Yale Wright Laboratory

08/21/2026

graduate student Theophilus Human has been awarded theYale Physics Department ’s 2025-26 Leigh Page Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching, along with fellow physics graduate student Allison Culbert. The award recognizes broad and impactful contributions to physics education at Yale, both within the department and the broader community. Human works in the Jack Harris Lab.

Learn more at: https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-13-human-awarded-leigh-page-award-for-excellence-in-graduate-student-teaching

08/20/2026

This summer, Wright Lab hosted a week-long program from July 27 to 31 for a cohort of middle school students from New Haven and surrounding towns called Summer Explorations in Robotics, Programming, Science, and Technology.

Participants learned to assemble and program robots and 3D print parts; learned about the science of the Universe; and attended physics demonstrations by Yale scientists. They also toured Wright Lab, the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation & Design (CEID), and the Yale Peabody Museum .

Learn more about the program and see more photos at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-14-middle-school-students-explore-robotics-programming-and-science-at-yale-wright

Yale Physics Department

08/19/2026

Congressional staff from the offices of Senator Richard Blumenthal , Senator Chris Murphy, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro visited and the Advanced Instrumentation Development Center as part of a tour to learn more about Yale University 's investments in science.

The group is pictured here, along with members of Wright Lab and the Yale Quantum Institute, in the recently renovated Wright Lab high bay. The new Wright Lab space will enable the development of specialized and large-scale research instrumentation and advance the frontiers of quantum science and fundamental physics.

Yale Physics Department

08/18/2026

Wright Lab graduate student Cecily Lowe is starting a physics course for women at the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution through the Yale Prison Education Initiative (YPEI) called "“The Physics of Light”. Learn more at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-11-lowe-creates-the-physics-of-light-course-for-women-in-prison

Yale Physics Department

Lowe is starting a physics course for women at the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution through the Yale Prison Education Initiative.

08/17/2026

Students in the 2026 Summer Student Research Program at presented their summer’s work to their peers, mentors, and the community at a variety of symposia.

On July 31, fifteen students in the program (including a high school student) who did their summer research at Yale Physics Department or YQI presented their work at the program’s final symposium.

Students in the program who worked in Yale Astronomy Department , the REVU program, and the SCSU Werth IAF Fellows presented at separate symposia. Additionally, Iker Salinas Diaz, a high school student from Wilbur Cross High school who joined the program via the Yale Pathways Summer Research Internship Program (YPRI), presented at a YPRI symposium on August 14.

Learn more about the program and the symposium at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-12-2026-summer-research-program-students-present-their-work-in-final-symposia

08/13/2026

The Wright Lab Relativistic Heavy Ion Group (RHIG) was well-represented at the 13th International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2026) conference in Nashville, TN from June 22-26. The conference was focused on experimental and theoretical developments on perturbative probes of hot and dense QCD matter as studied in high-energy nucleus-nucleus, proton-nucleus and proton-proton collisions.

Learn more about the contributions at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-11-relativistic-heavy-ion-group-well-represented-at-hard-probes-2026-conference

Yale Physics Department

08/12/2026

research scientist Prakhar Garg has been elected as a member of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) Users’ Executive Committee. The committee advocates for the research community, surfacing what active users need and keeping them informed on where the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory is headed. Learn more at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-03-garg-elected-to-rhic-ags-users-executive-committee

Yale Physics Department

08/11/2026

Congratulations to 's Alex Reda, who successfully defended the thesis, “Beam Calibration for the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment” (Advisor: Laura Newburgh).

Reda will next be a postdoc at Boston University, working on SPT-SLIM, a mm-wave line intensity mapping pathfinder for the South Pole Telescope (SPT).

Learn more at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-07-24-alex-reda-successfully-defends-thesis-beam-calibration-for-the-canadian-hydrogen

Yale Physics Department

08/10/2026

On August 3, opened its doors to the new Wright Lab Exploration Wing (WLE). The Exploration Wing is a new addition to Wright Lab and has been under construction since June 2024. It includes state-of-the-art research laboratories, office and interaction spaces, and technical facilities along with the new Advanced Instrumentation Development Center (AIDC). Together, WLE and AIDC will enhance the current capabilities of Wright Lab and enable frontier research and innovation well into the future.

Learn more about the Wright Lab expansion at: https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-08-04-wright-lab-expands-to-explore-the-invisible-universe

Yale Physics Department

08/04/2026

Congrats to 's David Nguyen, who successfully defended the thesis, "The Simons Observatory: Data Monitoring, Alarm System, and Half-wave Plate Study from First Light Data" (advisor: Laura Newburgh)

Nguyen will next be a postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory , leading the effort in developing machine learning algorithms for both detector data quality assurance and experiment operations. Nguyen will primarily work with South Pole Telescope (SPT) data, but will aim to generalize for all CMB experiments. Nguyen will also continue working with Simons Observatory .

Learn more at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-07-24-david-nguyen-successfully-defends-thesis-the-simons-observatory-data-monitoring