Graduate Program Overview For Prospective Graduate Students

Welcome to the Physics Department!

The Physics Department at Stanford University is one of great distinction. We offer a rich tradition of innovation and wide-ranging opportunities. Jointly with Department of Applied Physics and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, we have formed a distinguished physics community which provides a very diverse and invigorating program for graduate studies. Our faculty includes five Nobel Laureates, fifteen members of the National Academy of Science and nine members of the National Academy of Engineering. The research of our Department covers a wide range of fields, including accelerator physics, experimental/observational and theoretical astrophysics, atomic, molecular and optical physics (quantum optics), experimental and theoretical condensed-matter physics (solid-state), low temperature physics, intermediate energy physics, and experimental and theoretical particle physics.

Our graduate program allows graduate students in all disciplines of physics to select a research advisor without regard for the particular advisor's affiliation. Every student is encouraged to arrange an appropriate physics research topic independent of the particular Stanford program or department in which the advisor resides. As a result, some of our graduate students have their thesis advisors in Applied Physics, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the Stanford Synchrotron Research Laboratory. There are also research opportunities in other interdisciplinary areas involving physics and in many physics-based technologies.

A unique and very popular feature of our Graduate Program is our "rotation" research assistantship. Most of our first year graduate students go through a research rotation which enables them to get acquainted with a few research groups of their choice without feeling committed. The rotation student is allowed to spend a few hours per week with a different experimental or theoretical group each quarter. The goal is for the student to gain some experience to use in selecting the area of research for the years that follow. Students who have gone through the rotation schedule have found this unique arrangement an invaluable experience in helping them identify their research interest.

Our graduate students are kept abreast of the latest research topics by our department-wide colloquia and other physics community seminar series. The Physics and Applied Physics Departments jointly hold a weekly colloquium which brings well known speakers from other laboratories and institutions to our campus. This creates an opportunity for our students to interact with distinguished visitors throughout the world. There are many additional specialized seminars in virtually all research fields of interest which keep everyone informed and up to date on the current research developments.

Our faculty have a strong commitment to excellence in both teaching and research. Every member of our faculty participates in graduate education, either in teaching graduate classes and/or in direct supervision of graduate students. They are the recipients of an impressive list of teaching and research awards. I am extremely pleased to report that another faculty, Bob Laughlin was co-recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics "for discovering that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of "particles", with charges that are fractions of electron charges. "

We are delighted in your interest in our graduate program in Physics at Stanford. I hope you enjoy learning about us through this Web site.

Stanley Wojcicki
Chair and Professor of Physics