Three SBU Physics Students Honored with SUNY GREAT Award
Three students in the SBU Physics & Astronomy Department were among the 38 recipients of the 2025 SUNY Graduate Research Empowering and Accelerating Talent (GREAT) Award: Ivy Huang, Nicole Khusid, and Benjamin Levine! They join the 2024 SUNY GREAT winner from our department, Melissa Rasmussen, in receiving this recognition.
Nicole Khusid: Gravitational Waves
Melissa Rasmussen (2024): Type Ia Supernovae
Benjamin Levine: Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Ivy Huang: Ultrafast Molecular Dynamics
More information about the award and its recipients can be found here (2025) and here (2024).
In Memoriam: Mike Simon
We are saddened to share the news that Mike Simon, who was a faculty member in the astronomy group, has recently passed away.
We were informed that there will not be a memorial service.
You can find a note that his wife Anne wrote about Mike here.
Welcome New Staff Member Adam Jenkins
Adam Jenkins, Ph.D. : A Laser Scientist working in the AMO Physics Research Laboratories
Adam earned a B.S. in Chemistry (2016) at University of California, Davis and studied the photodissociation and charge transfer dynamics of small gaseous diatomic molecules using vacuum ultraviolet methods. He then continued at UC Davis as a Physial Chemistry graduate student and studied the photoinduced dynamics of synthetic and biological photoswitches. After earning his Ph.D. in 2021, he moved to The Ohio State University where he completed two postdoctoral appointments. First, he utilized a wide array of spectroscopic and theoretical methodologies to study metalloproteins. Later, he joined the NSF National eXtreme Ultrafast Science (NeXUS) Facility leading the design, building, and validation of the solid and solution phase X-ray absorbance capabilities of the facility.