Faculty News:

Welcome, Professor Stephan Haas

After a year long faculty search, the USC Department of Physics and Astronomy invited
Stephan Haas to join our faculty as an Assistant Professor. With a strong research
background and an invigorating enthusiasm for teaching, we are very pleased to welcome him
to our department.

Born and educated primarily in Berlin in his youth, Professor Haas completed his Ph.D. in
Physics at the National High Magnetic Fields Laboratory at Florida State University. Prior to
his appointment at USC, he worked as a post-doc for the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology
.

Professor Haas' research interests are focused in the area of theoretical and computational
condensed matter physics, in particular the study of strongly correlated electrons, quantum
magnetism, and the effect of impurities in these systems. Maintaining collaborative
relationships with theory groups at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where his work focused on phase diagrams and the
dynamical spectra of microscopic models in the context of high-temperature
superconductivity, such as the t-J, the Hubbard, and the Heisenberg model, Stephan Haas
plans to become an active member of our own condensed matter theory group,
complementing the work of Professors Gene Bickers and Kazumi Maki.

In addition to working with our own distinguished faculty, Professor Haas is looking forward
to supervising the research of our graduate and undergraduate students. He says, "I enjoy
working with students, and I suspect that since these will be my first research collaborations
as an adviser, it will be very intense."

Furthermore, Professor Haas loves to teach, saying, "I think teaching is somewhat of a gift or
a miracle." In contrast to his European education where the chasm between student and
teacher were great, Professor Haas believes that student-teacher involvement is the key to
successful learning. He explains, "I think whatever gets students involved is great. That means
also participating in teaching. The goal is to make them part of the lecture rather than having
students sit by in passive participation. In principle, both sides should be learning during the
lecture."

Back to the Spring 1999 Table of Contents

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