MIT Department of Physics

MIT Department of Physics The official page for the MIT Department of Physics. We have been ranked the number one physics department since 2002 by US News & World Report.

The MIT Physics Department is one of the best places in the world for research and education in physics. In recent years we have produced the largest numbers of undergraduate and doctoral degrees in physics of any university in the US. Our successes are widely admired and emulated. The Department has about 75 faculty, 280 undergraduate majors, and 245 graduate students. Our research is organized i

nto four primary research areas, pushing back the frontiers of human understanding of space and time and of matter and energy in all its forms, from the subatomic to the cosmological and from the elementary to the complex. We have had four Nobel Prize winners since 1990. Four of our alumni have won Nobel Prizes since 1998, which reflects the outstanding quality of students we attract and the superb education they receive. The Department has been the source of innovation in physics education for decades. Seven members of our Department have won the Oersted Medal, the most prestigious award of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Our most recent educational initiatives are the Technology Enabled Active Learningapproach to freshman physics, and an alternative flexible SB degree that has helped to more than double the number of physics majors since a decade ago.

Meet Rohan Naidu: The Hyderabad-Born Astronomer Behind Black Hole Star's Discovery - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25267
08/24/2026

Meet Rohan Naidu: The Hyderabad-Born Astronomer Behind Black Hole Star's Discovery - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25267

Loves test cricket, solving trivia, and the tantalizing riddle of the origin of the universe. The lad dropped out of engineering to pursue his higher calling in astrophysics.

This high-speed star is whipping around the black hole in the middle of our galaxy - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25260
08/22/2026

This high-speed star is whipping around the black hole in the middle of our galaxy - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25260

Researchers have identified a speed demon at the heart of the Milky Way. This fast-moving star may yield insights into the black hole parked at the center of our galaxy.

Ginger Schmidt Is Shining a Light on Heart Disease - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25250
08/22/2026

Ginger Schmidt Is Shining a Light on Heart Disease - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25250

Ginger Schmidt spent much of the summer after her first year at Harvey Mudd College immersed in the smallest details of a new robotic surgical system, including its motor design, packaging, assembly, and sensor integration. But the big moment that helped point her toward a medical engineering career...

After MIT, the Marines: A Polymath Reports for Duty - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25240
08/22/2026

After MIT, the Marines: A Polymath Reports for Duty - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25240

Four months after graduating from MIT with a dual major in physics and economics, Braedon Rudolph ’26 will report to Quantico, Virginia, to begin four more intense years, this time as an officer in the Marines. “They have the hardest training,” he says, noting that he was drawn to the Corps’...

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25214
08/19/2026

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25214

From the 1800s to the early 2000s, physicists used the same theory to understand the behavior of fluids. Now, using a modern insight, they have redefined fluids from the bottom up.

MIT selected to lead new NSF materials research center - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25150
08/13/2026

MIT selected to lead new NSF materials research center - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25150

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected MIT to establish and lead a new Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) focused on materials technologies for medical imaging, sustainable metals production, and next-generation semiconductors, according to an NSF announcement rel...

Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star “Our picture of this object is evolving...
08/13/2026

Astronomers discover a brand-new type of astrophysical object: A black hole star

“Our picture of this object is evolving very rapidly,” says lead author Rohan Naidu, a NASA Hubble Fellow and Pappalardo Fellow at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI). “We think there is a central black hole that is 100,000 times as massive as the sun. And around this black hole, there would be this very extended envelope of gas that looks like a star the size of the solar system. It’s huge.” MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research

https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25148

This space matter has been 'missing' for decades — MIT researchers just found it - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25142
08/11/2026

This space matter has been 'missing' for decades — MIT researchers just found it - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25142

Space isn't as empty as we thought. Scientists at MIT find mysterious "missing" space matter.

On the hunt for dark matter -- From Broadway to MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science, PhD student Jessica Fry doesn’t do...
08/11/2026

On the hunt for dark matter -- From Broadway to MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science, PhD student Jessica Fry doesn’t do anything halfway. Now she’s hunting for the universe’s most elusive particle. https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25134

Physicists watch a material’s electrons assemble, and reassemble, into coexisting phases -- The study could help scienti...
08/10/2026

Physicists watch a material’s electrons assemble, and reassemble, into coexisting phases -- The study could help scientists understand how superconductivity and other more complex phenomena emerge in quantum materials. https://physics.mit.edu/?p=25077

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