Kara Hoffman Named Chair of UMD’s Department of Physics

She has been on the faculty for 22 years and previously served as associate chair for undergraduate education for four years.

University of Maryland Physics Professor Kara Hoffman was named chair of the Department of Physics, effective July 1, 2026.

“Kara Hoffman brings to this role a record of scholarly achievement and an understanding of the department's strengths and aspirations,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “As a longstanding member of our faculty, she is prepared to lead the department’s continued growth and success.”

The Department of Physics ranks No. 14 overall (and 5th among public institutions) in physics graduate programs according to U.S. News & World Report and has 50 tenured/tenure-track faculty members, nearly 600 students and annual research funding of over $30 million. 

“It is an honor to be chosen to chair a department of this prominence," Hoffman said. “The strength of the department derives from the talent of our faculty and students, the dedicated support of our staff, as well as our partnerships with some of the world’s preeminent research institutions.” 

Hoffman plans to continue recruiting outstanding faculty members and students and providing excellent opportunities outside the classroom for the large fraction of physics majors who conduct research.

“As chair, I look forward to supporting these activities, as well as looking for new opportunities and initiatives,” Hoffman added. “While these are challenging times for research funding, I believe we can emerge even stronger.”

Hoffman, who joined UMD in 2004, serves as the principal investigator on the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that supports the analysis of data taken with the world’s largest neutrino telescope, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. She has been conducting research at the observatory since the construction of the telescope commenced in 2004. 

Scientists have used IceCube to discover a population of high-energy neutrinos originating from outside our galaxy and from within the Milky Way plane. In addition, IceCube has made several contributions to particle physics, including the first observation of the Glashow resonance. 

Hoffman’s research has focused on multimessenger astrophysics, which aims to correlate information across multiple telescopes—including optical, gamma-ray and gravitational-wave instruments—often in real time, to identify some of the most energetic objects in our universe and gain a deeper understanding of the physical processes that drive them. 

In addition, Hoffman received an NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant that funded the construction of a next-generation neutrino array, the Askaryan Radio Array, also at the South Pole. The array is one of a few instruments pioneering a new detection technique that would extend the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to higher energies.

Hoffman has held various leadership roles at UMD, including as director of the Center for Experimental Fundamental Physics (2012-15), as a faculty senator (2015-18) and as the department’s associate chair for undergraduate education (2016-20). In the latter role, she restructured the undergraduate laboratory sequence, facilitated the inclusion of active learning in undergraduate courses, recruited new instructors and oversaw the transition to online learning during the pandemic.  Hoffman is also a Fellow of the Joint Space-Science Institute and has served in various leadership roles within her field, including as a member of the executive committee of the Division of Particles and Fields at the American Physical Society (2010-13).

She has mentored more than a dozen postdoctoral researchers and graduate students. Hoffman earned her Ph.D. in high-energy physics in 1998 and her master’s degree in physics in 1994 from Purdue University and her bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kentucky in 1992. Before joining UMD, she was a Fellow at CERN and a research associate at the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute. 

Hoffman succeeds Steve Rolston, who completed a 10-year term as physics chair. During Rolston’s tenure as chair, he hired 14 faculty members, founded the Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance, sponsored the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, and sponsored four Conferences for Undergraduate Underrepresented Minorities in Physics—while also successfully navigating the department’s operations during the pandemic. During the past decade, six physics faculty members were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, four were named Distinguished University Professors and four were named Distinguished Scholar-Teachers. While chair, Rolston also maintained his own quantum research program, authoring 32 publications and graduating eight Ph.D. students.