Graduate Physics and Astronomy Program

UC Riverside Graduate Physics and Astronomy Program

Welcome to the graduate program at the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of California at Riverside. We invite you to apply to our PhD program. Please note domestic applicants (US citizens and permanent residents) with a GPA>3.5 in upper division (last two year) undergraduate physics classes, General GRE (verbal+quantitative) > 1200, and substantial research experience can request for the application fee to be paid for by the department. The GPA requirement is relaxed for top schools (3.4 for top 30 programs, and 3.3 for top 15 programs).

The Department has a very active research program with 29 faculty and 109 graduate students. We have theoretical and experimental research programs in Astrophysics, Biophysics, Condensed Matter Physics, Cosmology, Fundamental Precision Measurements, High Energy Physics, Relativistic Heavy Ion and Spin Physics, and Surface Physics. We use facilities located on the campus at UCR as well as at major national and international laboratories.

As UC Riverside has rapidly expanded, we have taken advantage of this opportunity to grow into an elite physics department while maintaining our supportive mentoring tradition. The graduate program is a top priority of the campus, allowing us to offer competitive financial support. This past year, all of our incoming graduate students were fully supported through fellowship and TA packages.

The city of Riverside (population ~300,000) is located 50 miles east of Los Angeles in Southern California. The San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains close by offer hiking and skiing. Several of the Southern California beach communities are only 50 miles to the west, and Palm Springs and the high desert (Joshua Tree National Park) are 60 miles to the east. The university campus occupies a spacious park-like, 1,200-acre site on the outskirts of Riverside, near the Box Springs Mountains. We are within 30 miles of other tourist attractions such as Disneyland.

Reasons to get a PhD at UC Riverside

Distinguished Faculty

Junior Faculty Awards
- 5 National Science Foundation Career Awards
- 1 Sloan Research Fellow
- 2 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Awards
- 3 Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator Awards
Full Professor Honors
- APS Panofsky Prize (High Energy)
- Humboldt Fellowship
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- 9 APS Fellows
- 5 AAAPS Fellows

Growing Graduate Program

Graduate enrollment has grown from 66 to 109 in the last 5 years
Exected enrollment for Fall 2010 is 116 and Fall 2011 is 125
Entering class ~24 students, 10 international, 14 domestic provides critical mass for student cohort, student breadth, national and international diversity, and full graduate curriculum

PhD. in Physics with emphasis in 7 tracks

Nuclear and Particle Physics
Condensed Matter, Surface, Optical Physics and Biophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Environmental Physics
Materials and Nanoscale Physics
Astronomy

Research Infrastructure/Activities

~$7M extramural grants/year
Support for >20 postdoctoral researchers, 3-5 Research Scientists giving students 29 faculty and 25 additional PhD's to train.
Weekly departmental colliquum and topical seminars bring outside physicists and astronomers to campus
- condensed matter
- nanoscale science and engineering
- astronomy
- high energy

Graduate Program Highlights

Outstanding multidisciponary training and research opportunities
- For Condensed Matter with UCR center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering with faculty from Chemistry and Engineering college.
- For Biophysics with UCR's Biochemistry/Molecular Biology and Bioengineering
- For Environmental Physics with joint MSc program with UCR Environmental Science
- High Energy and Relativistic Heavy Ion and Nucleon Spin physics programs highly leverated with international collaborations at LHC, RHIC, SLAC, Fermi Lab
- Astronomy program well-leveraged with UC telescopes (Keck and future TMT), Southern California astronomy infrastructure, and acces to SpARCS and COSMOS survey data

You can find more information about our department, faculty, research programs, graduate program, and application procedure at the following URL's:

We look forward to hearing any questions about our department or application procedure.

Sincerely,
Prof. Kenneth N. Barish, Chair of the Graduate Admissions Committee
Prof. U. Mohideen, Chair of the Graduate Advisors Committee

Resources:

Correspondence:

Student Affairs Office
Department of Physics
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521

Telephone: (951) 827-5332
FAX: (951) 827-4529
Email: derek.beving@ucr.edu