Gold is a metal, but, surprisingly, we know little about its origins. How is gold made? How did it get on earth? Why is gold more rare than other metals on Earth? Being the stuff of legends, these seem like questions we should have answered long ago. It turns out Burlington-local Brian Metzger was recently able to bring some clarity to these long-standing questions. Metzger studied math and physics at the University of Iowa and went on to receive his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Ohannes Kamer Koseyan, a Ph.D student in Professor Yasar Onel's lab, has won an award from Universities Research Association in the amount of $10,000. 

Congratulations to Austin "Hunter" Reaves for successfully defending his Master's thesis today! Hunter will graduate with his Master's in Physics this December.

From the Daily Iowan: University of Iowa Assistant Professor Keri Hoadley received a national award to help further pursue her research on FIREBall-2. This will involve the use of a balloon telescope to find and navigate gas emissions.

Two researchers at the University of Iowa have been awarded $598,563 from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) to build constellation ready magnetometers for use on small spacecraft.

In a new study, the researchers describe theoretically how many indistinguishable photons can be sent simultaneously down a fiber-optical cable to establish secure communications, and how rapidly these quantum codes can send information.

Keri Hoadley, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa, recently won a $99,880 award from the California Institute of Technology to continue her work on the Faint Intergalactic-medium Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall-2) mission.

The Universities Research Association has awarded $2,000 to UI Visiting Assistant Professor Kenneth Heitritter as part of its Visiting Scholars Program. The award will allow him to work at Fermilab on "Toward applications of quantum computing for string fragmentation in the context of the PYTHIA event generator." Professor Yannick Meurice is the principal investigator on the project.

Congratulations to Physics & Astronomy PhD student, Cecilia Fasano, for winning a competitively-awarded fellowship from the Iowa Space Grant Consortium in the amount of $4000. The fellowship supports Fasano's work in making high performance echelle gratings for UV astronomy.

Flatté is a collaborator on the research team that received $1.8 million in new funding for three years from the DOE’s Office of Science. The funding supports researchers who are developing the next generation of quantum smart devices and computer technology.