The Department of Physics has been an integral part of UT Dallas, as one of the original departments, since 1961.

The department grew from the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, a research institute started by Texas Instruments scientists and engineers. Close ties to TI continue to this day as evidenced by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Laboratory, a 192,000-square-foot research facility designed in cooperation with TI.

With research roots firmly established, the physics department offers degree plans at the undergraduate and graduate levels in areas of study relevant to the challenges scientists face. We enroll approximately 170 physics majors.

The Master of Science in Applied Physics Program aims to broaden your horizons, increase your earning power and enhance your career opportunities, making physics a more relevant contributor to the high technology business sector.

Our faculty includes a Nobel Prize-winning professor and endowed chairs. They provide students with a quality education, directing internationally recognized programs in an intimate setting that allows ample student-faculty interaction.

Among the department's three research centers is the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, which continues to work on many National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) projects. Our scientists collaborated on the exciting Mars Lander Project. Their mass spectrometer is analyzing the Martian soil.

In the field of high energy physics, our faculty and researchers pursue particle discoveries and search for new physics using the Babar Detector and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which sits beneath the surface of the earth along the Franco-Swiss border outside Geneva.

So go ahead and probe robust career areas such as nanotechnology; materials science; space sciences; cosmology, relativity and astrophysics; experimental particle physics; and sun and climate studies. These fields spur our best and brightest to make the next breakthrough discoveries.

Key to your physics education is an interdisciplinary approach that underscores our view that "physics is the liberal arts education of the technological world." We enjoy close and enthusiastic collaborations with the departments of electrical engineering, chemistry, geosciences, biology, computer science, and the School of Management.

A Conversation With Dr. Roderick Heelis

Dr. Roderick Heelis' work may help scientists one day predict when ionospheric disturbances threaten communications systems. read more

Prof Calls Space an Increasingly Crowded Place

The collision of two satellites above Siberia prompted concerns of a future cascade of crashes, and one space scientist says the vastness of space is getting cozier by the day. read more

Undergrads Build and Set Course for Space Satellite

Undergraduate physics students are engaged in a sort of space race to design and build an actual satellite that will study how the Earth’s ionosphere swells during the day and contracts at night. read more

Physics Professor Diandra Leslie-Pelecky Looks For Better Way to Kill Cancer Cells

NIH Award Helps Fund Study of Treatments Using Magnetic Nanoparticles.
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