Today's Hours
Notable Faculty and their contributions
Dr. Michio Kaku: Theoretical physicist/ Science writer/ CCNY Professor
B.A., Harvard University/ Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Doctor Kaku wanted to finish what Einstein started with the final theory which aimed to summarize the universe in one formula. Dr. Kaku became a noticeable figure for CCNY while appearing on news networks such as CBS, documentaries, and commercials. To inspire others to discover the universe's origin, he puts a fun twist on his future predictions involving artificial intelligence, parallel universes, time warps, and the 10th dimension. Notable figures such as Albert Einstein and candidate for Nobel Prize in Physics Robert Marshak attracted Dr. Kaku to City College to continue his work on string theory.
The concept of string theory describes one-dimensional points called strings that interact with each other in space conceptually this would decipher the root of the nucleus arguing the final theory. Field theory explains all the forces except string theory, so Dr. Kaku decided to create that one equation that would summarize all of string theory. In his letter Science Would Get Nowhere Without Dreams, Dr. Kaku considers himself optimistic as he quotes, “Remember, science would be sterile and empty, and progress nonexistent, without dreamers. no negatives ever made a scientific discovery.”
Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum: Professor of Physics/ MRSEC IRG1 Co-Lead
Ph.D., New York University
Dr. Krusin-Elbaum is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is a recipient of ten IBM Invention Achievement Awards. Her research involves complex nanostructured materials, topological insulators, and other novel quantum materials. Dr. Krusin-Elbaum over the years has strived to come to new understandings in materials science – the theoretical prediction of a new class of insulators in three dimensions that have a full insulating electronic gap in the bulk but with exotic metallic two-dimensional states on their surfaces. She is also the IRG-I co-director of the newly awarded Columbia University-CCNY MRSEC on Precision Assembled Quantum Materials (PAQM).
With Dr. Krusin-Elbaum's belief in teamwork, she helps elevate her student's comprehension of science.
KrusinLab - Lia Krusin's lab at the City College of New York (CCNY) Physics department (cuny.edu)
Krusin's lab at the City College of New York (CCNY) Surface superconductivity of Dirac puddles
Professor Emerita Myriam Sarachik
A. B. cum laude, Barnard College/ M.S. and Ph.D., Columbia University.
Distinguished Professor Sarachik has published extensively in professional journals on her work in superconductivity, disordered metallic alloys, metal-insulator transitions in doped semiconductors, hopping transport in solids, properties of strongly interacting electrons in two dimensions, and spin dynamics in molecular magnets.
Dr. Sarachik was a member and the chair of the Solid-State Sciences Committee of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council and a member of the Board of the American Institute of Physics. Following many years of activities on numerous committees and as a Board member, she served as President of the American Physical Society in 2003. She was elected to serve on the Governing Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for three years from 2008 to 2011.
Myriam Sarachik was active in defending the human rights of scientists as a National Board member of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, a long-time member of the Human Rights of Scientists Committee of the New York Academy of Sciences, and a member and chair of the Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists of the American Physical Society.
Having served on the faculty since 1964, Distinguished Professor Emerita Myriam P. Sarachik retired from CCNY/CUNY in August of 2018 and passed away in 2021. She has not only been awarded many prizes and honors for her research and her many other contributions to the scientific community, but advocated for the human rights of scientists, and women in science.
“I was interested in many things, and I did find physics quite hard in the beginning...but I got caught by it and it’s really a wonderful field to be in... I’ve had a wonderful time.”
—Dr. Sarachik, Interview, Science & Society, July 25, 2005
Myriam Sarachik | The City College of New York (cuny.edu)
In Memoriam: Myriam Sarachik | Tony Liss & Parameswaran Nair | Inference (inference-review.com)
2020 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research Awarded to Myriam P. Sarachik
Dr. Michio Kaku
Dr. Lia Krusin-Elbaum
Dr. Emerita Myriam Sarachik
Professor Sarachik (2008)