Our Department offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. Although classified primarily as doctoral, our department has a strong undergraduate program and we offer undergraduate service courses to nearly 450-500 students. We offer two professional masters programs: the Master's in Applied Physics and Nanotechnology, and the Master's in Space Physics and Space Weather.

We have considerable external funding of nearly $20 million dollars per year from agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Defense (DOD), and from several industries.

Ours is a diverse department with a strong commitment to high-quality graduate education and world-class physics research. Our faculty and students work in both on-campus laboratories and with collaborations outside the department.

We have a small faculty size with nearly 40 graduate (Ph.D.) students. The program ensures a favorable faculty-student ratio, close faculty-student collaboration, and a congenial atmosphere. We plan to expand from our current enrollment of 40 to about 60 students in the near term. Well-equipped physics laboratories provide an excellent setting for research. The department has ample facilities for research in each of our core research areas. The Department of Physics has a strong connection to NASA/Goddard, Jefferson Lab, the National Institutes of Standards, and the Naval Research Laboratory. Students admitted with regular full-time status are normally given a full tuition waiver and an annual 12-month stipend. Support may come in the form of a teaching, research, or graduate assistantship, or a fellowship (the latter sometimes being endowed with a more generous stipend). Additional support is usually available in the summer. Catholic University is ideally located in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, which combines the advantages of urban life and state-of-the-art federal research labs and industries with well-funded research opportunities.