Our Story

Our graduates have been accepted at top ranked PhD programs, have worked in many local industries including Hewlett Packard (now Keysight) and Optical Coatings Laboratory Inc., (now JDS Unified) and have become Physics teachers in many of our local high schools. They are CEOs of local companies, run local medical clinics and have started their own businesses. Our majors have won national research awards and our Society of Physics Students Club has also been nationally recognized.  Physics is a fundamental discipline that is at the core of the University experience: both the SSU Computer Science and Engineering departments had their origins in our Department.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy has presented the "What Physicists Do" series each semester since it was founded by Prof. Joseph Tenn in Spring 1971. Since that time, over 1000 WPD speakers have included fifteen Nobel Prize recipients, three Crafoord Prize recipients, ten recipients of the National Medal of Science, nine MacArthur Fellows, eight Bruce Medalists, and a great many other outstanding scientists, professors, and engineers. If the cuts are successful, this series will not be offered after Spring 2025, the 109th series.

SSU's Small Satellite program (aka "CubeSats") began in 2013 with the launch of T-LogoQube. Built by physics students Kevin Zack, Hunter Mills and Ben Cunningham, with J. Garrett Jernigan as technical mentor, this satellite was 5 cm x 15 cm, and flew a magnetometer. It successfully operated for about 2 months after launch. EdgeCube, SSU's second CubeSat, was built by a team of over 30 SSU physics, engineering and computer science students. It was launched by NASA to the International Space Station in 2020. SSU physics and engineering students built a ground station on the roof of the Student Center in 2015.

The Keck Microanalysis Laboratory was funded through a grant to Physics Professor Saeid Rahimi. Since its inception in the early 2000s, the Keck Lab has been run by Prof. Hongtao Shi, who does research in nanomaterials. This facility has opened new worlds of research on the molecular and atomic level for SSU students, faculty, area junior colleges, high schools, and the local high-tech community. Many physics majors who have been trained to use the Scanning Electron Microscope, Atomic Force Microscope, X-ray Diffractometer and other materials analysis equipment have found jobs with local companies such as Keysight, Deposition Sciences, Sonoma Photonics, and VIAVI Solutions (formerly Optical Coating Laboratory, Inc., which became part of JDSU in 2000).

Professor Lynn Cominsky founded EdEon STEM Learning (then known as the NASA Education and Public Outreach group) in 1999. Since that time, EdEon has employed nearly 100 SSU students, most of whom have been physics majors. Cominsky has brought in over $43 million in grants to SSU for research inspired by physics majors. A recent example: NASA's Neurodiversity Network ($5.5 million) was inspired by a physics major on the autism spectrum who is now in a PhD program in Material Physics at UC Irvine, supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Several times during the academic year, SSU faculty and physics students welcome the public to the SSU Observatory, located at the southeast corner of campus. SSUO was entirely rebuilt in 2017, and currently includes multiple telescopes. The facility has also hosted public groups including Girl Scouts of Northern California, who earned badges in Space Science. SSUO has been used for many senior capstone projects, and supports the upper division courses in observational astronomy that have attracted many new students to the BS-Astrophysics major program. This is one of four Physics Department degree programs that is slated for elimination. 

Within Darwin Hall, the SSU Physics & Astronomy Department supports student research in Prof. Severson's Optics Lab as well as the CubeSat Lab, Prof. Targett's Advanced Astronomy Imaging Lab and Prof. Miller's Theoretical Physics Lab. Prof. Hongtao Shi is the Director of the Keck Microanalysis Lab, located in Salazar Hall.

A Department of Physics & Astronomy grant to Profs. Jeremy Qualls and Lynn Cominsky is responsible for SSU’s Makerspace and the development of the popular Science 220 course: Learning by Making. This course is currently taught by adjunct faculty in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. The 2015 NSF grant brought over $200,000 of equipment to the Schulz Library, which hosts the 2000 square foot MakerSpace. Other  grants have since expanded the facility, including a Virtual Reality grant to Adjunct Physics and Engineering Prof. Sarah Kassis.