Interdisciplinary Areas

Students may also work in interdisciplinary areas. This emphasis selection provides excellent preparation for interdisciplinary doctoral studies. Entering students choosing this emphasis are not necessarily expected to have completed all the courses that an undergraduate physics major takes, but they should have a good grounding in classical physics or be willing to make up deficiencies. Interdisciplinary areas include:

• computational physics (scientific computing)
• biophysics
• chemical physics
• physical oceanography
• engineering physics.

Research Program

The department currently has strong research programs in theoretical and computational aspects of acoustics, geophysics, electromagnetics, continuum mechanics, and astrophysics. Excellent experimental research activities are being conducted in condensed matter and materials physics, magnetism, spintronics, surface physics, and observational astronomy.