Category: SCIPP News
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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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Genome June First Friday at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History
Physicists from the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics participated in the First Friday community science event at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. The event on Friday, June 6 was sponsored as “Genome June.” The event was part of SCIPP’s ongoing commitment to community outreach, aiming to make complex physics accessible and engaging.…
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Micro May First Friday at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History
On Friday, May 2, the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) brought the wonders of the subatomic world to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History’s “Micro May” First Friday event. The evening, themed around the science of the small, featured SCIPP researchers engaging the public with insights into gravitational lensing and particle collisions.…
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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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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…
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Celebrating the 15 Year Anniversary of the Fermi Mission (#Fermi15)
SCIPP celebrates 15 years of looking into the gamma-ray sky with the Fermi satellite. The Fermi mission was launched on the 11th of June, 2008 into low-earth orbit, and it has been scanning the gamma-ray sky since then. Its findings have been published in over 5000 publications, including over 30 in Science or Nature. The Santa…
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UC Santa Cruz leads DOE program to train computational high-energy physicists
SCIPP faculty discuss the importance of training in computational high-energy physics and introduce the new Western Advanced Training for Computational High-Energy Physics (WATCHEP) research program. Click here to read the full article.
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SCIPP Scientists building world’s largest digital camera
The most powerful digital camera ever built, now being assembled at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, will create a vast panorama of space by taking snapshots of 20 billion galaxies — more than twice as many as there are people on Earth. “The discovery potential is fantastic,” said Steve Ritz, project scientist for…
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Higgs Boson Anniversary
Several articles, interviews, and a special feature on the occasion of this anniversary. In these articles renowned theorists and experimentalists remember crucial moments from the times leading to the discovery and also provide a look ahead. Includes the article, “Higgs Boson Physics – The View Ahead” written by SCIPP faculty member, Howard Haber. Click here…
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Graduate Division Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award for Giordon Stark and others
UC Santa Cruz strives to promote postdoctoral scholars that embody the mission and high standards of this university. This award recognizes postdoctoral scholars who show excellence in one or more of the following: exceptional research and/or creative activities, leadership, mentorship, and service. Postdoctoral scholars are individuals who have recently completed a doctoral degree and, under…
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Large Hadron Collider restarts after major upgrades
Large Hadron Collider restarts after major upgrades UC Santa Cruz physicists have been at the forefront of U.S. participation in the LHC and contributed to a major upgrade of the ATLAS detector during the shutdown Click on title or here for full article
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Risa Wechsler named 2022 Physical and Biological Sciences Distinguished Graduate Student Alumna
Each year, UC Santa Cruz’s five academic divisions—Arts, Baskin School of Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Physical and Biological Sciences—selects one graduate student alumnus/a/i as their Distinguished Graduate Student honoree. The awards ceremony for the 2022 cohort will take place on April 23 of Alumni Weekend. Risa Wechsler has been named UC Santa Cruz’s Physical…
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Physicist Michael Dine takes readers on a journey to the edge of reality in new book
Throughout his career, UCSC physicist Michael Dine has explored challenging questions at the forefront of theoretical research in particle physics and cosmology. In a new book, This Way to the Universe (Penguin Random House, February 2022), Dine draws on decades of personal experience to offer an expert’s guide to the stunning achievements of modern physics as well…