Science at Brandeis

RHEOLOGY: The Concert

Writer/director Misha Chowdhury and his mother, Bulbul Chakraborty, the Enid and Nate Ancell Professor of Physics and Division Head, Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, have collaborated on a concert featuring Bangla music and the science of sand. The performance memoir titled “RHEOLOGY: In Concert” is part of the Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City India Week series.

“RHEOLOGY: In Concert” will be presented on July 14 at 5:00 PM at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

Rheology is the study of the flow of matter and a focus of Chakraborty’s research. “RHEOLOGY: In Concert” combines this science with another of Chakraborty’s loves – the songs of Bengali composer Rabindranath Tagore. This concert production blends reimagined Tagore compositions with the science of rheology.

Haber receives Yeast Genetic Meeting Lifetime Achievement Award

James Haber, the Abraham and Etta Goodman Professor of Biology and Director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Yeast Genetics Group during the Allied Genetics Conference’s annual meeting. The conference was held in Washington, DC from March 6 to 10, 2024.

The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), brings together scientists from multiple international biological research communities to share cutting-edge science, foster new collaborations, and strengthen existing relationships. The Yeast Community was one of eight communities that participated in the conference.

Haber was honored for his “lifetime contributions in the field of yeast genetics and outstanding community service”. Professor Haber was introduced by Gonen Memisoglu, one of his former graduate students.

Listen to James Haber’s YGM lecture

Chakraborty selected as APS Outstanding Referee

Bulbul Chakraborty, the Enid and Nate Ancell Professor of Physics and Division Head, Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences has been selected as an 2024 Outstanding Referee by the American Physical Society.

The Outstanding Referee program was instituted in 2008 to recognize scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals. By means of the program, APS expresses its appreciation to all referees, whose efforts in peer review not only keep the standards of the journals at a high level, but in many cases also help authors to improve the quality and readability of their articles – even those that are not published by APS. The Outstanding Referee program annually recognizes about 150 of the roughly 91,600 currently active referees. This is a lifetime award.

Alums’ publication featured in physics journal

Steven Tarr earned a BS in Physics from Brandeis in 2019. Steven is currently a fifth-year graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Physics. He recently published an article in Physical Review Letters -one of the country’s most prestigious physics journals. His publication was featured both on the cover of the journal and as an Editors’ Suggestion. His article, Probing Hydrodynamic Fluctuation-Induced Forces with an Oscillating Robot, explores dynamics of an oscillating, free-floating robot that generates radially expanding gravity-capillary waves at a fluid surface.

Sprout pre-application deadline is 3/29

The Sprout Program is back!

Funded by the Provost’s Office and the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), Sprout is designed to encourage and support translational research activity within the Brandeis community for faculty, postdocs, and student researchers (graduate and undergraduate) in the Division of Science. The awards (up to $25,000) are intended to help advance early-stage technologies to industry adoption.

Pre-applications are due by March 29. Successful pre-applicants will be invited to submit a final application, followed by a final pitch to a panel of industry judges.

Carolyn Abbott receives CAREER award

Carolyn Abbott, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, has received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the NSF’s most prestigious awards to early-career faculty “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

Professor Abbott said, “This grant will support my research by providing travel support that will allow members of my group to travel to conferences to present our research, as well as to bring my collaborators to Brandeis so we can have dedicated time to make progress on our research projects. Moreover, the support for the associated educational components will help build the mathematical community at Brandeis, in the greater Boston-area, and nationwide.”

Professor Abbott has been an assistant professor at Brandeis since 2021, with research specializing in geometric group theory and hyperbolic geometry. The following is a more detailed research description as provided by the professor:

“The collection of symmetries of an object form an algebraic object called a group. For example, the reflections and rotations of a square form a group of size eight. Groups act on spaces: a 90 degree rotation acts on the square by turning it counterclockwise. Studying groups through the spaces on which they act leads to many questions. One could ask, for example, how many different groups act on a square? What do such groups have in common? Geometric group theory aims to answer such questions by translating the geometric properties of spaces on which a group acts into algebraic properties of the group. This project generalizes these techniques to larger classes of groups, many of which act on spaces that have a particular geometric structure, called hyperbolicity. The project supports and encourages student involvement and diversity in mathematics through support for a department and an area-wide seminar, the establishment of a research lab for undergraduates at Brandeis University, and a research workshop for early career women working in the area of groups, geometry, and dynamics.”

Eisenbud Lectures to feature Jonathan Heckman

The speaker for the 2024 Eisenbud Lectures in Mathematics and Physics will feature Jonathan Heckman of the University of Pennsylvania. The lectures will take place at Brandeis University from April 9^th – April 10^th.

The Eisenbud Lectures are offered each year and are the result of a generous donation from Leonard and Ruth-Jean Eisenbud. Each year, a set of lectures are presented by an eminent physicist or mathematician who works close to the interface of the Math and Physics.

Professor Heckman’s work involves a blend of techniques from physics and math centered on string theory and quantum field theory, which he uses to address questions in particle physics, cosmology, and quantum gravity, as well as topics in algebraic geometry, algebraic topology and information theory.

Here is the lecture schedule:

● Tuesday April 9, 11:30 am “Geometric Approach to Quantum Fields” (Gerstenzang 123). Light lunch follows the talk.

● Tuesday, April 9, 4pm “Top Down Approach to Global Categorical Symmetries” (Abelson 333). Refreshments follow the talk.

● Wednesday, April 10, 4pm “Topological Approach to Symmetries in Quantum Gravity” (Abelson 333). Refreshments follow the talk.

Meet the 2023-24 DEIS Scholars

2023-2024 Division of Science DEIS Scholars

GSAS recently published an article profiling the 2023-2024 DEIS Scholarship students. The profiles include a first-year PhD student from Biochemistry and Biophysics, a PhD student from Psychology and two Biotechnology master’s students. There is also a profile of a PhD English student and a PhD History student included in this article.

The DEIS Scholarship provides a full-tuition scholarship, a stipend and additional assistance to U.S. citizens and permanent residents from historically underrepresented backgrounds and first-generation college students. Students who have a history of activism in support of these communities are eligible as well. The scholarship is partially funded by the A. Philip Randolph Fellowship.

3MT Info Session to be held Jan. 24

The 3rd annual Brandeis 3MT (Three Minute Thesis) competition is fast approaching!

The 3MT is a spoken word competition designed to showcase graduate student research in three minutes using only one slide with the idea of appealing to a general audience. This competition is open to all graduate students who are working on a thesis/dissertation for the sciences, social sciences, and humanities/arts. Winners can win up to $1000! Learn more about the Brandeis 3MT competition.

The Preliminary 3MT competition will occur on Wednesday, March 27. The Finals are scheduled for Friday, April 5 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM. There is also a remote competition for Brandeis graduate students who live outside of Massachusetts on Tuesday, April 2.

You can learn more details about the competition during a virtual information session. Details about the info session are available here:

3MT Information Session
Wednesday, Jan 24, 2024, 12 -1 pm
Register to get Zoom link

In the past, Brandeis has had a very strong showing at the 3MT competitions. Liz Mahon, a PhD student in Psychology, received the top prize at the 2023 3MT Competition at Brandeis with her presentation “Armed Against Alzheimer’s: How Your Voice Could Save Your Mind”. She also won first place at the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools (NAGS) Regional 3MT Competition and went on to compete nationally at the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) 3MT Competition in Washington DC.

Updates to Microscopy Core Facilities

Electron Microscopy Core Facility update

The Brandeis Louise Mashal Gabbay Cellular Visualization electron microscopy core facility was awarded an NSF major research instrumentation grant for $1.77M for the purchase of a new Tundra Cryo-TEM. The Tundra is Thermo Fisher’s newest cryo TEM, dedicated to making high quality and high-resolution structural TEM accessible to novice users, as well as allowing for high throughput screening of cryo samples. It will be equipped with Thermo Fisher’s newest direct detector (the Falcon C), pushing its resolution capabilities and throughput even higher. We anticipate the instruments arrival in late spring/early summer of 2024.

Light Microscopy Core Facility Installs New Microscope

The newly renovated 3600 square foot Light Microscopy Core Facility in Bassine Science Building has just welcomed a “super-resolution” STED (stimulated emission depletion) microscope, funded by a $1.2M NIH shared equipment grant. This microscope uses a donut (or a “bagel” as we call it at Brandeis) shaped beam to visualize structures as small as 50 nanometers. (Brandeis Hoot)