The application deadline is Friday, January 5, 2024.

Friday, December 15, 2023 is the preferred application deadline to be considered for fellowship nominations.

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Why Choose Chemical Physics at the University of Maryland?

Rigorous graduate academic training in chemistry and physics and a wide range of Ph.D. research opportunities at the university, as well as at NIST and NIH.

Grounded in both physics and chemistry, this program is for graduate students interested in multidisciplinary, rigorous education that crosses traditional academic boundaries.

Students receive a rigorous education in physics and chemistry through formal graduate courses in both disciplines, and a qualifying examination covering both disciplines.

Our students have undergraduate degrees in physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering. They have experience in physical and chemical sciences and interests in a range of scientific topics. 

Coursework and research placements are tailored to each student’s background and interests.

There are more than 100 faculty members from seven different academic departments and two research institutes at UMD who participate in the chemical physics program.

Students can also conduct research off-campus in a laboratory at the NIH or NIST. These students are jointly supervised an associated government scientist and a UMD faculty member.

Recent graduate placements include NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Cambridge University, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Stanford University and MIT.

Meet our current graduate students and check out what they're up to.

Recent Student Publications

Jamie Luskin

Jamie Luskin

First-author paper in Applied Physics Letters

"Large active-area superconducting microwire detector array with single-photon sensitivity in the near-infrared"

Yijia Xu

Yijia Xu

First-author paper in PRX Quantum

"Qubit-Oscillator Concatenated Codes: Decoding Formalism and Code Comparison" 

Qingfeng Kee Wang

Qingfeng Kee Wang

"Cross-platform comparison of arbitrary quantum states" in Nature Communications

Benjamin Eller, Jacob Fortner

Benjamin Eller, Jacob Fortner

Benjamin Eller (first author) and Jacob Fortner (second author) paper in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter

"Can armchair nanotubes host organic color centers?"

Meet the Chemical Physics Faculty and Students