American University of Beirut

Summer High School Research Program in Physics at AUB

​​PUBLICATIONS

• Yohei Ishii, Charbel S. Madi, Michael J. Aziz and Eric Chason. “Stress evolution in Si during low-energy ion bombardment”.  Journal of Materials Research, Volume 29, Issue 24, 2014, pp 2942-2948.
• Touma, Jihad and Scott Tremaine. "The statistical mechanics of self-gravitating Keplerian disks".  Journal of Physics A: Math. Theor. 47 (2014) 292001 arXiv:1401.5534v2 [astro-ph.GA].
• Chamseddine, Ali H., A. Connes,  and V. Mukhanov.  “Quanta of Geometry”.  arXiv:1409.2471v2 [hep-th] (2014).
• Klushin , Leonid I., A. M. Skvortsov, A. A. Polotsky, S. Qi, and F. Schmid.  “Focus: Changing surface properties in a flash”. Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 068303 (2014).  
• Maurer, T., R. Nicolas, G. Leveque, P. Subramanian, J. Proust, J. Beal, S.  Schuermans, J. –P. Vilcot, Z. Herro. M. Kazan, J. Pla​in, R. Boukherroub, A. Akjouj, B. Djafari-Rouhani, P. –M. Adam, and S. Szunerits. “Enhancing LSPR sensitivity of Au gratings through graphene coupling to Au film”, Plasmonics, Volume 9, Issue 3 , pp 507-512 (2014).
• El Eid, Mounib F.  “ Nucleosynthesis in asymptotic giant branch stars,” Aip Conference Proceeding 1595, 48 (2014). Online: http//dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.48755289.
• Halabi, Ghina M. and M. El Eid.   “Sensitivity of the Blue Loops of intermediate-mass stars to nuclear reactions”.  arxiv.org/pdf/1410.1652 (2014).
• Malaeb, Ola. “Supersymmetrizing massive gravity”. Phys. Rev. D88 (2013)2, 025002 DOI 10.1103/PhysRevD.88.025002.
• Isber, Samih, X. Gratens, S. Charar, and Z. Golacki. "Magnetic properties of Ce3+ in PbCeA (A=Te,Se,S)". Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors, EPJ Web of Conferences 40, 03002 (2013).
  

NEWS

• Dr. Seshadri Sridhar (Raman Research Institute, Astronomy and Astrophysics Dept., Bangalore - India), a URB Visitng Scholar, gave a few lectures in the field of Stellar Dynamics (Turbulence, Magnetohydrydynamic Turbulence and Astrophysical Dynamos) in the Physics Dept. from April 6-20, 2011.
  
  
• Dr. Mounib El-Eid is one of the 16 "Most Highly Cited AUB Authors" as retrieved from SCOPUS & Web of Science as of April 9, 2010, as posted by Saab Medical Library (SML) Blog. You can see the most highly cited AUB Authors from SML Blog from SML homepage .
  
  
• Dr. Ali Chamseddine received the 2008 Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) prize in Physics. Dr. Chamseddine was honored for his fundamental contributions to supergravity and noncommutative geometry. The prize was announced last October at the general meeting of TWAS in Durban, South Africa.
  

CONFERENCES

• Dr. Samih Isber participated in "Moscow International Symposium on Magnetism, MISM '11" in Moscow, Russia, from August 21-25, 2011.
  
  
• Dr. Michel Kazan participated in the European Materials Research Society 2011 Spring & Bilateral Meeting, Nice, France (May 2011) by presenting two oral talks and one poster entitled, respectively, “Near Field-Optical Measurement of the Size-Dependent Dielectric Function of Single Tungsten Nanowire”, “The Role of the Substrate in Optimizing h-BN Layers Investigated by Modeling the Infrared Reflectivity”, and “Interpolation Between the Acoustic Mismatch Model and the Diffuse Mismatch Model for the Interface Thermal Conductance”.
  
  
• Dr. Malek Tabbal participated in the "18th Interdisciplinary Surface Science Conference" at the University of Warwick - United Kingdom, from April 3-10, 2011.
  Drs. Samih Isber, Michel Kazan & Malek Tabbal participated in the "Mediterranean Conference on Innovative Materials & Applications" in Beirut - Labanon, from March 15-17, 2011.
  Dr. Mounib El-Eid participated in the "8th Russbach Workshop on Nuclear Astrophysics" in Russbach - Austria, from March 13-19, 2011.
  Dr. Malek Tabbal participated in the European Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, Strasbourg, France (June 2009) by presenting one oral talk and two posters entitled, respectively, “Control of bonding and nanostructural properties of manganese oxide films grown by plasma assisted PLD”, “Investigation of the growth of nano-grained MnO2 thin films by laser ablation”, and “Effect of deposition temperature on the properties of sputtered YIG films”.
  
  
• Dr. Ghassan Antar presented a poster and an oral presentation in the IPELS 2009 conference in Djurönäset, Sweden (June 2009). The oral presentation is entitled "" and the poster is entitled "Quasi-2D dynamics in conducting fluids to simulate turbulence in magnetic confinement devices".
  

 TALKS

• "Vertical Structure of Hot Accretion Flows:  An Overview," by Dr. Shahram Abbassi, May 24, 2016.
• "On Some Scientific Research Directions, Discoveries, Results and Startups in the Fields of: 1- High pressure for hard materials and biosciences; 2- New materials for energy; 3- Bistable transition metal complexes," by Dr. Samir Matar, April 25, 2016.
• "Low Dimensional Materials for Optoelectronics, photonics and Flexible Electronics Applications," by Dr. Charbel Madi, April 13, 2016.
• "Beyond Standard Soft Matter:  Functional Nanocomposites and Tunable Biomimetic Membranes," by Dr. Rana Ashkar, April 6, 2016.
• "Nanosecond Discharges in Liquids:  Fundamental Physics and Applications," by Dr. Ahmad Hamdan, March 30, 2016.
• "Structural and Vibrational Investigation of Ferroelectric Materials," by Dr. Ali Al-Zein, March 23, 2016.
• "Breakthroughs Leading to the Detection of Gravitational Waves," by Dr. Abdul Hussein Mroue, March 18, 2016.
• "Astrostatistics in star formation:  Application to studies of the stellar initial mass function," by Dr. Sami Dib, March 8, 2016.        
•  "Nanophotonics:  Towards Large-Scale Facile Nanofabrication," by Dr. Roy Aad, December 15, 2015.
• "Growth and Characterization of Silicon and Germanium Nanostructures," by Dr. Mahmoud Israel, December 10, 2015.
• "What can Lithium Tell us About the Early Universe?" by Ms. Tahani Makki, November 3, 2015.
• "Direct molecular Dynamics Simulations of Piezoelectric and Piezothermal Couplings in Crystals," by Dr. Wassim Kassem, October 19, 2015.
• "Amplification of Light Energy Conversion in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Quantum Dot Solar Cells by Trapping Light in Photonic Crystals", by Dr. La Halaoui, October 13, 2015.
• The cfdGroup@AUB 20 Years with the Finite Volume Method", by Dr. M. Darwish, October 6, 2015.
• "Star-Planet Interactions:  Why do we Care?"  by Dr. Rim Fares, Sept. 22, 2015.
• "Normal Tissue Effects in Cancer Patients from Therapeutic Radiation Exposures", by Dr. Phil Taddei, September 15, 2015.
• "Solar Wind Sputtering of Lunar Soil Analogs:  Charge State and Mass Effects, by Dr. H. Hijazi, Sept. 10, 2015.
• Dr. George Helou (IPAC Executive Director, NASA, USA) gave a talk entitled "Infrared Astronomy: A Golden Age of Space Observatories" on November 29, 2011.
• Dr. Samar Safi-Harb (Canada Research Chair & Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Canada) gave a talk entitled "The Diversity of Neutron Stars Assocaited with Supernova Remnants: Highlights from Recent X-ray Discoveries" on July 27, 2011.
• Dr. Owen Gingerich - AUB PhD Honorary Recipient 2011 (Professor Emeritus - Harvard Univ., & Senior Astronomer Emeritus - Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) gave a talk entitled "Galelio's Telescope and the Birth of Modern Astronomy" on June 23, 2011.
• Dr. Maurizio Salaris (Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University - UK) gave a talk entitled "Stellar Archaeology: Decoding the Fossil Record of Cosmic Evolution" on May 26, 2011.
• Dr. Ziad Adem (Lebanese University) gave a talk entitled "Diffusion of Hydrocarbons by Pulsed Field Gradient (PFG) NMR in NaX Zeolite and Purous Glasses Materials" on May 11, 2011.
• Dr. Mutasem Shehadeh (Mechanical Engineering Dept., AUB) gave a talk entitled "Multiscale Modeling of Shock-Induced Plastic Deformation in FCC Materials" on May 4, 2011.
• Dr. Seshadri Sridhar (Raman Research Institute, Bangalore - India) gave a lecture entitled "MHD Turbulence: Current Status" on April 14, 2011.
• Dr. Seshadri Sridhar (Raman Research Institute, Bangalore - India) gave a lecture entitled "MHD Turbulence: Early Work" on April 11, 2011.
• Dr. Atakan Gurkan (Leiden University, Leiden Observatory - the Netherlands) gave a talk entitled "An Application of Fractals to Stellar Dynamics" on April 7, 2011.
• Dr. Nadi Braidy (University of Sherbrooke, QC - Canada) gave a talk entitled "Characterization and Diagnostics of Working Catalysts" on March 21, 2011.
• Dr. Elsy Bacha (Université de Nantes, IREENA (Institut de Recherche en Electrotechnique et Electronique de Nantes Atlantique) - France) gave a talk entitled "Low Temperature Development of Barium Titanate Perovskite Thin Films by Soft Chemistry Route" on January 12, 2011.
• Dr. Fawwaz Habbal (Executive Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Univeristy) gave a talk entitled "Structures at the Nano Scales" on May 26, 2010.
• Dr. Fawwaz Habbal (Executive Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Univeristy) gave a mini-course entitled "Nonofluids: A Review" on May 27, 2010.
• Dr. Adbulaziz Alhaidari (Founder & Board Member, Saidi Center for Theoretical Physics, Dhahran, SAUDI ARABIA) gave a talk entitled "Resolution of the Klein Paradox and Transmission Resonance in High Barriers" on March 10, 2010.
• Miss Rana Ashkar (Indiana University, Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, Department of Physics, Bloomington, Indiana, USA) gave a talk entitled "Spin-Echo Scattering Angle Measurements (SESAME)" on January 7, 2010.
• Dr. Imad Agha (Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, Paris, FRANCE) gave a talk entitled "Four Wave Mixing in Highly Resonant Systems: Nonlinear and Quantum Effects" on December 23, 2009.
• Dr. Vera Macary (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, Centre d'Etudes Scientifiques et Technologiques de l'Aquitaine, FRANCE) gave a talk entitled "Photo-fission of Actinides: Measurements of Delayed Neutron Yields and Time Spectra" on July 1, 2009.
• Dr. Aurore Said (Universite De La Mediterranee Aix-Marseille II, FRANCE) gave a talk entitled "Large Band Gap Nanohybrid Materials" on May 13, 2009.
• Dr. Viatcheslav Mukhanov (Chair of Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology at Ludwig Maxmillians University, Munich, GERMANY) gave a public lecture entitled "Origin of the Big Bang" on April 30, 2009.
• Dr. Jordi Jose (Physics Department and Nuclear Engineering (UPC) and (IEEC) in Barcelona, SPAIN) gave a public talk entitled "Stellar beacons in the ocean of night: A journey into the violent universe from the big bang to supernova explosions" on April 12 & 15, 2009.   
• Dr. Nader A. Akil (Senior Scientist at Phillips/NXP Semiconductor, IMEC, BELGIUM) gave a seminar entitled "Would you like to know what kind of memory devices you have in your pocket?" on March 31, 2009.
• Dr. Nicolas Bian (University of Salford,UK) gave a talk entitled "Convective motions and turbulence in magnetized plasmas" on March 26, 2009.
• Dr. Husam Abu-Safe (Univ. of Arkansas & LAU) gave a seminar entitled "Synthesis of poly-silicon thin films on glass and flexible substrates using laser initiated metal induced crystallization of amorphous silicon for solar cells" on December 2, 2008.

THESES

•     Ms. Cynthia Saad defended her MS thesis entitled "Effect of the Magnetic Field on the Early Collapse Phase of a Dense Protostellar Cloud" on December 8, 2015
  
• Mr. Ali Rida Khalifeh defended his MS thesis entitled "Quintessential Inflation in Mimetic Dark Matter" on April 28, 2015
  
• Mr. Ali el-Hadi Zeineddine defended his MS thesis entitled "A General Solution to Mimetic Dust with Astrophysical and Cosmological Applications" on April 28, 2015.
  
• Mr. Hassan Saadi defended his MS thesis entitled "A Cosmological Solution to Mimetic Dark Matter" on April 27, 2015.
  
• Miss Reham Abu Amer defended her MS thesis entitled "Crystalline and Optical Properties of ZnO Nanoparticles Synthesized by a Solvent Based Technique" on February 5, 2015.
  
• Miss  Ghina Mahmoud defended her PhD dissertation entitled "Evolution & Nucleosynthesis in 1 to 12Msun Stars" on December 9, 2014.
  
• Ms. Ola Malaeb defended her PhD dissertation entitled "Supersymmetric Massive Gravity and Dark Matter" on November 27, 2014.
  
• Miss Tamara Ayache defended her thesis entitled "Relativity-Based Technique for the Determination of the Dielectric Properties of Materials:  Application to SiC" on October 14, 2014.
  
• Mr. Ali El Reza Asghar defended his thesis entitled "b on July 11, 2014.
  
• Ms. Amani Zalzali defended her thesis entitled "Dynamics of Thin Rotating Flows Subject to Electric and Magnetic FieldsI" on May 12, 2014.
  
• Mr. Mostafa Hammoud defended his thesis entitled "Simulation of Bi-Dimensional Plasma Turbulence and Investigation of the Inverse Cascde Process" on September 12, 2013.
  
• Ms. Mona Bahja defended her thesis entitled "Characterization of the Tyre Pottery Production Using PIXE and XRF Techniques and Cluster Analysis" on July 26, 2013.
  
• Mr. Ali Abou Khalil defended his thesis entitled "Interpolation between Linearized and Atomistic Models for Accurate Calculation of the Lattice Thermal Conductivity in the Full Temperature Range" on June 4, 2013.
  
• Mr. Adnan Nahlawi defended his thesis entitled "Counter-Rotating Discs Around Black Holes" on March 22, 2013.
  
• Miss Malak Khouchen defended her thesis entitled "Some Implications of Gravity with de - Sitter Tangent Space" on January 23, 2013.
  
• Miss Nancy Rahbany defended her thesis entitled "Optical Characterization of Aluminium Gallium Nitride Thin Films" on October 4, 2012.
  
• Miss Nibelle Skaf defended her thesis entitled "Growth of Cobalt Manganese Aluminium Thin Films by Pulsed Laser Deposition" on July 18, 2012
  
• Miss Josiane Salameh defended her thesis entitled "Effects of Composition Correlations on the Adsorption of Statistical Copolymers" on June 7, 2012.
  
• Miss Rana Nicolas defended her thesis entitled "Molecular Dynamics of Water, Investigation of Rigid Non-Polarizable Models from Structure to Dynamics" on June 4, 2012.
  
• Miss Zainab Alameh defended her thesis entitled "New Model for Lattice Thermal Conductivity Across Boundaries" on May 31, 2012.
  
• Miss Mirvat Shamseddine defended her thesis entitled "Optical Analysis of Boron Nitride Thin Films" on February 8, 2012.
  
• Mr. Wassim Kassem defended his thesis entitled "Pulsed Laser Deposition of Tungsten Thin Films: Theoretical and Experimental Aspects" on October 14, 2011.
  
• Miss Abeer Al Mohtar defended her thesis entitled "Synthesis of Tungsten Trioxide by Microwave Plasma Assisted Oxidation" on September 20, 2011.
  
• Miss Sarah Safieddine defended her thesis entitled "Experimental Validation of an Integrated Volume-Tandem Differentail Mobility Analysis Method for Determining Thermodynamic and Evaporation Kinetics Properties of Semi-Volatile Organic Aerosols" on June 8, 2011.
  
• Miss Samar Bechara defended her thesis entitled "Spherically Symmetric Solutions for Five-Dimensional Topological Gravity" on January 17, 2011
  
• Mr. Loutfallah Moubarak defended his thesis entitled "Investigating Coherent Structures of Quasi-two Dimensional Flows Subject to Electromagnetic Forces" on October 27, 2010.
  
• Miss Amara Al-Sayegh defended her thesis entitled "Stability of BPS Solution in N=4 Gauged Supergravity" on September 23, 2010.
  
• Miss Ola Hosseiky Malaeb defended her thesis entitled "Schwarzchild-Like Solutions in the Extended Theory of Gravity" on September 23, 2010.
  
• Miss Lamis Zaidouny defended her thesis entitled "Fluid Motion in a Cylindrical Container Subject to Electromagnetic Foces" on July 19, 2010.
  
• Miss Lina AbdulHalim defended her thesis entitled "Mechanical Desorption of Random Copolymers from an Adsorbing Surface" on June 9, 2010.
  
• Miss Farah Hariri defended her thesis entitled "Simulating Bi-Dimensional Turbulence in Fusion Plasmas with Linear Geometry" on June 8, 2010.
  
• Mr. George Al-Makdessi defended his thesis entitled "Experimental Characterization of Low-Pressure Plasma for Surface Modification" on June 7, 2010.
  
• Miss Reema Hajjar defended her thesis entitled "Massive Gas Jets Interaction with Magnetic Confined Plasmas" on June 2, 2010.
  
• Miss Naima Hammoud defended her thesis entitled "The Unsteady Dynamics of a Jet Impinging on a Moving Plate" on March 1, 2010.
  
• Miss Ghina Mahmoud defended her thesis entitled "Production of 13C in Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars" on October 26, 2009.
  
• Mr. Mostapha al-Gharamti defended his thesis entitled "Supersymmetric Black Holes" on October 22, 2009.
  
• Miss Zeina Abbas defended her thesis entitled "Adiabatic evolution of star clusters with central black holes" on June 5, 2009.
  
• Miss Sara Najem defend her thesis entitled "The interplay between dynamics and topoply" on June 5, 2009.
  
• Miss Maya Abi Akl defended her thesis entitled "Phase control of manganese dioxide thin films by plasma assisted laser ablation" on May 29, 2009
  
• Miss Noura Abdallah defended her thesis entitled "Probe measurements in low-pressure microwave excited plasmas" on May 19, 2009.​​