Xiaopeng Li, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, is the first Pitt student to be selected as a Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics graduate fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara—one of the most renowned theoretical physics institutes in the world. Li will spend the next six months researching condensed matter physics, a branch of physics that focuses on the physical properties of matter like solids and liquids. W. Vincent Liu, Pitt associate professor of physics, nominated Li for the fellowship based on his “outstanding dedication to physics research.”