The National Research Council rankings of graduate programs has placed UH Mānoa Department of Physics and Astronomy in the top 12 of all US programs. The department has an extensive laboratory and classroom building, Watanabe Hall. It has about 37,000 square feet of research and teaching laboratories, shops, classrooms with special demonstration facilities, and student study rooms. The Institute for Astronomy building, located above the Mānoa campus, is a greatly expanded facility for research in astronomy and astrophysics.
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UH Researchers at CPAD 2026 in Seattle
Seven University of Hawaiʻi (UH) researchers attended the 2026 CPAD Workshop (Coordinating Panel for Advanced Detectors), held at the University of Washington in Seattle on October 20–23. CPAD is the main annual U.S. meeting on detector research and development for particle and nuclear physics. The UH group gave talks and posters on gaseous detectors, silicon sensors, readout electronics, and data acquisition.
UH Mānoa Graduate Student Wins Poster Award at National Particle Physics Detector Workshop
Vikas Kumar, a PhD student in Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, who collaborates with the Department of Physics and Astronomy, received one of two poster awards at the 2026 CPAD Workshop.
Physics Graduate Student Awarded U.S. Department of Energy Fellowship
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa graduate student Michael Litke has been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy SCGSR Fellowship to conduct his doctoral thesis research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Working with Professor Sven Vahsen, Litke’s research focuses on developing innovative detectors that measure the direction of neutral particles. His work at Oak Ridge will specifically involve directional neutron measurements to test the feasibility of a proposed future neutrino experiment.
Professor Keisuke Yoshihara Launches Open-Source ASIC (Readout Chip) Development Effort for High-Energy Physics
The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Department of Physics and Astronomy has received supplemental support from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science for Professor Keisuke Yoshihara to begin a new research effort on open-source application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or “readout chips” for high-energy physics instrumentation and readout.
UH Physics Professor Zepeng Li receives a DOE Genesis Award
Professor Zepeng Li from the UH Mānoa Department of Physics and Astronomy is leading a research project selected for the U.S. Department of Energy’s inaugural Genesis Mission. His work involves developing an AI foundation model to accelerate the search for neutrinoless double beta decay, a rare nuclear process that could reveal the nature of “ghost particles” known as neutrinos. The project aims to create a unified AI framework to streamline data analysis across various detector technologies used by researchers worldwide. This initiative is eligible for a Phase I award of up to $750,000 over nine months to develop these innovative AI-enabled scientific tools.
University of Hawaiʻi Physicists Contribute to U.S.–Japan Project to Advance Accelerator Diagnostics
Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH) are contributing to a newly approved U.S.–Japan project to advance X-ray beam monitoring technology for SuperKEKB, the world’s leading electron-positron collider. The project, titled “Enhanced X-ray Beam Size Monitor,” has been approved by the U.S.–Japan Joint Committee for a total of $235,000, with support expected through the U.S. Department of Energy Office of High Energy Physics.