Sonoma State University

Announcing the revised B.S. in Physics starting Fall 2026!

Sonoma State University is proud to launch its revised Bachelor of Science in Physics, featuring a redesigned, student-centered curriculum available beginning Fall 2026. The revised program offers a rigorous physics foundation, small class sizes, close faculty mentorship, and flexible pathways that support timely graduation. Please see our degree programs page for more information.

What Physicists Do - Archive

Date Speaker Speaker Affiliation Lecture Title
Dr. Gary Sommargren Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Optical Metrology for Future Generations of Lithography
Dr. Robert Sargent Optical Coating Laboratory, Inc. Recent Advances in Precision Optical Coatings
Dr. Donald Aitken Union of Concerned Scientists the Renewable Energy Transition
Dr. Margaret Galland Kivelson (also here) University of California, Los Angeles Magnetic Fields in the Solar System, or, Don’t Leave Earth Without a Magnetometer!
Dr. Raphael Bousso Stanford University Pinching the Doughnut: Quantum Black Holes and the Global Structure of the Universe
Dr. Stan Williams Hewlett Packard Laboratories Nanocomputers in a Bottle
Dr. Gibor Basri University of California at Berkeley the Hunt for Brown Dwarfs
Mario Marckwordt University of California at Berkeley Imaging the Earth’s Magnetosphere
Dr. Jeff Koch Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory the National Ignition Facility: Status and Applications
Monika Ivancic Oregon State University Dna and Protein Structures
Dr. David Nygren Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Neutrino Astronomy: Looking Down to See Into the Heart of Galaxies
Dr. Dave Dixon University of California, Riverside the Milky Way's Gamma-Ray Halo: First Light From Dark Matter?
Dr. Peter Backus SETI Institute Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti): Progress and Prospects
Dr. Leo Blitz University of California, Berkeley Littlegreen Men and All That
Dr. Robert Schoenlein Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Femtosecondx-Rays at the Advanced Light Source
Dr. Richard Packard University of California, Berkeley Quantum Whistles From Superfluid Helium-3
Dr. Robert Semper Exploratorium Thenetworked Science Museum
Dr. Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University Usingx-Ray Emission From Compact Objects to Study Gravity (Part 2)
Dr. Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University Usingx-Ray Emission From Compact Objects to Study Gravity (Part 1)
Dr. Glenn Horton-Smith Stanford University E=mc2, Really