Behind a world-leading telescope bound for Chile is a team of engineers, machinists, electronics specialists and riggers at Cornell. Meet the CLASSE staff whose expertise is helping push cosmology to new frontiers.

The CLASSE community came together last week for our annual Holiday Party, a moment to reflect on a year of scientific achievement, teamwork, and shared purpose. It was also an opportunity to recognize the people who make this work possible.

Using ultrafast electron diffraction, a Cornell-Stanford collaboration has captured how light triggers a twisting motion in atomically thin materials, revealing how lasers can dynamically reshape matter on trillionths-of-a-second timescales.

Cornell graduate students Nicole Verboncoeur and Jake Parsons earned 1st and 2nd Prize awards at SRF2025 in Tokyo for outstanding research in superconducting radio-frequency technology.

At this year’s CLASSE Summer Picnic, the lab launched a new tradition: the CLASSE Distinguished Service Awards, created to honor the exceptional commitment, teamwork, and impact of our colleagues.

The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) will be loaded onto a transatlantic shipping vessel in Antwerp, Belgium, at the end of January for a month-long voyage by sea to its home: Chile, just below the summit of Cerro Chajnantor where, at 18,400 feet, it will be the second-highest telescope in the world.

As Georg Hoffstaetter de Torquat explains, almost every aspect of sailing is affected—and can be demonstrated—by elementary physics.

The fellowship program recognizes physicists who have made exceptional contributions in physics research; important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics; or significant contributions to physics education.

LepageFest, a two-day event honoring the career of Peter Lepage, Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences, was held Oct. 14-15 in the Physical Sciences Building.

Welcome new CLASSE Researcher and Faculty, Jennet Dickinson!