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Message from the Chair

Welcome to the Spring 2021 issue of Interactions, the Department of Physics newsletter!

Kimberly Strong

Dear Physics community,

Now that Toronto’s April snowfall has melted and spring might finally be here, I am delighted to introduce another issue of the Physics newsletter. Many good things have been happening in the Department, despite the ongoing pandemic and the challenges that it continues to create for our activities and general well-being. I hope the stories in this issue of Interactions provide you with some positive news in these uncertain times.

We start the newsletter with a reminder of the Welsh Lectures coming up on May 6 and 7. We are looking forward to talks by Subir Sachdev from Harvard University and Juan Collar from the University of Chicago. Both talks will be online, making them accessible wherever you may be. Also, if you missed this year’s J. Tuzo Wilson Lecture in February, given by Ron Kwok from the University of Washington, a recording of his talk about Arctic sea ice is available at https://tuzowilson.physics.utoronto.ca/.

Our profiles begin with an introduction to our newest faculty member, Ziqing Hong, whom we welcomed to the Department in January as an Assistant Professor in dark matter and neutrino physics. We are also pleased to profile Post-Doctoral Fellow Jack Setford, PhD Student Mohamed Shaaban, and Physics Specialist Rosalie Cormier. Our second Emeriti Profile features an in-depth interview with Tony Key, who first came to Toronto as a postdoc in 1966; he provides some fascinating insights into how the Department used to function. Our Alumni Profile highlights Danielle Chu, now a lawyer with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, who tells us why she pursued a physics degree and how her training in physics has helped with her career in law.

Congratulations to our twelve fall 2020 PhD graduates, particularly well deserved given that they had to finish writing up and defending their theses under pandemic conditions – well done!

This issue’s Research Spotlight highlights an intriguing paper by PhD student Aaron Goldberg that mathematically describes the degree to which objects or systems behave in a quantum manner. More of our recent research stories can be found at Physics News.

Physics faculty have been the recipients of half a dozen major awards over the last several months – congratulations to Professors Miriam Diamond, Hae-Young Kee, Jim Drummond, David Curtin, and Paul Kushner on these honours.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of the Xanadu Award for an Outstanding Publication by a PhD Student, thanks to support from Xanadu, a start-up company with close ties to the Physics Department. This $5,000 scholarship will be awarded annually to one or more PhD students in the Department for a peer-reviewed paper on quantum information and quantum optics. Thank-you to Xanadu for their generous donation and congratulations to the inaugural recipient, Ziaoqing Zhong.

Under the leadership of David Bailey, Chair of the Physics Outreach Committee, and Sheela Manek, Special Projects Coordinator, the Department has been actively engaged in a number of outreach initiatives. New this year, in collaboration with the Office of Student Recruitment and Leadership by Design, Physics is leading the “Pursue STEM” program to encourage Black and Caribbean students to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering and math. The first cohort of 38 grade 10 students joined the program at a launch event in March and had lots of great questions for keynote speaker Dylan Jones. Our students and faculty have also been running virtual physics workshops for Girls SySTEM and the Youth Enrichment Academy, and participated in a virtual Fall Campus Week. We will also be involved in Science Rendezvous, being held as a virtual street festival on Saturday, May 8 – please join us!

Our 2020-21 Physics Career Accelerator Program (physCAP) recently wrapped up with a closing event in early April. This year, we had 52 mentor/mentee pairs, with the virtual format allowing interested mentors to join whether or not they were in the Toronto area.

We celebrate three staff anniversaries this spring: 25 years for Helen Iyer (Administrative Assistant for the theoretical physics group), 20 years for Robert Morley (Senior Instrumentation Specialist), and 20 years for Galina Velikova (System Administrator). We also welcome three new staff members: Hala Larizza-Ali joined the Department in December as our new Undergraduate Coordinator, while the ATLAS project welcomed Andrea Leung as Project Coordinator and Michael Vansteenkiste as Assembly Technician.

Finally, we mark two retirements in this issue and have a growing list of recent retirees whom we will celebrate in person when that becomes possible. Ruxandra Serbanescu retires on June 30 after more than 20 years in the Department, where she has been a key member of our teaching group, making many important contributions to our undergraduate courses and labs. Also, Ana Sousa is retiring on April 30 as Administrative Assistant of the Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Physics Group (formerly of the Atmospheric Physics Group), a position she has held since 1982; she has been a fixture on the 7th floor for many of us and will be greatly missed.

Although not mentioned in the newsletter, a big focus of activity over the last six months has been preparation for the external cyclical review required every eight years under the University of Toronto Quality Assurance Process. Consultations for this have involved the Department’s faculty, administrative and technical staff, students, postdoctoral fellows, and research associates, and included a five-part faculty retreat, five town halls, and surveys of our undergraduate and graduate students. A detailed self-study report has been written and we will be hosting a two-day virtual visit for the external reviewers in June.

As the winter term winds down and we navigate the third wave of the pandemic, I would again like to thank our faculty, staff, teaching assistants, students, postdocs, and research associates, for all your efforts to keep the Department's courses, research, and operations on track. I remind you that COVID-19 resources and information for the Department can be found at https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/physics-at-uoft/covid-19-resources-physics/.

To conclude, I’d like to announce an upcoming change on the “third floor”. Young-June Kim’s three-year term as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies comes to an end on June 30. He has done a magnificent job, in a quiet and understated way, particularly in navigating our graduate program through the pandemic and in contributing to the UTQAP self-study process and report. I thank him for all of his work for the Department and wish him a well-deserved and rejuvenating research and study leave. Happily, Joseph Thywissen, a Professor in the Experimental Quantum Optics Group, has agreed to serve as our next Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. I look forward to working with Joseph when he takes up his new role on July 1.

As always, we welcome your feedback on Interactions – please contact our Editor, Sheela Manek, at newsletter@physics.utoronto.ca with your comments and news.

Best wishes for a safe and healthy summer.

Kimberly Strong Signature


Professor & Chair