Welcome to Physics & Astronomy
The Physics & Astronomy Department, situated at the heart of North America’s Quantum Valley, Canada’s technology hub, is located an hour south-west of Toronto. Waterloo is like no other place in the world to study physics. Come to Waterloo to study quantum information, holographic landscapes, and supermassive black holes. Create exotic materials, study laser optics, and build bio-sensors. The Physics & Astronomy department is your link to the Institute of Quantum Computing and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Join our community. Study with some the best physicists in the world.
Be inspired. Inspire us.
Come to Waterloo!
Brian McNamara, Chair
The Physics & Astronomy department encourages an inclusive, tolerant, respectful, and diverse, intellectual environment
News
- June 8, 2018The role of frequency-shifting in quantum scalability
Physicists at IQC have developed new methods for preventing leakage errors due to cavity modes, an important obstacle in building a scalable quantum computer.
- June 4, 2018Top graduate student awards announced
Every year, top graduate students from the Faculty of Science are nominated for the W.B. Pearson Medal, which is given to a Doctoral student from each department in recognition of their creative research, and the Dean of Science Award, which is given to a master’s student from each department in recognition of outstanding performance.
The Dean of Science Award in Physics & Astronomy has been won by Allison Sachs, for her exceptional work on "Entanglement Harvesting and Divergences in Unruh-DeWitt Detector Pairs", supervised by Robb Mann and Eduardo Martin-Martinez.
- May 11, 2018Canada Research Chair positions renewed for two Waterloo Physics & Astronomy faculty
Two Physics & Astronomy researchers have been reappointed as Canadian Research Chairs (CRC). Kevin Resch and Roger Melko were recognized for their continued achievement with research funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) over the next five years.
Events
- June 21, 2018On the Robustness of Holographic Dualities: AdS Black Holes and Quotient Spaces
Ph.D. Thesis Presentation
Candidate: Cedric Sinamuli Musema
- June 21, 2018The quantum and the gravity: Newtonian and Cosmological Applications
Ph.D. Thesis Presentation
Candidate: Natacha Altamirano
- July 4, 2018Gustav Bakos Observatory Tour
Come visit the observatory during the July public tour!
- Presentation at 9:00 PM in PHY 313 (note the special room)
- Telescope viewing at 9:30 PM (access from 3rd floor of PHY)
The Observatory is open for public tours, usu
Meet our people
Robert Hill
On sabbatical until August 31, 2018
Dr. Hill's research is focused on the experimental study of materials whose exotic properties are dominated by the collective quantum mechanical nature of their electrons and defy explanation using current theoretical paradigms.
