School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-20 of 29 Results
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Bruce Macintosh
Professor of Physics
BioBruce Macintosh's research focusses on the study of extrasolar planets, in particular the study of such planets through direct imaging, and on using adaptive optics to shape the wavefronts of light for a variety of applications. Direct imaging of extrasolar planets involves blocking, suppressing, and subtracting the light of the bright parent star so that a planet hundreds of thousands of times fainter can be seen and studied in detail. Prof. Macintosh is the Principal Investigator of the Gemini Planet Imager http://planetimager.org/ ,an advanced adaptive optics planet-finder for the Gemini South telescope,. He also leads a Science Investigation Team for the coronagraph instrument on the WFIRST mission, focused on imaging and spectroscopy of extrasolar planets. He serves as Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology https://kipac.stanford.edu/
Professor Macintosh believes strongly in making astronomy and physics more inclusive, diverse and supportive. He currently chairs the Physics Department's Equity and Inclusion Committee https://physics.stanford.edu/about/equity-and-inclusion/committee and is active in science policy including the recently-completed Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 Decadal Survey.
Professor Macintosh has taken the position of Director of University of California Observatories at UC Santa Cruz and is currently on a 0% appointment at Stanford. -
Raghu Mahajan
Physical Science Research Associate
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research interests are wide-ranging:
1) In the context of gravity, how does spacetime emerge from its dual quantum system? How does the dual quantum system encode the answers to questions that involve local physics in semi-classical gravity? How do you avoid the "firewall" paradox in the context of black-hole evaporation?
2) How do you calculate electrical and heat currents in strongly-coupled many-body systems? How do you explain the linear-in-temperature resistivity in high-temperature cuprates?
3) Use tensor network methods to study electrical and heat transport and also the real-time dynamics of systems out of thermal equilibrium. -
Thomas Markland
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur research centers on problems at the interface of quantum and statistical mechanics. Particular themes that occur frequently in our research are hydrogen bonding, the interplay between structure and dynamics, systems with multiple time and length-scales and quantum mechanical effects. The applications of our methods are diverse, ranging from chemistry to biology to geology and materials science. Particular current interests include proton and electron transfer in fuel cells and enzymatic systems, atmospheric isotope separation and the control of catalytic chemical reactivity using electric fields.
Treatment of these problems requires a range of analytic techniques as well as molecular mechanics and ab initio simulations. We are particularly interested in developing and applying methods based on the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics to include quantum fluctuations such as zero-point energy and tunneling in the dynamics of liquids and glasses. This formalism, in which a quantum mechanical particle is mapped onto a classical "ring polymer," provides an accurate and physically insightful way to calculate reaction rates, diffusion coefficients and spectra in systems containing light atoms. Our work has already provided intriguing insights in systems ranging from diffusion controlled reactions in liquids to the quantum liquid-glass transition as well as introducing methods to perform path integral calculations at near classical computational cost, expanding our ability to treat large-scale condensed phase systems. -
Todd Martinez
David Mulvane Ehrsam and Edward Curtis Franklin Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Photon Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAb initio molecular dynamics, photochemistry, molecular design, mechanochemistry, graphical processing unit acceleration of electronic structure and molecular dynamics, automated reaction discovery, ultrafast (femtosecond and attosecond) chemical phenomena
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Susan K. McConnell
Susan B. Ford Professor
On Leave from 04/01/2023 To 06/30/2023Current Research and Scholarly InterestsSusan McConnell has studied the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the development of the mammalian cerebral cortex. Her work focused on the earliest events that pattern the developing forebrain, enable neural progenitors to divide asymmetrically to generate young neurons, propel the migration of postmitotic neurons outward into their final positions, and sculpt the fates and phenotypes of the neurons as they differentiate.
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Fiorenza Micheli
David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science, Professor of Oceans, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr Fiorenza Micheli is a marine ecologist and conservation biologist conducting research and teaching at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. Micheli’s research focuses on the processes shaping marine communities and incorporating this understanding in the management and conservation of marine ecosystems. She is a Pew Fellow, a fellow of the California Academy of Science and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, and past president of the Western Society of Naturalists.