NIU Today

Representatives of Illinois and Wisconsin universities today presented the Champion of Science Award to Congressman Bill Foster. The award is given by the Washington, D.C.-based Science Coalition to members of Congress in recognition of their commitment to funding the basic research that keeps the United States at the forefront of scientific and medical discovery and...

Don’t miss the astronomical light show of the year! Join NIU STEM Outreach Thursday, Aug. 11, at the Bliss Creek Golf Course in Sugar Grove for “Star Gazing,” a STEM Café event devoted to the dazzling Perseid meteor shower. The free event starts at 6:30 p.m with a buffet of pizza, pasta, salad and soft...

With powerful supercomputing abilities and a support team in place to help users, NIU’s new Center for Research Computing and Data (CRCD) is poised to usher in a new era of big-data scientific research on campus. Just consider some of the center’s ongoing projects: Assembling and annotating the genomes of two species of petunia. Modeling...

Michael Syphers, a senior research professor of physics at NIU, received quite a surprise when he traveled recently to the University of Texas, Austin, to teach a course for the U.S. Particle Accelerator School (USPAS). Syphers has taught similar USPAS courses for nearly three decades with little fanfare. During the school’s opening night ceremonies Jan....

Scientists from NIU and Argonne National Laboratory are reporting this week in the journal Nature Physics on the discovery of exotic magnetic structures in iron-based superconductors. Superconductors exhibit amazing properties: When cooled below certain temperatures, they conduct electricity without energy-sapping resistance. But the best known superconducting materials can operate only below 218 degrees Fahrenheit under...

Creating new knowledge about the subatomic world. Shedding light on how stress alters the response to stimulants. Discovering evidence that cities can spawn thunderstorms. Revealing the risks of traffic-generated air pollution. Faculty at any university would be proud of creating such diverse and impactful research. Amazingly, however, this is the work of NIU students in...

An NIU Ph.D. student in physics is the first author of recently published research in the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters. The research, by Laxman Thoutam with co-authors from NIU and Argonne National Laboratory, might move scientists closer to understanding the properties of an unusual material known as tungsten-ditelluride’s (WTe2), which could play a critical...

If you love “Game of Thrones“ – either the hit HBO show or the bestselling novels – you might think the story is pure escapism: a fantasy romp set in a faraway world of magic and dragons. In fact, its creators get a surprising amount right about the fundamental laws of science and physics. At...

For five decades, physicist Clyde Kimball – a man of big ideas, immutable passion and abundant kindness – was a fixture on the Northern Illinois University campus. An NIU distinguished research professor, he is credited with cementing the university’s collaborative ties with Argonne National Laboratory, attracting tens of millions of dollars in funding for research...

NIU alum Sam Watt will be in China using innovative, NIU-developed techniques to teach STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – to sixth- and seventh-graders in Beijing this school year. Watt’s classes will be based around lab activities specially developed by STEM Outreach, part of NIU’s P-20 Center in the Division of Outreach, Engagement,...

NIU physics student Keith Taddei received an award for best student lecture at the American Crystallographic Association Conference, held July 25 to July 29 in Philadelphia. Taddei’s lecture titled, “Observation of the Magnetic C4 Phase and a Two Q Magnetic Structure in Hole doped Sr1-xNaxFe2As2,” was given as part of the Crystallography of Emergent Phenomena...

Snare drums snap, bells ting-a-ling and flutes whistle like birds. But why does one instrument sound any different than another? And how do objects produce sound in the first place? NIU alum Andrew Morrison has spent his career using physics to study these questions. At the next STEM Café, he will present “Good Vibrations: The...