Queen's 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics
Sowmya (Somi) Narayanan
Somi Narayanan was a professor in our department from 1996 until his retirement at the end of 2024. He was an instructor to first year engineers (PHYS 113/114 back in the day; APSC 111/112 more recently) his entire career and received the First Year Teaching Award from Smith Engineering on 3 separate occasions. He also taught more advanced courses such as mechanics for second year physics majors, thermodynamics and solid state physics for third year physics and engineering physics majors, and statistical mechanics for fourth year physics and engineering physics majors. Somi was valued for his passion for physics pedagogy and dedication to our students.
Robert Gooding
Robert Gooding was a professor in the Department from 1989 until his retirement in 2025. His research interests in theoretical, computational, and mathematical physics have ranged from the core areas of condensed matter physics, such as structural phase transitions, high Tc superconductivity, and metal-insulator transitions, to molecular biophysics, including topics such as telomere dynamics. During the last 10+ years he collaborated with researchers in the Queen's Cancer Research Institute providing bioinformatic and statistical analysis of experimental studies of ovarian, prostate, bladder and kidney cancers. Over his career he has published over 90 peer-reviewed research papers and has supervised or co-supervised 21 graduate students and 7 postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Gooding is well-known among the students for his passion for teaching in some of the more challenging mathematical and theoretical courses.
Judith Irwin
Judith Irwin was a professor in the department from 1991 until her retirement in 2025. Her research interests focused primarily on spiral galaxies that are edge-on to the line of sight, where one has a clear view of the stellar and gaseous halos. Through observations of these systems, Dr. Irwin and her collaborators were able to study how material from a galaxy’s disk is transported into its halo. Dr. Irwin initiated and led an international project called to understand the importance of magnetic fields in this process. The result is the discovery of large-scale patterns in galaxies that require dynamo-action for their generation. Over her career, Dr. Irwin published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed front-line journals and supervised 19 graduate students and 3 post-doctoral fellows. Dr. Irwin also published two textbooks: Decoding the Cosmos, which grew out of her PHYS 315 course, and Decoding the Stars, which grew out of her PHYS 435 course.
Kayll Lake
Kayll Lake was a professor in the Department from 1979 until his retirement in 2025. His research interests have focused on fundamental problems in classical general relativity, also known as Einstein’s theory of gravity. He and his students were early developers of symbolic computation applied to relativity. The result was GRTensor, a computer algebra package used by researchers in relativity around the world. Dr. Lake received an NSERC University Research Fellowship (1980-1990), lifetime membership in the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation, and a lifetime achievement award as an "Outstanding Referee" from the American Physical Society. Professor Lake served as vice president and president of the Queen’s University Faculty Association. He has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has supervised 27 graduate students.
Photo Gallery at Retirement Parties
