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Ph.D. Program

Benjamin Allen

With Albert A. Michelson, a Nobel laureate, and Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, as part of our distinguished history, Clark’s world-renowned physics doctoral program continues to offer unique opportunities to our graduate students.

Our program, which offers a Ph.D. in experimental and theoretical condensed matter physics and biophysics, emphasizes active learning — with research beginning in a student’s first semester. This style, combined with our intimate size and the access students have to equipment not usually found at a university of our size, builds independence in a supportive, collaborative environment.

Our community

The physics doctoral program seeks independent students who are willing to work hard and collaborate closely with our world-class faculty, postdoctoral research associates, visiting scholars, and undergraduate students.

The program’s intimate size within a small, urban research university allows for interdisciplinary work with our research partners in biology, biochemistry and molecular biology, chemistry, and mathematics and computer science. As such, there’s a sense of community and shared purpose among our diverse group of students in and outside of our labs and research groups.

Meet Our Faculty           Meet Our Graduate Students

Key Details

We train our graduate students to become independent researchers and academic leaders. While the emphasis of our program is on condensed matter physics, our faculty has active research interests in the following areas:

  • Active matter
  • Soft matter
  • Soft robots
  • Physics of thin structures
  • Organic superconductivity
  • Novel magnetic materials
  • Correlated electron systems
  • Strongly correlated quantum many-body systems
  • Computational physics
  • Biological physics
  • Ecological physics
  • Complex microbial ecosystems
  • Granular matter
  • Renewable energy systems
  • Astrochemical studies

Explore graduate courses in physics at Clark

Michael Boyer with graduate student at computer

Graduate Research

Research is the core of Clark’s doctoral program in physics. Our students become confident and independent scholars by beginning their research efforts during the first year of the program.

BioPhysics Building

Research Facilities

Clark’s physics research lives in the Arthur M. Sackler Sciences Center, located close to the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Our research labs have powerful computers used to control experiments as well as collect and analyze data.

Tesla coil with spark

Ph.D. Alumni Careers

Our doctoral alumni are well-prepared to obtain fulfilling positions in education, government, scientific research, and more.

Students at festival

Student Activities

Graduate students have the opportunity to get involved and make connections through student clubs, conferences, and other activities.

Contact Information

Department of Physics

Office Location
  • Math-Physics Building
    Physics, Room 241
    950 Main Street
    Worcester, MA 01610

  • 1-508-793-7169
  • 1-508-793-8861 Fax