Dear Physics Community,

My fourth spring term as Chair has been notable for being my first nearly normal one, with most classes, labs, and events now back in person, making a welcome change from the last three years. On the third floor, we have been busy with developing a five-year Academic Plan and a new Memorandum of Agreement for our Tri-Campus Graduate Program. Many other activities have also been happening in the Department and I hope you enjoy reading about them in this issue of the Newsletter.

It’s springtime, which means that it’s time for our annual Welsh Lectures, which were held on May 11 and 12. We were delighted to have Marcia J. Rieke from the University of Arizona tell us about early results from the James Webb Space Telescope, while Omar Hurricane from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported on the recent breakthrough in laser-fusion. If you missed the public lectures, recordings are available at https://welsh.physics.utoronto.ca/.

We have welcomed quite a few new people to the Department this term. Our two newest faculty, Sergio de la Barrera and Xiang Li, are both interviewed in this Newsletter. Sergio joined us in April as Assistant Professor Tenure Stream in Experimental Quantum Condensed Matter, and Xiang joined us in May as Assistant Professor Tenure Stream in the Physics and Chemistry of Quantum Materials, a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry.

We also have four new staff. Eva Cheung started as Graphic Designer and Print Operator in October, and during one busy week at the beginning of February, three people joined the administrative team on the third floor: Supreet Randhawa as our Outreach, Facilities and Special Projects Coordinator; Diane Nguyen as our Research Grants and Finance Assistant; and Jean Xu as Physics Finance, Purchasing and MasterCard Program Administrator. All four bring new energy and expertise to the Department.

On February 24th, we held a Farewell Luncheon at the Faculty Club to celebrate six people who have retired or departed since the start of the pandemic: Raul Cunha, Dylanne Dearborn, Ana Sousa, Lisa Jefferson, Aloma Namasivayam, and Daisy Yuan. For the several staff who were unable to attend, there will be another opportunity to celebrate at the end-of-year party in June. The most recent departures were Aloma and Lisa in February, and Sheela Manek in March; between them, they had more than 80 years of experience at UofT and will be greatly missed.

The Newsletter includes profiles of biological physics Post-Doctoral Fellow Spencer Farrell, quantum condensed matter physics PhD Student Emily Zhang, and Physics Specialist Tony An. Our Emeriti Profile features Jim Drummond, who retired from the Department in 2006, but remains active in atmospheric physics. Our Alumni Profile introduces Jonathan Gotfryd, Set Designer with the Directors Guild of Canada, whose Physics and Philosophy Specialist degree provided him with foundational knowledge relevant to computational design.

The Research Spotlight in this issue is on Barbara Zemskova and her use of machine learning techniques to assess changes in the uptake of atmospheric carbon by the Southern Ocean over the past three decades. Many more research stories can be found at Physics News.

Congratulations to our fourteen November 2022 PhD graduates and to Batuhan Yilmaz and Noah Lupu-Gladstein, who received the 2023 Xanadu Award for an Outstanding Publication by a PhD Student for their paper "Negative Quasiprobabilities Enhance Phase Estimation in Quantum-Optics Experiment". It was also great to see the Physics’ Student Union (PhySU) receive ASSU’s Sanjeev Dewett Course Union of the Year Award in recognition of their very active year organizing academic and social events and initiatives.

Under awards and announcements, we are happy to report that Anton Zilman has been promoted to the rank of Professor Tenure Stream effective July 1st, while Tahir Shaaran started a one-year appointment as a Visiting Scholar in January. Recent awards include the McLean Award for David Curtin, the 2022 CAP-INO Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Applied Photonics for Hoi-Kwong Lo, a 2022 Dean's Research Excellence for Kaley Walker, and the 2023 Chancellor’s Leadership Award in the Distinguished Leader category for CAO Peter Hurley. John Sipe’s 50 years in the Department were celebrated by mentees and colleagues at a ‘Siposium’ held in February. We also mark Information Systems Specialist Julian Comanean’s twenty years working in Physics.

The Newsletter also highlights our 2022-23 Physics Career Accelerator Program and various Outreach in Action activities, including our Pursue STEM program to encourage Black and Caribbean students to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering and math, which is now in its third year, as well as the School Visit Program and the CAP High School Exam Workshop. The Department is participating in two major outreach events in May, providing demos and activities for Science Rendezvous on Saturday, May 13, and Doors Open Toronto tours of some areas of the McLennan Physics building on May 27 and 28.

I’m delighted to report that our appeal for donations to establish the Momentum Builders Scholarship to support Black and Indigenous undergraduate students in Physics has raised an endowment of more than $100,000! We now have sufficient expendable funds to begin awarding scholarships and a call for applications was recently sent to our undergraduate students. We look forward to awarding the inaugural scholarships soon. Meanwhile, donations can still be made to the endowment via this link. A sincere thank-you to everyone who has supported this initiative.

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

Wishing you an enjoyable summer.

Professor & Chair