Director's Welcome

The mission of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST) is to foster excellence in interdisciplinary research and education at the University of Maryland. IPST accomplishes this by Integrating People, Science and Technology.

Our selective and highly ranked graduate programs in the fields of Applied Mathematics, Applied Statistics, Chemical Physics, Maryland Biophysics, and Scientific Computation provide specialized training at the intersection of traditional fields, and are a central component of our mission.

News and Special Events

Sixth Annual Burgers Symposium
The Sixth Annual Symposium of the Burgers Program for Fluid Dynamics will be held on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 from 1:00 pm to 5:30 p.m. in the Kay Boardroom of the Kim Engineering Building. The scheduled Burgers Lecture will be given by Kees Vuik, Director, Delft Centre for Computational Science and Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Additional speakers are: Ralf Deiterding, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Eugenia Kalnay, Institute for Physical Science and Technology and Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland; and Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University. A poster session will be held for graduate students and post-docs.

Fifteenth Annual Shih-I Pai Lecture
The Shih-I Pai Lecture will celebrate its fifteenth year by featuring Dr. Simon A. Levin, Moffett Professor of Biology at Princeton University. The lecture will be on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. in the Physics Lecture Hall, Room 1410, located in the Physics Building. A reception will be held in the Math Rotunda prior to the lecture. Two talks by Michelle Girvan and R. Laxminarayan are scheduled for the IPST Conference Room at 11 a.m.

Devarajan Thirumalai receives Humboldt Research Award

Oct. 8, 2009. Devarajan Thirumalai has been elected the recipient of the Humboldt Research Award after having been nominated for this award by the German scientist Prof. Dr. Matthias Rief, Technische Universität München, Garching. This award is conferred in recognition of lifetime achievements in research. In addition, the awardee is invited to carry out research projects of his own choice in cooperation with specialist colleagues in Germany. We hope that thereby the international scientific cooperation will be further promoted.

Dio Margetis receives NSF Career Award

Dio Margetis of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology and the Department of Mathematics has been awarded an NSF Career Award for the project Thermodynamic and kinetic approaches for expitaxial material systems. These five year awards are among the most prestigious that a junior faculty member can receive in the nation. Dr. Margetis was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor earlier this year.

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Upcoming Seminars

CSCAMM Weekly Seminar Series
Wed, Nov 11, 2009
2:00 pm
4122 CSIC Bldg.
A Stochastic Dynamical Systems View of the Atlantic
Professor Henk Dijkstra
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Utrecht University

Physical Chemistry/Chemical Physics Seminar
Wed, Nov 11, 2009
11:00 am
Room 0112, Marker Seminar Room, Chemistry Bldg
Dynamics of the Growth of Amyloid Fibrils
Govardhan Reddy
University of Maryland

Applied Dynamics Seminar
Wed, Nov 11, 2009
12:15 pm
1207 Energy Research Bldg
Line-Defect Patterns of Unstable Spiral Waves in Cardiac Tissue
Juan Restrepo
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Colorado

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