Recent physics graduate Derick Stace-Naughton has won the 2011 Coakley Medal from Georgetown College. This award, the highest honor given to a graduating senior in the College, was founded in memory of “Hank” Coakley, 1941, Lieutenant, United States Army Air Force, who died in the service of his country in World War II.

On May 20th, the Department of Physics held its annual brunch in honor of the graduating class of 2011. This year's graduates include 15 students receiving B.S. and A.B. degrees in Physics, as well as two students receiving Ph.D.s and a student receiving an M.S. Congratulations to all of them!

Ever since the introduction of quantum mechanics, physicists have been puzzled by how such a theory can explain the experimental fact that systems out of equilibrium evolve towards equilibrium and can then be described utilizing statistical mechanics. In an article published in Physical Review Letters, a team lead by Prof. Marcos Rigol explained how this works for a rare class of systems that live in one dimension.

The seventh installment of the Mid-Atlantic Soft Matter workshop (MASM7) will be held at The University of Pennsylvania on the 10th of June from 8:00am - 5:00 pm. To learn more about the workshop and to attend, you can go to the website. This event is being sponsored by the MRSEC at the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology and NIST.