Category: SCIPP Faculty News
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Stefania Gori Awarded 2025 APS Fellow
Stefania Gori, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) Fellowship from the American Physical Society (APS). The fellowship honors Gori for her seminal contributions to particle physics phenomenology beyond the Standard Model, particularly in advancing the understanding…
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SUSY Conference comes to UC Santa Cruz for first time
Associate Professor Wolfgang Altmannshofer co-chairs the organizing committee for SUSY 2025. One of the most important annual gatherings in the field of theoretical and experimental particle physics will take place for the first time at the University of California, Santa Cruz from August 18th to 23rd. This year’s conference will be hosted by the Santa…
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Revolutionary Rubin Observatory debuts with first images taken by world’s largest camera
SCIPP and UC Santa Cruz researchers played pivotal roles in the unveiling of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s first images, released June 23, 2025. Located atop Chile’s Cerro Pachón, this NSF–DOE facility includes the 8.4 m Simonyi Survey Telescope outfitted with a record-breaking 3.2‑gigapixel camera—the largest ever built. Steven Ritz led the Images Group that produced all the image products for First…
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New analysis from DESI announces a theory about the universe may need to be modified
Researchers at UC Santa Cruz, including SCIPP faculty affiliates Alexie Leauthaud, Constance Rockosi and postdoc Sven Heydenreich, are part of the team announcing a suprising new measurement of dark energy. The new results with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggesting that dark energy, previously thought to be an elemental constant of nature, could be…
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SCIPP Scientist Simone Mazza Honored with International Physics Award
Simone Mazza, an assistant research scientist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP), has won an international award that recognizes contributions in the fields of fundamental interactions of matter. Mazza received the 2024 INFN Bruno Toushek Award from the Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation. Read the entire article here.
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Michael Riordan Awarded 2025 Abraham Pais Prize
SCIPP member Michael Riordan has been awarded the 2025 Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics by the American Physical Society. Michael was cited “For important contributions to the history of post-World War II physics, including the discovery of quarks, the invention and development of the transistor, and the search for the Higgs boson; and for making…
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SCIPP Postdoc Jennifer Ott Recognized for National Postdoc Appreciation Week
UC Santa Cruz has released an article honoring various postdoctoral scholars for their contributions in their respective fields and departments. Amon those honored is our own, Jennifer Ott, recognized for her significant role in Bruce Schumm’s Fast Sensors Group, as well as her participation in quality control of pixel-detector modules for the future upgrade of…
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New Primordial Black Hole Study from SCIPP Postdoc, Sarah Geller
SCIPP postdoctoral fellow, Sarah Geller, has co-authored a new study on primordial black holes. Theorists conceive that primordial black holes exert a gravitational force, which could account for at least some portion of dark matter in the universe. It is understood that primordial black holes do not “live” in our solar system, instead they travel…
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AESOP-Lite Experiment Launched in Collaboration with the University of Delaware
On January 9, 2024, the AESOP-Lite experiment launched on NASA’s largest balloon (60 million cubic feet) from the NASA Long Duration Balloon (LDB) site located on the Ross Ice Shelf close to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. AESOP-Lite is a collaboration between Robert Johnson of the UCSC Physics Department/SCIPP and the Bartol Research Institute at the…