Applied Physics Program

• Applied physics provides excellent preparation for and is a traditional pathway to graduate programs in physics-related areas including the applied physics areas of condensed matter, plasma, and optical physics, and biophysics, as well as areas such as high energy physics and astrophysics.
• Applied physics is a great vehicle for entry into many types of graduate-level programs in engineering fields, with a background as compelling for these graduate programs as are bachelors degrees in engineering.
• Applied physics provides superb preparation for a wide range of positions in university, government, and industrial organizations, in part because the applied physics curriculum is highly customizable with elective chains possible in diverse applications of the student’s choice.
• Applied physics is perhaps the best preparation for careers in general technology areas, and is ideally suited for up-and-coming areas, such as energy and nanotechnology.
• Applied physics is very well suited for any career requiring strong experimental and/or theoretical and/or calculation skills.
• Applied physics is a strategic major for pre-med, pre-dental, pre-teaching, and other pre-professional students, in part because it provides a strong background in core areas, combined with great flexibility in the choice in electives.
• Applied physics is an ideal background for careers in patent law.
• Applied physics offers a seamless way to enter masters programs and then start careers in the highly-recruited area of medical physics.
• Applied physics is excellent preparation for careers at the interfaces of biology, medicine, and physics.
• Applied physics provides a very desirable pathway to careers in finance.

• Center for Career Education (CCE)
• APS: Careers
• Physics Today: Jobs

Allen H. Boozer: Plasma theory, theory of magnetic confinement for fusion energy, nonlinear dynamics

Gerald A. Navratil: Plasma physics, plasma diagnostics, fusion energy science

Elizabeth Paul: Plasma physics; theory of the magnetic confinement of plasmas; fusion energy science; PDE-constrained optimization; shape optimization

Carlos Paz-Soldan: Plasma physics, magnetically confined plasmas, plasma stability and control, fusion energy technologies

Ben Zhu: Plasma physics; numerical modeling of magnetized plasma; turbulence and transport processes; fusion exhaust and control strategies; ML/AI applications in fusion energy science.

William Bailey: nanoscale magnetic films and heterostructures, materials issues in spin-polarized transport, materials engineering of magnetic dynamics

Aravind Devarakonda: quantum materials synthesis, nanodevice fabrication, low-temperature physics; superconductivity, strongly-correlated matter, topologically ordered phases

Alexander L. Gaeta: Ultrafast nonlinear optics, nanophotonics, nonlinear propagation in fibers and bulk media, photonic crystal fibers, coherent interactions of laser light with matter, the generation of non-classical light fields, stimulated scattering processes

Chris A. Marianetti: Predicting materials properties from first-principles computations; materials with energy related applications; density-functional theory; dynamical mean-field theory; transition-metal oxides; actinides, energy storage and conversion materials

Latha Venkataraman: Single molecule electronics and mechanics, scanning tunneling microscopy & spectroscopy, x-ray photoemission spectroscopy

Nanfang Yu: Mid-infrared and far-infrared optics and optoelectronic devices, active plasmonics and metamaterials with gain media, reconfigurable metainterfaces based on phased optical antenna arrays, biophotonics, and biologically inspired flat optics

Xueyue (Sherry) Zhang: Quantum devices and their applications, superconducting qubits, solid state spins, quantum light-matter interaction, metamaterials, quantum many-body dynamics, topological photonics, quantum information, quantum networking