Welcome to the Fall 2021 Semester!

After nearly three semesters of online and hybrid learning, the UA physics department has started the Fall 2021 semester with largely in-person classes. Crowds of students can be seen again outside of the PAS building, reflecting our consistent progress toward a normal campus life. Among these students are 65 freshman physics majors, which is one of our largest enrollments ever. Special care has been taken to ensure the safety of our students, such as indoor masking and re-arranged lab sections.

Some other news to note as we start the academic year:

• Preparations for the APS-sponsored Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP), which we will host in January in partnership with the astronomy department, are in high gear
• Starting this semester, the physics department will be offering its applied physics program to students of the Arizona College of Technology, a joint venture between the UA and the Hebei University of Technology in China.
• The first colloquium of this semester will take place on Friday, August 27. The speaker will be our alumnus Dr. Emanuele Mereghetti, who is currently a staff member at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He will talk about one of the most important topics at the intersection of particle and nuclear physics, neutrinoless double-beta decay and the possible Majorana nature of neutrinos. We look forward to seeing you all in-person or via zoom at the colloquium!