Phil is a professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences. His research focuses on the formation and evolution of planetary systems and the physics of accretion in protostellar and black hole environments. He will hold a joint position with the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute as Group Leader for Planet Formation. He earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Prior to joining Stony Brook, he was a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, he did postdoctoral work at the University of Toronto's Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, Germany.

Assistant Professor Jan C. Bernauer

Jan is a professor for experimental nuclear physics. He participated in nuclear physics experiments worldwide to investigate the structure of the proton, in particular "the proton radius puzzle", and other questions related to the structure of strongly interacting matter. He will hold a RIKEN BNL Research Center Fellowship. Jan earned a Doctorate at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz, Germany. He joins us from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he held positions as postdoctoral associate and research scientist at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

Assistant Professor Jennifer Cano

Jennifer is a professor of theoretical condensed matter physics. She studies topological phases of matter and is interested in the classification, experimental probes, material realizations of topological insulators and semi-metals, and in the bulk-boundary correspondence. She will hold a joint position with the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute. She earned a Ph.D. in physics from the UC Santa Barbara and held a postdoc position at the Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University before joining Stony Brook.

Assistant Professor Cyrus E. Dreyer

Cyrus is a professor of theoretical condensed matter physics. His research involves developing and implementing first-principles methods based on density functional theory to explore materials for electronic and optoelectronic devices. He will hold a joint position with the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from the UC Santa Barbara. Before joining Stony Brook he was a postdoctoral associate at the Theoretical Condensed Matter group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University.

Associate Professor Will M. Farr

Will is a professor of astrophysics. His research interests include gravitational-wave astronomy, compact object formation and evolution, the gravitational dynamics of planets and stars, and astrostatistics. He will hold a joint position with the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute as Group Leader for Gravitational Wave Astronomy. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Will joins Stony Brook from the University of Birmingham, where he held a position as lecturer at the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy. Prior he did postdoctoral work at Northwestern University.

The Stony Brook ATLAS group played an important role in making this observation possible: see here for more informations about why observing Higgs to b-quark decays is considered a milestone in particle physics.

In addition, over the next two years Prof. Piacquadio will take the lead at CERN of the overall ATLAS Higgs team composed of more than 500 physicists, supported in his role by the National Science Foundation.

More information can be found here:

IceCube Neutrinos Point to Long-Sought Cosmic Ray Accelerator

July 12, NSF Press Conference on Breakthrough in Multi-messenger Astrophysics

Two Science article (published July 12): here and here.

Research Prof. David received his PhD at Stony Brook in 1991, went to Columbia University, then worked at BNL until 2016 on the PHENIX experiment. His main topic is direct photon and neutral meson production in heavy ion collisions, he played crucial role in discovering jet quenching at RHIC, as well as prompt and thermal radiation and flow of photons. He is also a guest professor at Debrecen University (Hungary) since 1999 and the architect of a decades long, fruitful cooperation of Hungarian and American physicists, mostly graduate students.