Dear Physics community,
My term as Chair will be wrapping up at the end of June, making this my last Chair’s Message. Although the last five years have been jam-packed, they also seem to have sped by very quickly. As you can see in this issue of the Newsletter, the Department continues to be a vibrant and active place thanks to the contributions of many people. I hope you enjoy reading our latest news in this Spring 2024 issue of Interactions.
We have several big events coming up in May. The first is the Story of Water Symposium on May 10, which will be a forum for Indigenous and Western science perspectives on the precious resource of water. The following week, on May 16 and 17, we will host the annual Welsh Lectures. Nobel prize-winner Alain Aspect from the Université Paris-Saclay will be talking about two quantum revolutions, while Steven Kivelson from Stanford University will tell us about new research on quasi-particles with fractional charge. At the end of the month, on May 31, we will co-host a Physics & Math Alumni Reunion, providing an opportunity for our alumni to reconnect and to hear about current research from several of our faculty – I hope to see some of you there! In addition, the Department will be participating in Science Rendezvous on Saturday, May 11, and Doors Open Toronto tours of some areas of the McLennan Physics building on Saturday, May 25 – all are welcome to visit!
In January, we welcomed two new faculty and one new staff to the Department. Morgan O’Neill joined us as Assistant Professor Tenure Stream in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Physics, Erica Rosenblum joined us as part-time Assistant Professor in ice-ocean interactions, and Jo-Anne Wurster is our new Receptionist/Departmental Assistant. We also said good-bye to Liz Glover, who retired in January after 20 years in the Department, working in the Physics Library, Graduate Office, and Reception; we will be celebrating Liz at our end-of-year party in June. We are running four faculty searches this year and hope to introduce more new colleagues in the Fall 2024 Newsletter.
This issue of the Newsletter includes profiles of Professor Morgan O’Neill, quantum optics Post-Doctoral Fellow Scott Smale, quantum condensed matter PhD Student Félix Desrochers, and Physics Specialist Allen Kasum. For our Alumni Profile, we interview Randall McArthur, whose PhD in Physics led to a lifelong career with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.
The Research Spotlight features PhD Student Caleb Gemmell and Professor David Curtin and their work modelling the effects of atomic dark matter on the structure of galaxies. Keep an eye on Physics News for more research stories.
Sadly, our most recent News item is a farewell to Professor Anton Zilman, who passed away on April 23, 2024. Anton joined the Department in 2011 and was a valued member of our Biological Physics research cluster and had an active and productive research group. He also taught many undergraduate and graduate students over the past 13 years, and was fully engaged in the life of our Department, as well as serving as UTFA Council Member for Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics since 2020. His sudden passing is a huge loss to our community and to his many friends and colleagues around the world. We extend our deepest sympathy to Anton's family. He will be greatly missed.
On a happier note, we extend congratulations to our thirteen November 2023 PhD graduates and to Sophia Simon, who received the 2024 Xanadu Award for an Outstanding Publication by a PhD Student for the paper "Improved Precision Scaling for Simulating Coupled Quantum-Classical Dynamics", published in PRX Quantum.
Under faculty Awards and Announcements, we are pleased to report that Ania Harlick has been granted continuing status and will be promoted to Associate Professor Teaching Stream effective July 1, 2024. In breaking news, David Curtin, Andreas Hilfinger, and Sarah Rauscher have just been granted tenure and will be promoted to Associate Professor on July 1. In addition, Miriam Diamond had a successful interim review, Institute of Particle Physics Principal Research Scientist Richard Teuscher had his position as Professor renewed for another five-year term, and Visiting Scholar Tahir Shaaran moved to a part-time Teaching Stream position. Honours continue to come in for our faculty, including election as an Optica Fellow for Kaley Walker, election as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for Hoi-Kwong Lo, a Dean's Research Excellence Award for Young-June Kim, the Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award from the American Geophysical Union for Debra Wunch, a Faculty of Arts & Science Outstanding Teaching Award – Early Career for Ania Harlick, recognition as an American Physical Society Outstanding Referee for Bob Holdom, and election as a Fellow of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology for Yong Baek Kim. Meanwhile, Lilian Leung was selected as the recipient of the 2024 Dean’s Outstanding Technical Service Award from the Faculty of Arts & Science for her exceptional contributions as Senior Learning Services Specialist. Congratulations to everyone!
The Newsletter highlights the post-pandemic resumption of the Emeritus Faculty Lunch last fall, the 2023-24 Physics Career Accelerator Program, and various Outreach in Action activities. These include the Canadian premiere performance of "Patterns from Nature", the Pursue STEM program now in its fourth year, the School Visit Program, the CAP High School Exam Workshop, and the student-led “Not Quite a Lecture” initiative. We also include an update from the Physics Student Union (PhySU), which had a highly successful year, organizing many activities for the undergraduate community.
As I head into my last few months as Chair, I thank all members of the Department of Physics for your support over the past five years. We have accomplished much together, and while there are always projects to work on, the Department has seen many positive developments. We have had fifteen faculty searches and recruited four additional part-time faculty, a new librarian, and ten new staff. Six UTSG and two UTM faculty have had tenure/continuing status reviews, three faculty have been promoted to full professor, and another three faculty have had interim or part-time continuing appointment reviews. We have also increased the number of award nominations for our faculty and staff, resulting in many well-deserved recognitions.
For our students, we launched a very successful appeal for donations to establish the Momentum Builders Scholarship to support Black and Indigenous undergraduate students in Physics. Thanks to the generosity of many of you, the endowment currently stands at more than $116,000, enabling us to fund several scholarships every year. We recently announced the second call for applications, and donations can still be made to the endowment (and to other Physics initiatives) via this link.
During the first half of my term, the review of our programs under the University’s Quality Assurance Process was a major focus, involving extensive consultations, the preparation of a detailed self-study report, the (very positive) external review, and our response. This was followed by the preparation of the five-year Physics Unit-Level Academic Plan and the Tri-Campus Memorandum of Agreement for the Physics Graduate Program. All of these documents provide a solid foundation for the future of the Department.
In the area of equity, diversity, and inclusion, we are working to make the Department a positive and supportive environment for everyone. The Department’s IDEA Committee has become more active, and we developed the Inclusivity Statement, hosted various EDI workshops, ensured that faculty search committees are informed about EDI issues, supported student attendance at several women in physics conferences, and implemented various other initiatives. Physics led the development of the Pursue STEM program for Black and Caribbean high school students, in collaboration with the Office of Student Recruitment, Leadership by Design, and other STEM departments in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and with additional support from the Provost's Access Programs University Fund (APUF). We are also in the process of redecorating an office on the third floor to serve as a multi-faith and well-being room and hope to make that available soon.
Although there is not much to show for it yet, there has been considerable effort over the past five years behind the scenes (building on the work of my predecessors in the decade before that!) to transform the Physics Library into a new Physics Collaborative Research and Learning Centre. Funding has been secured from the Provost’s Student Spaces Enhancement University Fund and from the Faculty of Arts Science. After attending many dozens of meetings about the renovation since 2020, I’m disappointed that this will not be completed before the end of my term, but construction is currently scheduled to begin this summer and I look forward to the ribbon cutting when the new Centre opens!
While we all know the many problems with our aging building, there has recently been some progress towards the development of a McLennan Renewal Masterplan. Peter Hurley and I have been advocating for this for several years, and I’m pleased to report that the University has now developed the Terms of Reference for a Project Planning Committee to consider broad planning and infrastructure needs for the building. Also getting underway soon will be a badly needed upgrade of the washrooms on the first floor of the North Wing to address the issue of an insufficient number of washrooms for women and the lack of all-gender and accessible washrooms in that area.
It has been a great privilege and a highly rewarding experience to serve as the Chair of Canada's leading Department of Physics. Of course, one unanticipated challenge was the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in my first year and required all of us to adapt in our lectures, labs, research, work, and personal lives to cope with the continually changing circumstances. The success of the Department, both during COVID and beyond, is due to the tremendous efforts of many people. I’m grateful to everyone who has supported me and the Department of Physics during my term, including our faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, and the Faculty of Arts & Science; it has been a very great pleasure working with everyone. I am especially grateful to the third-floor team of Assistant to the Chair Chris McGugan, former Finance Officer Ilda Cunha, Manager, Finance and HR Administration Michael Manley, CAO Peter Hurley, and Associate Chairs Young-June Kim, Joseph Thywissen, and Peter Krieger – I have been truly fortunate to have such outstanding colleagues. And finally, I would like to thank Research Officer Orfeo Colebatch and the wonderful students and postdocs in my research group for their patience and understanding when I’ve been diverted by Chair duties!
Looking ahead, I wish our incoming Chair great success – I know the Department will be in good hands!
As always, we welcome your feedback on Interactions – please contact our Editor, Supreet Randhawa, at newsletter@physics.utoronto.ca with your comments and news.
With very best wishes,
Professor & Chair