The Department does research in a number of exciting areas including Atomic, Astrophysics, Condensed Matter, Nuclear, and High Energy Physics. This research is carried out by 40 teaching and research faculty members along with 100+ graduate students, as well as additional research faculty and technical staff. Our research is collaborative, interdisciplinary, and highly international. Notre Dame physicists are active in collaborations around the globe, including particle physics at CERN, nuclear physics in Japan, condensed matter experiments in France and Switzerland, and telescope observing in South America. We also host many visitors from abroad that come to Notre Dame to work with our faculty and take advantage of the Department’s excellent research facilities.
Graduate students are the"life blood"of every physics department and the Department has a strong Ph.D. program that focuses on both the academic and professional development of our students. Our graduate curriculum comprises two years of coursework that provides a broad education in the major topics in physics followed by in-depth coverage of the student’s area of interest. We work closely with each student to match their research interests with the appropriate advisor, and the Department ensures that students receive mentoring from a group of faculty members throughout their graduate career. There is a great deal of flexibility in the graduate program. A number of our students work on cross-disciplinary research.
Our undergraduate physics program has seen tremendous growth over the past decade and we now typically graduate 30 or more physics majors each spring. A number of degree options are available to Notre Dame physics majors, ranging from our"Advanced Physics"concentration for those interested in a career in physics to our"Physics in Medicine"degree, a curriculum that gives students a great background for medical school and medical physics programs. Our undergraduate majors are full members of the department with many students participating in research and other departmental activities.
