About
The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosts a colloquium every Wednesday afternoon in 227 Gallalee Hall during the fall and spring semesters (excluding holidays and exam week). Speakers include UA faculty and graduate students as well as researchers from other universities, research institutes, and government agencies. The subject matter ranges from information about the University and department to topics of recent interest in physics and astronomy. Talks are typically 45–50 minutes in length followed by ~10 minutes of questions.
Attendance is free and open to the public. Physics and astronomy graduate students are required to attend colloquia regularly, as determined by their advisors; more information about this requirement may be found in the department’s Graduate Handbook.
Visitor information, including directions and parking details, can be found on our Directions and Parking page.
Schedule
Unless otherwise noted, colloquia are held from 3:45pm to 4:45pm in 227 Gallalee Hall, with refreshments, including tea, coffee, and cookies, served at 3:30pm in 223 Gallalee Hall.
Fall 2026
| Date | Title/Abstract | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 08/26 | Graduate Program Information | Dean Townsley |
| 09/02 | Search for light dark matter with the LDMX experiment | Tamas Vami (UCSB) |
| 09/09 | No colloquium | |
| 09/16 | Seeing the Invisible with Atomic Defects: Quantum Sensing using spin defects in Layered Crystals | Naveed Hussain (Toyota) |
| 09/23 | Learning the Invisible: Discovering Hidden Dynamics through Latent Lie-Poisson Neural Networks | Vakhtang Putkaradze (Math) |
| 09/30 | Search for Dark Matter Interactions in an Extended Recoil Energy Window with the LUX-ZEPLIN Experiment | Ryan Wang |
| 10/07 | TBA | Dinesh Loomba (Univ. of New Mexico) |
| 10/14 | Dissertation Topic Tour | Physics & Astronomy Ph.D. candidates |
| 10/21 | TBA | Francis Spano (Temple Univ.) |
| 10/28 | ||
| 11/04 | TBA | Amy Lien (Univ. of Tampa) |
| 11/11 | TBA | Samindranath Mitra (PRL) |
| 11/18 | TBA | Shih-Chieh Hsu (Univ. of Washington) |
| 11/25 | Thanksgiving Week | |
| 12/02 | TBA | Erini Lambrides (NASA Goddard) |
| 12/09 | Final Exams | |
Spring 2027
To be announced.
Past Colloquia
- 2025–2026: schedule
- 2024–2025: schedule
- 2023–2024: schedule
- 2022–2023: schedule
- 2021–2022: schedule
- 2020–2021: schedule
- 2019–2020: schedule
- 2018–2019: schedule
- 2017–2018: schedule
- 2016–2017: schedule
- 2015–2016: schedule, abstracts
- 2014–2015: schedule, abstracts
- 2013–2014: schedule, abstracts
- 2012–2013: schedule, abstracts