News

2026

06/03/2026
Zhongbo and Aayush joined the Sigma Pi Sigma Fellows and mentors for an informal lunch, where they had the opportunity to meet other mentors and members of the fellow cohort. It was wonderful to connect with everyone.

05/28/2026
We were delighted to host Prof. Phiala Shanahan from MIT this week. Many thanks for a wonderful colloquium and for the engaging discussions throughout her visit. It was a pleasure to learn more about her exciting research on the structure of matter and the use of machine learning in fundamental physics!

05/22/2026
Yu Fu, a graduate student from Duke University under the supervision of Prof. Berndt Mueller, completed his two-month visit to our group today. It was a very productive and enjoyable visit. We thank Yu for the visit and for the active collaboration initiated and advanced during his stay, and we look forward to continued interactions in the future.

05/12/2026
Luke Sellers successfully passed his ATC exam this morning and has advanced to Ph.D. candidacy! Many congratulations to Luke!

05/08/2026
Many congratulations to Aayush Jain and Rushil Saraswat! Aayush received a fellowship from the UCLA Sigma Pi Sigma honorary society, while Rushil received a Department of Physics and Astronomy REU Fellowship. These fellowships will support their research in our group.

05/04/2026
The 33rd International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects (DIS2026) is being held in Bologna, Italy, from May 4 to May 8, 2026. Jani Penttala is serving as a convener for the working group "Small-x, Diffraction and Vector Mesons" and helping organize the scientific sessions. For more information, see here.

04/17/2026
Zhongbo and collaborators introduce a powerful new probe of the nucleon’s transversity distribution using one-point energy correlators, published in Physical Review Letters. Read the paper.

04/14/2026
Many congratulations to Benjamin Jobilal for receiving the Department of Physics and Astronomy REU Fellowship! This fellowship will support his summer research in our group.

04/13/2026
We were very happy to host Dr. Rajan Gupta from Los Alamos National Laboratory, who visited us and gave a special particle theory seminar, "Axial Vector Form Factors and the Scalar Charge of Nucleons from Lattice QCD."

04/10/2026
Great to see postdoc Jani Penttala featured in a UCLA Philanthropy story highlighting Dr. Mani L. Bhaumik’s support for theoretical physics at UCLA. The picture shows Jani presenting his research on Electron-Ion Collider physics at the recent Mani-Fest 2026 celebration of Mani's 95th birthday.

04/08/2026
Diego Padilla successfully passed his ATC exam this morning and has advanced to Ph.D. candidacy! Many congratulations to Diego!

03/27/2026
We hosted the 22nd International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2026) at UCLA from March 22–27, 2026. Prof. Huang served as co-chair of the local organizing committee, with Zhongbo and Jani actively involved in the organization. During the conference, we invited Nobel Laureate Prof. Barry Barish to deliver the Bhaumik Distinguished Lecture, “Gravitational Waves: From Discovery to a New Science.”

03/06/2026
Zhongbo visited the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University, Japan. During his visit, he delivered a series of lectures on TMD Theory and Phenomenology at the YITP International School on EIC Physics, and presented a research talk on energy correlators at the associated symposium.

02/23/2026
Congyue, Zhongbo, and collaborators uncovered a theoretical link between dihadron fragmentation and the energy-energy correlator, bridging two important frameworks in QCD phenomenology. The result is published in Physical Review Letters.

02/06/2026
Curtis Zhou has been selected for the DOE Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program, one of the most competitive national research programs for undergraduates. Curtis will spend Summer 2026 at Brookhaven National Laboratory, mentored by Swagato Mukherjee and João Barata. Many congratulations to Curtis!

02/05/2026
Many thanks to Prof. Martin Savage (University of Washington, Seattle and Institute for Nuclear Theory) for a wonderful colloquium at our department — Simulating Fundamental Physics Using Quantum Computers.

02/02/2026
Kyle Lee, a former member of our group, has received the 2025 Wu-Ki Tung Award for Early-Career Research in QCD from the CTEQ Collaboration. Many congratulations to Kyle!

02/01/2026
Ding Yu Shao, a former member of our group, has been appointed a T.D. Lee Scholar at Peking University’s Center for High Energy Physics. Many congratulations to Ding Yu!

01/23/2026
We wrapped up a successful Quantum Winter School 2026: Quantum Simulation at the UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM). The program featured lectures by Kenneth Brown (Duke), Xiaodi Wu (Maryland), Zohreh Davoudi (Maryland), Andreas Weichselbaum (BNL), and Victor Batista (Yale), and brought together researchers across a broad range of disciplines for lively and interdisciplinary discussions. Check here for Program.

01/05/2026
Jani Penttala has been awarded the inaugural UPSaclay STAR φ Postdoctoral Fellowship, one of the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowships in France. The fellowship is established by Université Paris-Saclay under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND action. Learn more. Big congratulations to Jani!

01/01/2026
Dr. Jack Araz from City St George's, University of London, and Zhongbo have received an International Exchanges grant from the Royal Society for a two-year period. This program supports UK-based scientists in developing new research collaborations with leading international partners through bilateral travel. The award will enable Jack and Zhongbo to visit each other twice per year over the two-year grant period, fostering close collaboration and joint research activities.