NSF programming includes Research Experiences for Undergraduates, or REUs, intense research for students supported on a stipend. These experiences are competitive opportunities  designed to support students from diverse backgrounds, provide professional development and networking opportunities and prepare students for graduate education. 

Tally Vaneman ’27, an astrophysics major at Yale, applied to 10 external summer experiences, including six NSF-funded REU programs and three NASA-funded ones. On Monday, Feb. 17, Vaneman and other Cornell Astronomy REU applicants were notified by Co-Coordinator Zoe Learner Ponterio that the experience was cancelled due to “consideration of uncertain surrounding federal grant guidelines.”

In the days that followed, cancellations or delayed decision dates have been administered by other REU programs, including the University of Hawaii, Vanderbilt University, University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University. Career and internship opportunities at NASA are also subject to the current hiring freeze. NASA contributes to over 85 percent of federally supported astronomical research. 

Vaneman reached out to the Yale Physics and Astronomy Faculty and Yale’s Chapter of the Society of Physics Students, or SPS. According to Vaneman, the society was very receptive to physics and astronomy undergraduates affected by funding freezes and REU cancellations. 

The SPS Executive Board Nikita Mazotov ’26, Diya Naik ’27 and Max Watzky ’27, worked with the Yale Physics faculty to send an “REU Cancellation Affected Student” form to their members and present the testimonials to the Yale College Dean’s Office. Several members illuminated the uncertainties on securing a summer research experience despite previous efforts. By the time students had heard their external applications were rejected, several Yale research application deadlines had already passed.

“We’re glad we were able to contribute in bringing the issue to the attention of the dean’s office,” said Watzky. 

After close communication with the office, SPS announced via email on Wednesday, “If you were accepted to a research program that has since been canceled, you may be eligible to apply through this new, emergency fellowship.” 

According to the statement released by YCDO, students who provide documentation of a previously accepted plan that was subsequently cancelled or whose programs were cancelled before they received an acceptance will be considered for additional funding in conducting research with Yale faculty. 

“The notification by the Society of Physics Students was very helpful in making us aware of the growing problem of cancelled research programs,” Alexia Belperron, the associate dean of science and quantitative reasoning education in Yale College, wrote to the News. “We believe doing summer research can be an important educational opportunity, in particular for STEM students. Thus, we worked to design an alternative summer research funding fellowship for students who have lost their original research opportunities.” 

Eligible students may complete a fellowship application following the same guidelines as the Dean’s Fellowship to which alternative funding will be evaluated with the same criteria. The funding is competitive with awards ranging from $4,000 to $5,000. Students can provide the necessary documentation by submission of this form by Monday, March 31.

Belperron further indicated this alternative funding initiative will allow Yale faculty facing uncertainty in grant funding to host undergraduate researchers. 

Several members of SPS told the News their appreciation of YCDO’s new funding initiative. Vaneman will be applying for “Alternative Summer STEM Research Funding.” 

“[SPS] reassured me that those in my situation would still be eligible, so I’m very grateful to have this opportunity amid the ever-changing landscape that is the REU circuit this year,” Vaneman said.

First years, sophomores and juniors at Yale may also receive funding through the non-competitive Summer Experience Award by the final deadline of Thursday, May 1. 

The Yale College Dean’s Office is located at 1 Prospect St.

The post Yale administers alternative summer STEM research funding for undergraduates amid cancellation crisis appeared first on Yale Daily News.

“My favorite planet, of course! Mars!” exclaims the protagonist, Mia.

In her custom-built spaceship, Mia embarks on a fantastical journey to Mars with her co-pilot cat, Nebula. They meet the “Martians,” based on the real-life rovers of Mars throughout the story. Enlisting the rovers’ help, Mia learns the lesson of perseverance and finds a way back home to Earth. 

To bring this story to the page, astrophysicists Emma Louden GRD ’26 and Tanya Harrison partnered with Wouter Pasman, an illustrator and space enthusiast to co-author their debut children’s book.

Louden, a fifth year Yale astronomy graduate student, described the permanence of a book on someone’s shelf to be a new undertaking in her outreach endeavors. The story is personal to Louden, for Mia’s wonder is based on Louden’s adoration of space and exploration since childhood. 

Louden’s ability to share her love of the night sky, the power of stories and the beauty of the universe is why she chose to bring this book into the world. 

“Sharing a piece of you that matters so much is a very vulnerable moment, and vulnerability is what makes connection,” Louden said.

For Pasman, the most difficult and rewarding challenge of illustrating the book was depicting the rovers.

Pasman wanted the rovers to appear childlike while accurately portraying the designs of the real rovers. He closely collaborated with Louden and Harrison throughout the process. 

“The [rovers] are very complex (even to draw), but I wanted them to look sort of similar to their real-life counterparts,” Pasman wrote to the News, “So I used 3D models and stripped the rovers of all elements which were not important for the overall image of the rover or the story. By this, I could find a nice balance between scientific accuracy and stylized form. But then to give them eyes and personality was a lot of fun.”

The end result is a book to which families can cozy up with their children and share for generations.

Ashley Hayden, a mother from the greater New Haven community, frequently reads “Mia and the Martians” to her children, who are avid space fans. The book includes journal pages of authentic scientific facts and a “Design Your Own Rover” tutorial.

“This book was the perfect way to educate kids about Mars and its exploration history because it took us with Mia, who’s spirit and excitement about space my kids can identify with, on a captivating journey while sprinkling in all the real world facts and missions,” Hayden wrote to the News. 

After reading the book. Hayden took her son to see the planetarium show Mars 1001 at Yale’s Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium, or LFOP. When the rover drove onto the screen, Hayden’s son immediately recognized it as the same one from the book.

Louden’s favorite frame pays tribute to the iconic photograph “Pale Blue Dot” taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft 3.7 billion miles from Earth. Emma has this illustrated frame by Pasman on her desk.

In the story, while Mia looks at Earth growing larger and larger in the window, transforming from a tiny dot into a brilliant blue and green globe, she remarks to her cat, “We need to take care of our home, Nebula. It’s the only one we got.”

“Mia and the Martians” is available for purchase on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. 

The post Yale astronomy graduate student writes a Martian adventure children’s book appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Cruz claimed that over $2.05 billion of NSF funding nationwide has gone to projects that promote DEI or incorporate social justice themes into scientific research. Many of the flagged Yale grants focus on incorporating DEI frameworks into scientific education and STEM workforce development. 

“Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has been taking a sledgehammer to the radical left’s woke nonsense. DEI initiatives have poisoned research efforts, eroded confidence in the scientific community, and fueled division among Americans,” Cruz wrote in a statement. “Congress must end the politicization of NSF funding and restore integrity to scientific research.” 

NSF is currently reviewing its grants on whether they comply with new federal restrictions on funding DEI-related initiatives. Cruz requested “significant scrutiny” of awards listed in his report.

The NSF has not yet provided a definitive timeline, leaving faculty and postdoctoral researchers uncertain about the future of their projects.

The funding cuts would particularly impact postdoctoral students and early-career researchers, many of whom receive DEI-related training grants. 

“It is very difficult to say at this point what is actually going to happen to funding, but I am very concerned by these developments, particularly for early-career faculty,” wrote Steven Girvin, professor of physics at Yale.

Without stable federal funding, Girvin explained, younger faculty members may struggle to establish independent research programs, which could hinder scientific progress in the long run.

Antonio Porras-Valverde, a researcher in Yale’s Department of Astronomy, said that fellows, including those on NSF Ascend grants designed to support underrepresented groups in mathematical and physical sciences, now worry about their funding and the possibility that grants promised for multiple years may only last for one.

Faculty members and researchers expressed concerns about the long-term impact of possible funding cuts on scientific discovery and the next generation of scholars. 

“Our universities and our scientific enterprise are the envy of the world,” said Meg Urry, the director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. “But taking a sledgehammer to the research infrastructure will change that rapidly, and the damage may not be possible to repair.”

Urry stressed that cutting NSF funding could stifle discoveries that might not show immediate applications but could revolutionize industries decades later, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of scientific breakthroughs.

Girvin noted that private sector investments do not typically fund foundational research, even though industries often reap the benefits in the long run.

Many groundbreaking discoveries, from quantum mechanics to modern computing, originated from federally funded research — often by NSF — before being commercialized by private companies.

Outside of NSF grants, few options remain for astronomy research.

“Astronomy funding is already very limited, if NSF funding is cut more, it is going to make other sources of funding even more competitive,” said Colin Burke, an NSF astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellow at Yale.

The Yale Astronomy Department is located at 219 Prospect St.

The post U.S. Senate report flags $4.7 million of Yale’s NSF funding for “promoting DEI” appeared first on Yale Daily News.

One of Yale’s largest computer science courses, jointly taught with Harvard University, was canceled during a monthly faculty meeting after facing budgetary challenges, according to Ozan Erat, the most recent Yale instructor for the course. However, administrators expect the computer science department’s expanding faculty size will allow students to take more specialized introductory courses in future semesters.

“I think Yale CS benefited from CS50 a lot,” Erat wrote. “I have met students who decided to get into CS after taking CS50 for fun in their first year. CS50 was a fun course.”

Since Yale started offering the course in 2015, CS50 has consistently seen enrollment numbers in the hundreds and was often the department’s largest class. While students primarily watched lectures via the course’s website, they attended in-person sections and office hours led by undergraduate learning assistants, or ULAs.

However, according to Erat, the original donation that made CS50 possible ended in June 2024, and the cost of employing so many ULAs for the course had become unsustainable. 

“From the beginning we were using a generous gift from someone (I don’t know who) for many years, but that ended in June 2024,” Erat wrote. “[The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences] helped us covering our costs [in fall 2024], but we had to cut down on many things. Maintaining CS50 at Yale was becoming difficult.”

In 2022, after ULAs for the course threatened to strike for higher wages, the computer science department increased the weekly pay limit for CS50 ULAs from 7.5 hours to 10 hours. In 2023, the course instruction team introduced an artificial intelligence chatbot known as the “CS50 duck,” which served as a virtual learning assistant to supplement the course’s roughly 40 ULAs. 

According to Erat, both of these developments posed challenges to CS50’s diminishing financial resources.

“We were also using lots of ULA force for this class,” Erat wrote. “Regular ULAs work for 7.5 hours, but we were paying our ULAs 10 hours’ worth of payment. Thanks to the CS50 duck, we had less students in office hours and the excessive amount of ULA force became another financial burden.”

According to Theodore Kim, the director of undergraduate studies in computer science, the end of CS50 is a reflection of broader changes in the department, including a wider range of students taking computer science courses and a faculty size that has more than doubled since 2015. 

Kim pointed to newer introductory offerings such as “Python for Humanities and Social Sciences,” “AI for Future Presidents” and “C Programming Language and Linux.” 

“We now have the people and expertise to bring more focused pedagogy to the specific interests of the students,” Kim wrote to the News. “Students can choose the course that best fits their needs, rather than trying to get what they want from one giant course.”

Kim also noted that, for students still interested in taking CS50, the course’s content is available for free online. 

In an email to former CS50 ULAs, Erat wrote that the department will offer an “enhanced” version of the course “Introduction to Programming” for both the fall and spring semesters.

However, some students and staff are concerned the end of CS50 may reduce opportunities for new students from underrepresented communities to become involved in computer science. 

“CS50 was the space within the department where I felt like I belonged,” Wini Aboyure ’25, a former CS50 ULA, wrote. “I do worry that without CS50, we will lose some of the diversity that it introduces into the major.”

While Yale shifts to more specialized computer science introductory courses, David Malan, who teaches CS50 at Harvard, will focus on a new partnership with the University of Oxford. However, Malan looks back on his partnership with Yale as a “perfect proof of concept” that higher education can be more collaborative.

“That two schools, rivals no less, could come together in this way educationally has been a remarkable thing,” Malan wrote to the News. “I don’t think the world needs just one course in computer science. But I don’t think we need thousands, each siloed within institutions.”The Yale Computer Science Department was founded in 1969.

The post “This was CS50”: Yale ends largest computer science course appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Gavin Susantio DIV ’25 said he is closely awaiting when the planets will align. He photographed a similar Parade in the early mornings of summer 2022. 

“I used to sleep under a hanging Solar System from my bedroom ceiling as a child, and the planets would glow in the dark. To see the actual depiction of that not by staring at my ceiling but at ‘the heavens’ was both out of this world and a childhood dream come true. The Parade of four planets and the Moon in 2022 was already spectacular. But to see six planets in January might be a once-in-a-century opportunity!” Susantio wrote to the News.

This week, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be easily viewed with the unaided eye. 

Members of the Astronomy Department and the Staff of the Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium, or LFOP, have received an uptick of inquiries regarding the Parade’s viewing. 

“It’s not a super common thing to be able to see so many planets at the same time, and since they’re all so bright in the sky it’s super cool to be able to easily pick them out when they’re all lined up. Planets are one of the first things I learned how to identify in the night sky,” Em Sanzone ’26, an astrophysics major who received such inquiries, told the News. “They’re bright enough that you can see them from New Haven with light pollution, which is really exciting!”

The planets are akin to the Sun in that they rise in the East and set in the West. In the “Parade,” the Planets march along the ecliptic, the plane in which the planets orbit around the Sun in our Solar System. The seven other planets, the Moon and the Sun will always lie along this ecliptic path when viewed from Earth. That is how seasoned stargazers know where planets will be in the sky: facing South going from East to West.

Walking down from Science Hill on Prospect Street, a Yalie should be able to see Venus and Saturn light up the sky. They will appear high in the southwest sky for about two hours after sunset. Look for the brightest “star,” that’s actually Venus, and the “star” below it is Saturn. Jupiter is high in the sky from the Southeast, and Mars lies in the East. They will follow the Path of the Ecliptic, setting in the West at dawn. 

There have also been viewings on Cross Campus with members from the Yale community and beyond.

Parker Ellison ’28 volunteered at an outreach event where the Yale community and New Haven residents were invited to observe the Parade. He operated a telescope for passersby.

“One moment that stood out to me was when people realized that the bright ‘star’ they had been noticing in the night sky was actually Jupiter. Being able to watch their excitement as they looked through the telescope and saw its bands and moons up close highlights what makes these events so meaningful. Experiences like this inspire curiosity and help people feel more connected to the night sky,” Ellison wrote to the News.

Uranus and Neptune are not visible with the naked eye in New Haven, but can be viewed by binoculars or a telescope. Uranus will be westward of Jupiter, and Neptune will be eastward of Venus. 

Cloud cover checkers from groups such as Clear Dark Sky and the National Digital Forecast Database should be checked for the best nights for viewing. Free software applications such as Stellarium can be personalized to time, date and location of a user. There are also various mobile applications one can use when planet hunting outside. Additionally, it will be possible to photograph the event. 

This planet viewing has persisted a large trend on social media, and Ellis Eisenberg ’27 has led efforts to help others spot the Parade.

“To me, the best part is seeing how many people are enthusiastic about space. We live in pretty divisive times, and I think it’s truly special that regardless of someone’s personal beliefs, we can all appreciate the beauty of the night sky,” Eisenberg said.

Further skywatching tips can be found here. 

The post Yale experiences Planet Parade appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The acclimated experiment, led by the physics graduate student Jiaxiang Wang GRD ’25 under the guidance of professor David Moore’s group, entrapped a silica sphere using a focused laser beam in a process called optical trapping. The sphere was embedded with radioactive lead atoms which decayed over several hours.

The subsequent effect can be surmised from simple physics.

Imagine you were standing on a skateboard and threw a baseball forward. You would be propelled backward.

Now imagine you are standing on a skateboard with multiple people, each having their own baseballs. In the two-dimensional scenario, the skateboard is constrained by forward or backward motion along one axis. However, instead imagine multiple people with baseballs on a sphere, levitating in a vacuum, which has freedom of movement in three dimensions. This is the technique Wang and his team have implemented.

“The detector is a sphere that is levitated in vacuum and is like a skateboard. The radioactive particles are like the players who are standing on the skateboard. And when the particles decay into alpha and beta particles, the sphere, which is like a skateboard, will be recoiled,” Wang said. “We sense how much this is recoiled to measure how much the product of the decay varies.”

In other words, the sphere’s minuscule recoil is a result of the conservation of momentum.

The Yale researchers’ paper, titled “The Mechanical Detection of Nuclear Decays,” explores this technique. An increased sensitivity in their apparatuses could lead to the proof of the existence of hypothetical particles.

The paper became more widespread than Wang anticipated, from appearances in Physics World to Chemistry World. Wang had faced previous rejections from other journals and recalled initial self-doubt. The growth of the technique’s audience has solidified for him a thriving interest in his work.

The American Physical Society’s magazine featured a comic explaining Wang’s recoil experiment in analogy to the children’s book Dr. Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who.” Wang was pleasantly surprised at the comic’s accuracy.

Thomas Penny, a doctoral associate and co-author of the paper, had a similar reaction to these publications. 

“It’s really nice to see the work we do highlighted by a bunch of different journals. It makes the work we do feel important,” Penny said. “Especially with the comic in particular, it shows they’re really making an effort to communicate the science we do to people who do not have a physics background.”

Penny foresees the technique to be used extensively, including in understanding certain cancer therapies, detecting nuclear contamination and locating the presence of neutrinos, or subatomic particles traveling near the speed of light.

The editors of Physics World recognized such future potential applications of Wang’s experiment. Their top 10 list is chosen each year based on the criteria of importance in scientific progress and the interest of their readers.

“It involves physics everyone’s heard about, and it might have applications for detecting neutrinos in the future. So that’s why it’s in our top ten,” Margaret Harris, online editor of the Physics World, wrote.

Wright Laboratory is located at 272 Whitney Ave.

Correction, Jan. 27: The article has been corrected to accurately reflect Penny’s foresight of the technique in understanding certain cancer therapies. 

The post Yale research recognized as a Top Ten Physics Breakthrough of 2024 appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The discovery was based on observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, which began to orbit the sun in 2021 and was designed to gaze into the universe’s origins. These extremely large galaxies discovered by researchers challenge the existing understanding of galactic evolution.

“In our model for the formation of structure in the universe, galaxies start out small and gradually build up over many billions of years,” explained Pieter van Dokkum, professor of astronomy and physics and the paper’s co-author. “Seeing these ‘monster’ galaxies early in the history of the universe doesn’t fit very nicely with this model.”

These “ultra-massive” galaxies are also referred to as “monster galaxies” due to their size and rapid star formation. Instead of seeing smaller, low-mass galaxies that grow, researchers observed massive galaxies, some larger than the Milky Way, that formed early.

Researchers identified the galaxies’ startling sizes by detecting their light emissions with the JWST. There are often two ways to determine the size of a galaxy — from the stars’ light emissions or by material caught in the spiral of a massive black hole. 

Dokkum explained that identifying the cause of this light can be difficult, especially within early galaxies like the ones found in the study. 

“We see something that’s very bright, but we don’t know if it’s because there are a lot of stars there or because there is a big black hole there,” Dokkum said. However, “for these three galaxies, we see that the light is spread out. That means it’s not all coming from a single point, which is what we would have if the light came from material falling into a black hole.”

Observations of such “monster” galaxies continue to raise new questions for researchers at Yale. 

Josephine Baggen GRD ’28, a researcher in van Dokkum’s Group studying high-redshift galaxies detected with JWST data, is trying to understand how the current model can accommodate these unexpected phases of galaxy formation.

“This does not mean the model is wrong, it is just likely missing some growth mechanisms at the early phases of galaxy formation,” Baggen said.

To accommodate for the discovery, Baggen explained, the paper calls for some “accelerated growth phase” in the early universe, rapid growth phases that created the “monster galaxies” observed in the study.

These new findings add to the understanding of galaxy formation and it presents a more efficient method scientists hope to explore further. At Yale, Dokkum’s lab continues to study early massive galaxies like these using JWST data.

For Camille Chiu ’26, an astrophysics major who studies the chemical and dynamical properties of galaxies, these results could not be more fascinating.

“The findings are an important step forward in our understanding of how the first galaxies formed and are a testament to the unique and powerful capabilities of JWST in probing the early Universe. This kind of research would not have even been possible five years ago,” Chiu wrote to the News. “It is motivating to witness both the rapid pace of discovery and the emergence of so many new, unanswered questions.”

The Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light-years in diameter.   

The post Discovery of three supermassive galaxies may redefine understanding of galactic evolution appeared first on Yale Daily News.

“At the Peabody Museum, we know a lot about dinosaurs. We don’t know much about neuroscience,” David Skelly, director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, told the News. “We are bringing scientists into this realm for the public to see. We are representing the world of neuroscience with this exhibition.” 

This exhibit is the first curation by Yale neuroscience and cell biology professor Daniel Colón-Ramos.

The exhibition hosts several interactive features from rotating photos, to transcribing scientific images, to writing down one’s first memory of life on a board to share. As Colón-Ramos described, these optical illusions may be commonly placed in a children’s museum but this exhibit explains the neuroscience behind these visuals.

“We want to have something for everyone who visits, from little kids to adults. We do that with an experience of visuals,” Colón-Ramos said.

Entering the exhibit, visitors are greeted with the inaugural showings of the drawings of the founding fathers of neuroscience, Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal, through an international collaboration from museums in Italy and Spain. This beginning section of the exhibition is titled “Catching the Butterflies of the Soul,” referencing Cajal in his quest to study the human cerebral cortex.

Proceeding into the main wing of the exhibit, visitors are followed by the gaze of a mask of Albert Einstein when entering the “Perception” section. Visitors then have the chance to glean at optical illusions and decipher their interpretations of the world. 

“Really what your brain is doing is making its best guess on what reality is, with the information it has,” reflected Colón-Ramos reflecting on the illusions. 

Proceeding deeper, deceptions await in the “Attention” section with short featurettes starring the magician Mark Mitton and the Invisible Gorilla. Then, the “Memory” section allows visitors to reflect on their first memories and understand how they form new ones. There are also several explorations on neurological disorders such as dementia explored in the artistry of William Utermohlen. 

Finally, the exhibit concludes with the Artificial Intelligence Section, showcasing its inspiration from the human brain and its uncanny resemblance. Due to the recent advancements of artificial intelligence in the last six months, Colón-Ramos indicated the interactive components of this section are currently in the process of being changed to meet present day advancements. 

Visitors will be surprised to see Handsome Dan II, Yale’s mascot from 1933 to 1937, sharing a glass case with a shark and a snake. 

Mariana Di Giacomo, the museum’s natural history conservator, described the recent acquisition of the famous mascot. The handler of the current Handsome Dan XIX called the Peabody museum after a social media reveal of the Peabody Museum’s acquisition of Handsome Dan I, and Handsome Dan II was in a Yale visitor center. The handler asked if the museum wanted him. 

They accepted.  

“He had a whole patch on his face that was missing. It’s funny he is displayed in a neuroscience exhibit because the part I patched is not hair. It’s actually paint. But you can’t tell. Taxidermy is all about making things out of other things to trick your eye,” said Di Giacomo.

The exhibition opens to the public on Dec. 7, 2024.

The post Peabody Museum opens new neuroscience exhibit appeared first on Yale Daily News.

During the talk, Quinn spoke on her experiences as a particle physicist, the history of the Standard Model of particle physics, and her work on the axion. Quinn has been honored by national and international physics organizations with the Dirac Medal, the Klein Medal, the Sakurai Prize, the Compton medal and the Benjamin Franklin Medal. 

“SPS and the Physics Department are extremely excited to be hosting Professor Quinn,” Max Watzky ’27, the prize lecture chair of SPS, told the News. “She is nothing short of legendary. It’s not every day that you get to hear from and interact with a truly groundbreaking pioneering scientist. That’s what Helen Quinn represents to me.” 

Quinn ushered in a new era of particle physics by studying a new particle called the axion. Watzky emphasized Quinn’s work is of particular relevance to several of Yale’s laboratories, such as Wright Lab, as they continue to search for the dark matter particle and the axion. 

Quinn spoke about the November Revolution in particle physics. In November 1974, two teams  —  one at SLAC and one at Brookhaven National Laboratory — independently discovered a pair of elementary particles called quarks, later called J/Ψ. 

“It was the beginning of the establishment of the Standard Model,” said Quinn. 

The Standard Model is comprised of the building blocks of the universe, or the four fundamental forces: the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force. The discovery led scientists to believe there exists a fourth quark and upheld that the quark model is an accurate representation of the universe. 

In her talk, Quinn discussed the subsequent experiments to assess the concreteness of the Standard Model. 

For instance, multiple experiments measured for the same parameter in different energies and decay channels to find a similar value for a constant term. These agreeing results demonstrated that the Standard Model is accurate across experiments. 

“The theory is incredibly good,” Quinn said. “The amount of experimental work that it takes to test the theory takes an incredible amount of work.”

The great success of the current Standard Model has led some particle physics to wonder where the field is heading next. 

One hypothesis in the physics community is there may not be any new particles left to find, as the Standard Model does not require any new particles to support its current framework.

One of the audience members posed a concern relating to such. Quinn thought for a moment before replying, “It’s hard to know the good questions, that doesn’t mean there are none.”

Outside of the lab, Quinn has been recognized for her efforts to aid the next generation of physics education. In 2013, she developed “A Framework for K-12 Science Education,” a vision that has been adopted by states across the country.

Quinn will also be joining the Yale Physics Community on Tuesday at 5 p.m. for an informal panel with SPS, Women+ in Physics, and Queer Affiliated fRiends of physiKs at Sloane Physics Laboratory. The discussion will focus on her career as a woman in physics and give advice for students earlier in their careers.

“I am very excited to hear both about her research and how throughout her career as a woman in physics, she’s navigated being in male-dominated spaces, especially [in] an era when there was a lot less gender representation in physics,” Ana Maria Melián ’25 said, the co-president of Women+ in Physics. 

Quinn received her doctorate from Stanford in 1967.

The post Particle physicist reminiscences on career in physics appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Attending the Brevard Composition Institute in the Blue Mountains of North Carolina, he decided to write a symphony orchestra piece on Active Galactic Nuclei, also known as black holes. Featuring an ensemble of 15 different musical instruments, Bricca tried to answer: how do you represent a black hole in music?

Bricca found inspiration for his piece from a course last semester titled “Introduction to Relativity and Black Holes,” taught by Professor Charles Bailyn ’81. The class is specifically designed for students not majoring in physics, astronomy or related fields. 

“[Bricca] really absorbed some scientific ideas and then completely transformed them through his musical vision. I think it’s both powerful music in itself and also a very impressive synesthetic connection between ideas and art,” Bailyn wrote to the News. “I think it’s a wonderful example of the things that can result from the distribution requirements.”

Many other artists have previously enrolled in Bailyn’s courses. 

One such alumnus of his courses, Bailyn recalled, is Lia Halloran ART ’01, who has since made a career out of visual art inspired by astronomical concepts. In 2023, Halloran published the book, “The Warped Side of the Universe: An Odyssey Through Black Holes, Wormholes, Time Travel, and Gravitational Waves” in a nearly two-decade collaboration with Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Kip Thorne. 

Bricca was also inspired by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s, or NASA’s, simulation demonstrating the point of view of an astronaut plunging into the event horizon of a black hole. Bricca deemed this would be the perfect ending. 

He explained many composers prioritize writing the music first and then tying a concept or a title to their piece later in the process. That was not the case with his piece.

“First and foremost, I wanted to convey the emotion of awe,” Bricca said. “The visceral nature of these fascinating objects is difficult for music to portray concepts scientifically. What music is really good at is portraying emotion, the emotion you get thinking of these objects.” 

Similarly, in a 2024 documentary titled “Listen to the Universe,” NASA explored applications of sound to represent astronomical data with “sonifications,” translations of data into sound. NASA sonification projects have included black holes, galaxies, nebulae, planetary orbits and space telescopes. Data representation in sound is especially vital to allow access to information for blind and visually impaired individuals.

In September, Bricca’s piece premiered at the Annual Yale Astronomy Department Jamboree. 

Professor Earl Bellinger, an astrophysicist and an avid musician, was present at the Jamboree. Bellinger routinely forms the connection between how stars make “music” in their pulsation brightnesses in the form of acoustic waves akin to NASA’s sonification work. 

“I think [the piece] was wonderful in showing the connections between art and science,” Bellinger said. “The piece was well composed and I could hear the drama of switching between the two sections of the piece. I thought it was a great subject to write about, there’s not too many songs about black holes.” 

Bricca is scheduled for a Yale Symphony Orchestra, YSO, Composition Reading next semester.

The post Music major composes orchestra symphony on black holes appeared first on Yale Daily News.