Departmental news

Congratulations to Joe Creegen who received The Ogden Trust award for exceptional contribution to Physics outreach highlighting his dedication and ongoing support of the department's outreach work.

Congratulations to Dr Rebecca Nealon (previously Astronomy and Astrophysics Group) who has recently relocated to Monash University, Melbourne and has been awarded an ARC Future Fellowship.

Dr Nealon's project titled 'Solving the mysteries of warped discs to reveal how planets are born in evolving star systems' will delve into the origins of planet formation in warped discs. Planets are born in dusty, swirling gas discs called protoplanetary discs. However, the process by which these planets are created is still poorly understood and recent observations of discs show interesting geometries like warps. Dr Nealon's project will use these warps to explain how and when planets are born.

The discovery was first published online in Nature Astronomy in April, by then PhD student, and now postdoc, James Munday and has since been featured on the cover of Nature Astronomy’s June issue. James, supervised by Dr Ingrid Pelisoli and Prof Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay, discovered a type Ia supernova progenitor within a mere 50 parsecs. Type Ia supernovae are standardisable candles used to measure cosmological distances and were instrumental in the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe (Nobel Prize in Physics 2011).

Congratulations to Sihui Zhong who has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Keith Runcorn Thesis Prize 2024 for her PhD thesis titled “Decayless Kink Oscillations of Solar Coronal Loops”, completed at CFSA under the supervision of Professor Valery Nakariakov.

The Keith Runcorn Thesis Prize is awarded to the best doctoral thesis in geophysics on an annual basis.

The Warwick Awards for Public and Community Engagement (WAPCE) recognise and celebrate the roles of Warwick staff and students connecting with the public—locally, nationally, and globally.

Congratulations to all those who have formally been awarded Doctor of Philosophy in Physics:

Jorge Fernández Fernández

Stefan Katundi

Billy Shrive

Daniel Swinnock

Congratulations to those who have been awarded a Master of Science (by Research) in Physics:

Adam Counsell

Taf Zivave

We are sorry to share the sad news that Professor Ray Dupree has passed away.
Professor Ray Dupree joined the department in September 1966, and has been a member of the solid state NMR research group for the duration of his time at Warwick and has made many contributions to the department. He will be sorely missed.
The department have shared a tribute to Ray, with a link to a condolence book for those who wish to share a message.

In April, the department were selected by the Institute of Physics to host the Conference for Undergraduate Women and Non-Binary Physicists (CUWiP)Link opens in a new window. The four-day event brought together female and non-binary undergraduate physics students from universities across the UK and Ireland. With an impressive 185 applications received, the local organising committee allocated 100 delegate spaces, ensuring a diverse and engaged cohort of participants based on a shortlisting criterion developed by the team.

Congratulations to Professor Valery Nakariakov, from our Centre for Fusion, Space & Astrophysics who has been awarded £2.1 million from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC AdG project aims to transformatively advance our understanding of the long-standing mystery of why the Sun's outer atmosphere - the corona - is heated to millions of degrees.

On Saturday 5th July we will be gathering to celebrate 60 years of Physics at the University of Warwick. All current staff and students, former staff members and alumni are invited to come along and get involved in a day of talks, demonstrations and tours. For more information and to register please visit: Physics 60th celebration