About

Welcome to the Boston College Department of Physics. We are a community of about 150, including faculty, administrative staff, postdocs, visiting scientists, and graduate and undergraduate students. Devoted to our teaching, service, and research missions, all of our faculty teach lecture courses and actively involve students in their research. Our research program is focused on fundamental and applied condensed-matter and quantum information. We are in Higgins Hall, located at the heart of the BC Chestnut Hill campus, with state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities.

As an undergraduate major, you will be both academically challenged and intellectually nurtured, with small class sizes (the ratio of undergraduate majors to faculty is about 4:1). We have an active Society of Physics Students chapter that is engaged in scientific and community activities. Nearly all students engage in research, including paid positions, senior thesis, or capstone projects. 

Similarly, our graduate program is internationally competitive yet provides a unique community with a 2:1 student-to-faculty ratio.m Funding for our research has been provided by a variety of government agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and several private foundations. Furthermore, the department routinely publishes in top journals, averaging three Science or Nature articles per year.

A professional, caring, and courteous administrative staff facilitates our entire enterprise.

You are invited to peruse these pages and learn more about physics at BC.

Ken Burch
Chairperson