
Frank Gasparini, SUNY Buffalo
Thu, Apr 11 11:15am Bacterial growth: defects, elasticity and plasticity
Ariel Amir, Harvard University
Thu, Apr 18 11:15am Gauge fields with cold atoms
Ian Spielman, NIST
Fri, Apr 19 1:00pm Can you shape the feel of stuff?
Prof. Martin van Hecke, Leiden University
Thu, Apr 25 11:15am Spin-orbit coupling in cold atoms
Victor Galitsky, Department of Physics, University of Maryland
Thu, May 2 11:15am Wetting on Deformable Surfaces
Eric Dufresne, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Physics & Cell Biology
Departmental Colloquium
Wed, Jan 30 4:00pm Gamma-Ray Bursts as Tools for Extragalactic Astrophysics and Cosmology
Rosalba Perna, University of Colorado
Wed, Feb 20 4:00pm LUX, LZ, and the future of WIMPs
Thomas Shutt, Case Western Reserve University
Wed, Mar 13 4:00pm Menagerie of Viruses: Organizing Principles of Virus Assembly
Murugappan Muthukumar, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Wed, Mar 27 4:00pm Decoherence
Philip Stamp, University of British Columbia
Wed, Apr 3 4:00pm Using the Earth as a Polarized Electron Source to Search for Long-Range Spin-Spin Interactions
Larry Hunter, Amherst College
Wed, Apr 10 4:00pm Tabletop probes for TeV physics: searching for the electric dipole moment of the electron
David Demille, Yale University
Wed, Apr 24 4:00pm A Solution Strategy for Hard Problems Inspired by the X-ray Phase Problem
Veit Elser, Cornell University
High Energy/Nuclear Lunch
Tue, Jan 29 12:15pm Hadron Polarizabilities
Barry Holstein, UMass
Tue, Feb 5 12:15pm The Cosmological Constant from Discreteness of Spacetime
Jennie Traschen, UMass
Tue, Mar 5 12:15pm EXO
Timothy Daniels, UMass
Tue, Mar 12 12:15pm Parity-Violation at SoLID and Moller
Seamus Riordan, UMass
Tue, Mar 26 12:15pm Gravitation in the Milky Way Galaxy
Francis Pichanick, UMass
Tue, Apr 2 12:15pm Anthropics and the Multiverse
John Donoghue, UMass
Tue, Apr 9 12:15pm Science with gravitational wave signals in the advanced detector era
Salvatore Vitale, LIGO Laboratory, MIT
Tue, Apr 16 12:15pm Tensor Contributions to Temperature Anisotropies
Jessica Cook, UMass
Tue, Apr 23 12:15pm GRB Astrophysics and LIGO
Daniel Hoak, UMass
Tue, Apr 30 12:15pm Van der Waals fluid and charged AdS black holes
David Kubiznak, Perimeter Institute
High Energy/Nuclear Seminar
Fri, Feb 15 2:00pm Constructing (quantum) gravity from field theory using AdS / CFT
Debajoyti Sakar, CUNY
Fri, Mar 15 2:00pm The Gravitational Origin of the Weak Interaction's Chirality
Stephon Alexander, Dartmouth
Fri, Mar 29 2:00pm Holography and String Universality
Alex Maloney, McGill University
Fri, Apr 5 2:00pm Time Crystals
Alfred Shapere, University of Kentucky
Fri, Apr 12 2:00pm Searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model at LHCb
Mike Williams, MIT
Fri, Apr 26 2:00pm Detecting gravitational waves with Advanced LIGO: how, when, and what will come next
Lisa Barsotti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Special Talks
Mon, Jan 28 3:45pm Thriving despite negative stereotypes: How ingroup experts in academic environments protect students’ aspirations in STEM
Professor Nilanjana Dasgupta, Department of Psychology, UMass Amherst