Announcements
Please join us for a seminar by Dr. Jose Perez from the University of North Texas
on Friday, Sep. 25 at 2 pm in SWR 357. Dr. Perez will discuss "Mechanical Properties
of Low-Energy Electron-Irradiated
Graphene: Modeling the Two-Stage Response Using a Local Defect Activation Model."
The Department of Physics & Astronomy has been awarded a renewal funding for its long-running NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
The department is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Dr. CA Quarles, long-time TCU physics faculty member and TCU physics alum.
Dr. Christian Pantea (PhD 2004) was recently named Los Alamos’ Battelle Inventor of the Year!
Dr.Charles Reidl (PhD) was featured as Fort Worth ISD longest-serving teacher!
Congratulations to our 2026 graduates! Dr. April Horton earned her Ph.D; Sebastian Muscarnero-Fanelli earned an M.A.; and Sheridyn Campos, Judah Crawford, Audrey Hauck, Ahabar Hossain, Joshua Humphrey, Mason McClure, Royal Northen earned Bachelor's degrees!
Congratulations to our award winners! Judah Crawford was named senior scholar; Alyssa Dickens won best SRS physics undergraduate student poster; Jonah Otto won SRS best physics graduate poster; Anthony Gerg was runner-up for the DSCE graduate service award; Ugur Topkiran won DSCE best thesis award; Dr. April Horton won DCSE best dissertation award; and Dr. Anton Naumov won DCSE best graduate mentor award!
Dr. Hana Dobrovolny was elected as Member-at-large of the Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Section of the American Physical Society.
Congratulations to graduate student John Brannon who won the Best Graduate Oral Presentation at the Spring meeting of the Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Section of the American Physical Society!
Congratulations to graduate student Ugur Topkiran who was awarded a grant from Tarrant Area Gerontological Society (TAGS) Scholarship Fund to study "Near Infrared Imaging of Vesicular Aberrations Using Graphene Quantum Dots in Mice Brain and Investigation of Their Relations to Alzheimer's Disease."
Congratulations to graduate students Anthony Gerg and Ugur Topkiran, along with postdoc Pramita Sharma, who won Leaders in Research awards at the TCU Research and Creative Activities Poster Symposium!
Congratulations to graduate students Diya Vashani, who won the best poster award, and Anthony Gerg, who won best oral presentation, at the TAOAPS section fall meeting!
- Ugur C. Topkiran, Ali Gasimli, Lal Durmaz, Diya Vashani, Himish Paul, Giridhar R. Akkaraju, Anton V. Naumov, "Assessment of In Vitro Nano-Cytotoxicity Through Fluorescence Microscopy via Neural Network-Based Live/Dead Cell Classification", 2026, Advanced Intelligent Systems
- Hope Sage, Hana M. Dobrovolny, "Exploring the effect of density dependent infection rate in a within host viral infection model", 2026, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering.
- Pramita Sharma, Alina Valimukhametova, Natalia Castro-Lopez, Logun Presley K. Gunderson, Diya Vashani, Michael J. Chumley, Floyd L. Wormley Jr., Anton V. Naumov, "Multiplex In Vivo Imaging of Biodistribution and Pharmacokinetics of CoMoCAT Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes", 2026, ACS Applied Bio Materials.
- Alina Valimukhametova, Natalia Castro-Lopez, Pramita Sharma, Kseniia Malkova, Ali Gasimli, Ugur Can Topkiran, Himish Paul, Diya Vashani, Olga Zub, Floyd L. Wormley Jr., Anton V. Naumov, "Evaluating NIR-II-Emissive Graphene Quantum Dot Biodistribution, Toxicity, and Clearance for In Vivo Fluorescence Imaging", 2026, ACS Applied Nano Materials.
- Zygmunt Gryczynski,Agnieszka Jablonska, Bong Lee, Bo W. Laursen, Thomas Just Sørensen,Danh Pham, Rajveer Sagoo, Trang Thien Phamand Ignacy Gryczynski, "Room temperature luminescence of a triangulenium dye ADOTA in PVA films", 2026, Methods and Applications in Fluorescence.
- Jonah M. Otto, Peter M. Frinchaboy, Natalie R. Myers, James W. Johnson, John Donor, Ahabar Hossain, Szabolcs Mészáros, Hailey Wallace, Katia Cunha, Binod Bhattarai, Amaya Sinha, Gail Zasowski, Sarah R. Loebman, Alessa I. Wiggins, Adrian M. Price-Whelan, Taylor Spoo , Diogo Souto, Dmitry Bizyaev, Kaike Pan, Andrew K. Saydjari, and Ying-Yi Song. "The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping Survey. VIII. Galactic Chemical Gradient and Azimuthal Analysis from SDSS/MWM DR19" 2026 The Astronomical Journal.
- Jablonska, A.; Lee, B.; Petty, R.M.; Pham, D.; Sagoo, R.; Pham, T.T.; Gryczynski, Z.; Gryczynski, I. "Room-Temperature Phosphorescence of Quinine Sulfate in PVA Films: The Effect of Humidity". 2026 Optics.
- Sep. 25, Dr. Jose Perez from the University of North Texas will speak on "Mechanical Properties of Low-Energy Electron-Irradiated Graphene: Modeling the Two-Stage Response Using a Local Defect Activation Model" at 2 pm in SWR 357.
- Sep. 18, Dr. Jon Wilson from Baylor University will speak on "The future via the past: Effective Field Theory searches for new physics at JADE, LHC, and future colliders" at 2 pm in SWR 357.
- Sep. 11, Dr. Donald Hilgemann from UT southwestern Medical Center will speak on "Endocytosis without adapters: Ordered Membrane Domain Endocytosis and its Roles in Physiology and Pathology" at 1 pm in SWR 357.
- Sep. 10, Dr. Donald Hilgemann from UT Southwestern Medical Center will speak on "Understanding Physiological Processes via Science: A Personal Account" at 5 pm in SWR LH1.
- Mar. 6, Dr. Alan Farhan from Baylor University will speak on "Designing Emergent Phenomena and Functionalities: From Artificial Frustrated Spin Systems to Compositionally Complex Oxides" at 2 pm in SWR 357.
- Feb. 27, Dr. Fabian Pena from Baylor University will speak on "“Probing Atomic‑Scale Growth in Semiconductor Materials with Multimodal Characterization" at 2 pm in SWR 357.
- Feb. 20, Dr. Cormac Toher from UT Dallas will speak on "Computational Materials Design for Energy and Electronic Applications" at 2 pm in SWR 357.
- Feb. 13, Dr. Kevin Brenner from UT Dallas will speak on "Manipulating Heat and Sound with Two-Dimensional Crystals" at 2 pm in SWR 357.
- Jan. 30, Dr. Chetraj Pandey from TCU will speak on "Deep Learning for Space Weather Forecasting: Explainability and Adaptability" at 2 pm in SWR 357.