The William & Mary Physics Department has 25 instructional faculty members and 15+ physicists in research positions and strives for research excellence in: Nuclear and Hadronic Physics; High Energy Physics; Atomic, Molecular, & Optical Physics; Condensed Matter Physics; and Plasma Physics. The department maintains a vibrant theoretical and experimental program and benefits from strong relationships with Jefferson Lab, one of the nation’s leading Department of Energy-funded laboratories, and with Fermilab, the nation’s leading high-energy accelerator laboratory. This exhibit highlights the dynamic and multi-faceted research and scholarship of the Physics faculty.

The department equally values quality research and teaching excellence (including classroom instruction and effective student mentorship). The undergraduate program offers a major and minor and graduates about 30 majors per year (tracks include standard physics, pre-med, or engineering physics and applied design and all majors complete a research project). The graduate program offers 50+ students research opportunities to pursue a Ph.D. degree. The department seeks to establish and nurture dynamic collaboration amongst faculty, postdoctoral fellows, doctoral students, and undergraduate research students.

Discover Physics faculty research on W&M Scholarworks, William & Mary Libraries’ suite of services which promotes W&M scholarship on all search engines in the spirit of open access so that the campus community can gain more visibility for its scholarly work. Scholarship produced by the W&M community in open access spaces such as ScholarWorks receives nearly twice as many citations as publications behind paywalls do.

Library liaison to the Physics Department: Camille Andrews, Instruction & Research Librarian
Exhibit preparation: Natalie Rue, Metadata Specialist; and Jennie Davy, Exhibits and Artifacts Curator
Exhibit design: Alex Wheeler '23, SCRC Graphics Student Assistant
Exhibit installation: Jennie Davy and Veronica Parker, Collections Specialist