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.

Into the Aurora: MIT Physics grad students, Noah Wolfe, Sasha Lukina, Leonardo Corsaro and Leon Nichols, join the 2026 G...
05/22/2026

Into the Aurora: MIT Physics grad students, Noah Wolfe, Sasha Lukina, Leonardo Corsaro and Leon Nichols, join the 2026 Geophysical Plasma Observation Expedition to study plasma physics beneath the northern lights. https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24563
Photos: Noah Wolfe, with Leonardo Corsaro and Sydney Menne

Magnetic Topological Materials Could Revolutionize Energy-Efficient Electronics - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24557
05/22/2026

Magnetic Topological Materials Could Revolutionize Energy-Efficient Electronics - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24557

Imagine a laptop that remains cool, a phone capable of lasting for days on a single charge, or a memory chip engineered to retain data permanently even during power loss.

MIT affiliates elected to National Academy of Sciences for 2026 - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24545
05/21/2026

MIT affiliates elected to National Academy of Sciences for 2026 - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24545

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has elected 120 members and 25 international members for 2026, including six MIT faculty members and 10 additional alumni.  Among MIT professors, Bengt Holmström, Michale Fee, Gareth McKinley ’91, Keith Nelson, Fan Wang, and Catherine Wolfram ’96 were ele...

Astronomers may have found a record-breaking pair of black holes - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24460
05/12/2026

Astronomers may have found a record-breaking pair of black holes - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24460

At some 60 billion times the mass of the sun, this dark void could be home to a pair of black holes that are due for a cosmic collision.

Improving the reliability of circuits for quantum computers -- A new technique helps scientists measure a phenomenon tha...
05/12/2026

Improving the reliability of circuits for quantum computers -- A new technique helps scientists measure a phenomenon that can cause quantum circuits to perform differently than expected, increasing the error in computations.
https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24453

Arup K. Chakraborty Honored with 2026 International Prize in Biophysics - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24430
05/10/2026

Arup K. Chakraborty Honored with 2026 International Prize in Biophysics - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24430

Arup K. Chakraborty, a distinguished faculty member at the MIT School of Engineering, has been recognized for his exceptional scholarship and contributions to the field of biophysics. In winter 2026, Professor Chakraborty was named a Laureate of the 2026 Tel Aviv University International Prize in Bi...

Astronomers pin down the origins of a planetary odd couple - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24417
05/05/2026

Astronomers pin down the origins of a planetary odd couple - https://physics.mit.edu/?p=24417

Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally “lonely” hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that’s had astronomers puzzled since the system’s discovery in 2020. Now MIT scientists...

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