Physics Highlights 2019, Harvey Mudd College

PHHighlights SICS 2019

Support a Physics Student’s Summer Research

Class of 2019 physics graduates and faculty members at commencement

Dear Alumni, Parents and Friends of HMC Physics, I am delighted to share with you this year’s newsletter, highlighting some of the many developments in the HMC physics community in 2019. Some of our newest physics alumni are now in graduate programs—from atomic physics to atmospheric science to quantum computing—and from MIT to the Perimeter Institute to UC schools. An unusually large proportion of our physics graduates—about 60% —went directly to the work force this year, in industries like software development, technical consulting and finance. Harvey Mudd Physics hit the biggish screen this year with the NOVA episode “Einstein’s Quantum Riddle,” released this past January and featuring an experiment on which Professor Jason Gallicchio and his students are collaborators. (Professor Gallicchio makes an appearance in the episode.)

Meanwhile, this past June 30 marked full retirement for Professor Patti Sparks and Professor John Townsend, both of whom received official sendoffs in the spring complete with custom physics toys constructed for them by current students: a springy desk toy in honor of Professor Sparks’s famous assertion that everything is a mass on a spring, and a “quantum harmonic oscillator demonstration” toy for Professor Townsend, who taught the sophomore quantum physics course through last spring.

This past summer, we had 29 Harvey Mudd students doing research with our physics faculty; there was lots of energy in the hallways, and we had an exciting department-wide journal club series. Ensuring continued opportunities for summer students is a key priority for the department and the goal of our physics summer research appeal now in progress.

I invite you to read on for more details about 2019 summer research, as well as new courses in the physics department, student accomplishments, alumni news and more. We are thrilled to include a large number of alumni updates this year; always feel free to send your news or remarks to the department administrator Alison Rauchfuss (arauchfuss@g.hmc.edu) or to anyone on the physics faculty. We look forward to hearing from you.

Theresa Lynn, Chair, Department of Physics lynn@hmc.edu

The fundraising drive for HMC’s Physics Summer Research Fund is in full swing! A huge thank you to the alumni, parents and friends who have already joined us in this exciting enterprise. If the summer letter got lost on its way to you, it’s not too late to be involved.

This expendable fund will support 10 HMC students doing research in the department each summer for three years, beginning in 2020. George Innis ’74 and Peter Paterno ’72 have generously committed to a $120,000 challenge match that will double each gift, to secure a total of $240,000. Your generosity has given us a good start toward the goal, but we know there are even more of you who view research as a key part of the HMC experience.

Summer research allows students to explore challenges with faculty, publish their findings in scholarly journals and share their work with fellow researchers around the world. It also helps make HMC graduates more competitive post-graduation.

Donations in any amount are welcome and will be matched. A gift of $4,000 names and funds a fellowship for one summer so that you can receive updates on the fellow’s research. A gift of $12,000 names one fellowship for three summers.

Name fellowships as you wish, or honor an important figure in your HMC experience.

Commitments may be made through outright gifts or as pledges payable over the next three years.

To give, please visit www.hmc.edu/give and specify “Physics Summer Research Fund” in the “If Other, Please Specify” box after entering the amount of your gift, or call 1.844.GIVE.HMC (844.448.3462).

For more information, please contact Nicole Ouellette in the advancement office at nouellette@hmc.edu or 909.607.7924.

Out and About with HMC Physics Hawthorne, California

Potato Mountain, California

Silverwood Lake, California

Mudders at SpaceX: Professors Gregory Lyzenga ’75 and Ann Esin took their fall 2018 Astrobiology class on a field trip to SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, to learn firsthand about the latest developments in space exploration. Hosts for the trip were SpaceX employees Paige Rinnert ’17 (engineering), Jonpaul Littleton ’15 (engineering), Erik Littleton ’13 (physics) and Chris Cotner ’13 (physics) (pictured, front row). The group posed with the Falcon 9 rocket on display at the Hawthorne plant after its return from boosting an orbital flight. Hiking image: The Women in Physics group took a hike on Potato Mountain in September. Lake image: Professors Brian Shuve and Nicholas Breznay ’02 took their summer research students on a hiking trip in Silverwood Lake, California, in July to have some fun and build camaraderie.

-2­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Sparks and Townsend Retire

personally. She enthusiastically taught and developed new lab courses and experiments, from introductory-level to junior- and senior-level lab courses.

Additionally, she has left a lasting impact on her colleagues, emphasizing the culture in which we help each other out and “pay it forward.” Sparks was honored as an Honorary Alumna at HMC’s 2019 Alumni Weekend.

Patti Sparks retired after 30 years at Harvey Mudd. When Sparks was new to Mudd, she recalls there were only five other female faculty members at the College. Her research in solid state physics, specifically magnetic materials, has involved many students over the years, and has inspired many to pursue careers in experimental physics or in related areas of engineering. Her collaboration with Jim Eckert and Chih-Yung Chen has been a significant aspect of experimental research in the HMC physics department.

Sparks is well known for her incredible devotion to her students over the years. By offering mass office hours in the Stauffer Lounge, running sidecar courses, teaching January workshops or tutorial-style make-up Core courses for students who struggled in the mainstream of the Core and acting as a mentor for students facing hardship while in college, she strove to help her students succeed academically and

John Townsend joined the physics department in 1975 and has been instrumental to the department and HMC community during his 44 years on the faculty. Though his “home field” of study is in high energy or particle theory, his scholarly career is also marked by work on nuclear weapons and arms control as well as the writing of two top-notch undergraduate quantum mechanics textbooks.

Townsend served as department chair for 22 years and has been instrumental in two major Core revisions and countless other aspects of college life. He is a longtime advocate for financial aid and equity access to education and improving Harvey Mudd’s competitive recruitment of the very best students.

His vision and meticulous care have had a monumental influence on the HMC physics department. He has brought many of the current faculty to Harvey Mudd, been an incredible mentor and leader and, as chair, he worked with each department member to understand individual priorities and concerns.

Townsend was awarded the Henry T. Mudd Prize in 2009 and was honored as an Honorary Alumnus at HMC’s 2019 Alumni Weekend.

New Physics Courses This year (2019) saw the rollout of several new courses in the HMC physics curriculum along with substantial refinements of the sophomore Core lab that was introduced in fall 2018.

Professor Mark Ilton offered a new version of Biophysics (Physics 174) with a focus on biolocomotion. The course began with two weeks of lectures to introduce principles of biolocomotion at small size scales and transitioned into a seminar focused on current research in biolocomotion. Students learned the physical principles that shape the locomotion of microorganisms using the advection-diffusion equation as a central theoretical framework. These principles were then applied to show, for example, that organisms larger than about 400 µm cannot rely exclusively on diffusion for nutrient capture: to survive, large organisms need some form of advective flow, which can be generated using powered locomotion. In the seminar, students read literature and gave presentations on diverse areas, like the statistical mechanics of crowd dynamics, the fluid dynamics of surface swimmers, bioinspired robotics and the rheology of ant rafts. Biomechanics researchers Professor Anna Ahn (biology) and Professor Dwight Whitaker (physics, Pomona College) gave guest seminars in the course.

In fall 2019, the department piloted a revised approach to Physics 51, the sophomore electricity and magnetism course. The two pilot sections, named Physics 51M, are taught by professors Ann Esin and Nicholas Breznay ’02. The 51M course was designed in consultation with the math department to integrate treatment of topics from mathematics and to complement the half-semester of multivariable and vector calculus included in the mathematics Core. Lectures and

Theresa Lynn and students in a recitation section

problems alternate between the physics of electromagnetism and the vector calculus ideas used to frame that physics in Maxwell’s equations.

Students use Python-based visualization tools to build from vector calculus exposure toward an intuition for vector calculus quantities and the physics they represent.

Professor Tom Donnelly is developing a new elective on climate and energy, slated for spring 2020. The new course (Physics 78) will use Core knowledge as a springboard for studying levers that drive our climate, how human activity interacts with it over time, and ideas to generate energy to meet our needs while reducing our impact on the climate.

-3­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Q. What is on your reading list right now?

A. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

Q-and-A with Prof. Lyzenga

Andrea Wulf.

The Quantum Mechanics course at Harvey Mudd College was a milestone for Gregory Lyzenga ’75. It helped him decide that physics was what he wanted to do. Now the Burton Bettingen Professor of Physics, Lyzenga conducts both theoretical and observational studies of the physical processes that lead to earthquakes and tectonic deformation. He has published extensively in the area of modeling tectonic plate movement and worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the development and interpretation of space-based geodetic techniques. His other research interests include astrobiology, shockwave physics and planetary science, particularly asteroids and small bodies.

He is also an avid amateur astronomer and rocketry enthusiast.

Q. In your opinion, what is the most interesting thing happening in

physics today?

A. That’s a little like asking which of your children is your favorite. I do find that the rapid advance in the discovery and study of exoplanets is particularly interesting right now.

Q. As an amateur astronomer, what have you seen lately in the sky that has amazed you?

A. I frequently observe in conjunction with other astronomers to see stars eclipsed by asteroids and minor planets. By comparing our observations, we can derive detailed profiles of the size and shape of the objects that would otherwise be impossible to learn without a spacecraft flyby. Recently we observed a star eclipsed by the dwarf planet Pluto, and instead of the star winking out abruptly, Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere caused it to fade from view gradually. It was amazing to realize that I was directly observing the atmosphere of tiny Pluto 4 billion miles away with my amateur telescope!

Q. What is something most people wouldn’t know about you?

A. I was once a contestant on the game show Win Ben Stein’s Money.

I’ve been interviewed on several occasions for TV programs about earthquake physics. I also have an asteroid named for me (6010 Lyzenga).

Q. In your study of earthquakes, what fascinates you the most?

A. I’m fascinated by the tremendous range of scales involved in earthquakes. Time scales ranging from a fraction of a second to tens of thousands of years are involved, and size scales ranging from the size of your hand to the size of a continent. The scope of the problem is very sobering.

Q. What would you be if you were not an HMC physics professor?

A. I applied twice to be an astronaut and, as a child, wanted to be a

Q. What research are you following (besides your own)?

A. I try to keep up to date on the latest research on the Moon and

professional baseball player.

Mars, even though they’re not strictly in my area of professional research these days.

Promoting Research and Education with ANSEF

By Vatche Sahakian

Since 2000, I’ve been a member of an organization called the Armenian National Science and Education Fund (ANSEF; ansef.org), first as a founding board member then as a board co-chair. ANSEF was founded in 2000 in New York City as a funding agency for the sciences, engineering, the humanities and the social sciences for scholars living in the then new Republic of Armenia. The organization was modeled

Vatche Sahakian at the Geghard Monastery in Goght, Kotayk Province, Armenia

on the American National Science Foundation, relying on a peerreview system to evaluate research proposals presented by scholars in Armenia. Our referee pool includes Nobel laureates and other accomplished scientists and researchers from across the world.

During Soviet times, Armenia served as a beacon for scientists across the Soviet Union who sought refuge in the country’s academic institutions. The Yerevan Physics Institute, for example, hosted more than 1,000 physicists, and the country produced the second largest number of publications per capita in the world after Switzerland.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the academic institutions were decimated, and the goal of ANSEF was to extend financial support to scholars who were otherwise forced to leave their professions and/or the country. Over the past 20 years, ANSEF has provided $2.5 million in research grants and has helped limit the brain drain from the region.

In more recent years, as the economy of the young republic has turned around and, correspondingly, the needs have shifted, ANSEF is focusing on educational and curricular programs. New projects on the horizon include small ones like science buses to inspire kids in remote parts of the country, the organization of international summer schools in the country and larger plans for the creation of an Institute of Advanced Studies in the capital, Yerevan.

All this work is close to my heart as it straddles many of the areas I care most about, from the spread of research in the fundamental sciences across borders, to education and the importance of pedagogy from the classroom to the research realm.

-4­

Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Shuve Digs into Dark Matter Brian Shuve, assistant professor of physics and 2019 Outstanding Faculty Award recipient, received a National Science Foundation grant entitled “Uncovering the Particle Nature of Hidden Sectors.”

This grant supports Shuve’s research into “hidden sectors,” which are hypothesized but as-yet-undiscovered particles that feel their own “hidden” forces but interact very feebly with the known Standard Model particles such as electrons and quarks. These new hidden particles can resolve a host of outstanding problems with the current Standard Model, including identifying the nature and properties of dark matter, and understanding why there exists more matter than antimatter in the universe.

His research makes progress in two directions: by understanding how hidden sectors could account for the unsolved We’re at a turning point in problems in our current theory, and then particle physics, where we’re using experiments to confirm or exclude really blowing open our ideas the existence of these new particles. With about what dark matter could collaborators at Williams College, TUM, as be. well as students Matthew Fox ’20, Ina Flood ’20 and Jane Schlesinger ’21, Shuve is developing new theories for how hidden particles can preferentially interact with matter instead of antimatter, and studying how these processes could lead to an excess of matter right after the Big Bang.

With collaborators at Fermilab and students Ngan Nguyen PIT ’21 and Mason Acevedo ’22, Shuve is analyzing old data and simulating how these new particles could be produced at high-energy colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the Belle II experiment in Japan, providing concrete experimental tests for theories of hidden sectors.

“We’re at a turning point in particle physics, where we’re really blowing open our ideas about what dark matter could be, and how it could be hiding in existing data,” he says.

“

Martinez Earns Research Awards Luis Martinez ’19, received the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award for his exemplary undergraduate research presented during a poster session at the 233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle in January. Martinez was recognized for his research in astrophysics with Jorge Moreno, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Pomona College.

Martinez’s research, “What Lights up a Galaxy Bridge,” focuses on simulating galaxy mergers to gain a better understanding of star formation in galaxy bridges.

He started the research project during summer 2018 at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and received a SACNAS Student Presentation Award in November 2018. He and Moreno are continuing their work and anticipate publishing their research soon.

“We are looking at galaxies and how they merge, but we’re not doing observations, we’re doing computational simulations of merging galaxies, so we’re using large-scale realistic simulations,” Martinez says. “In order to do this, I developed an algorithm that would go through the simulation and identify a bridge. Once I did that, I was able to apply the algorithm that I developed to the 27 different simulations.”

-5­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Mudd Prize Winner Enjoys Sabbatical While away on a yearlong sabbatical in the Algarve (southern Portugal), Tom Donnelly learned that he had received the 2019 Henry T. Mudd Prize, an award that recognizes extraordinary service. He says he’ll use half of the $6,000 award to establish an informal faculty gathering, like a weekly happy hour. Such a gesture is one of the reasons nominators selected Donnelly for the award. He is lauded for “mentoring and advocating for junior faculty, epitomizing selfless dedication to Harvey Mudd College [and] being a true citizen of the community.”

During his sabbatical, he collaborated with a scientist at the University of the Algarve, who is developing optical sensors to measure sugar content in fruit. Donnelly says this could have applications in medicine, particularly in helping measure Type 1 diabetes patients’ blood sugar levels.

“It’s a very challenging problem to take blood sugar measurements remotely without needing finger sticks, but if you could get a handheld device that could do sort of an external monitoring of blood sugar levels, you would go a long way toward helping those with diabetes,” Donnelly says.

Mostly, Donnelly spent the year learning about climate science and has developed a course he will teach in 2020 called Climate and Energy. The course is for students who have completed the Core (courses in math, physics, chemistry, biology and engineering) and who are interested in understanding the science that underlies the dynamics of climate and the implementation of carbonfree energy resources.

Upon his return to campus in fall 2019, Donnelly, a faculty member since 1997, stepped into the role of chair of the faculty after having served as associate dean of the faculty and Core Curriculum director. He says, “My various administrative roles at the College have given me the chance to work with some incredible faculty members.”

AABOG Awards Lifetime Recognition Outstanding Alumni The Outstanding Alumni annual award is given from alumni to alumni and recognizes those who have greatly impacted Harvey Mudd College as well as their service to society. This year, four physics alumni were among those honored with this award during the College’s annual Alumni Weekend festivities.

John Armstrong ’69

Eric Fullerton ’84

Roger T. Howe ’79

Jennifer Switkes ’94

Innovative research physicist John Armstrong ’69 became an expert in gravitational wave detectors, radio science, wave propagation in random media and time series analysis.

Armstrong was named a JPL Henry G. Booker Fellow in 1981, and his work at the NASA Jet propulsion Laboratory has earned five NASA technology awards. He also worked on the Galileo spacecraft, the Mars Observer/Global Surveyor and the Cassini Spacecraft.

Eric Fullerton ’84 focuses his studies in the areas of magnetic recording and nanotechnologies, thin film growth and X-ray and neutron scattering. Fullerton was awarded the American Institute of Physics Prize for Industrial Applications of Physics in 2012 for his research on data storage. His work has allowed significant growth in storage densities in hard disk drives and new opportunities in magnetic memories. Fullerton is currently a professor and director at the Center for Memory and Recording Research, University of California, San Diego, and serves as a professor of computer science and engineering and nanoengineering in the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering.

Accomplished researcher and professor Roger T. Howe ’79 develops microfabrication technologies, devices and microelectromechanical systems. He is a pioneer in the field of microelectromechanical systems and was recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1998) with the Cledo Brunetti Award and Bosch Award (2015). His current research is focused on nanoelectromechanical systems with applications for biochemical sensors and energy conversion devices.

Jennifer Switkes ’94 is an advocate of education for the underserved. Switkes began her teaching career through Teach for Pomona, a local program that brings STEM education to low-income communities. Since then, she has taught community college and university students as well as prisoners in Uganda through her volunteer work at Prison Education Project, a program that helps inmates earn their GED. In 2015, she received the INSIGHT Into Diversity 100 Inspiring Women in STEM Award and Cal Poly Pomona Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

-6­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

The Lifetime Recognition Awards honor outstanding dedication to Harvey Mudd College over many years. This year, two physics alumni were among those honored with this award.

Bruce Worster ’64 Sontag hasRick been a ’64 member of the HMC Board of Trustees since 1998, served several terms on the HMC Alumni Board of Governors and was an Outstanding Alumnus in 2009.

Worster and his wife established the Susan and Bruce Worster Professorship in Physics and have supported several capital projects and scholarships, including the Class of ’64 Endowed Scholarship.

Rick Sontag ’64 is a longtime supporter of the College, an emeritus member of the HMC Board of Trustees (1989–2011) and a 2009 Outstanding Alumnus. Sontag and his wife, Susan POM ’64, funded the construction of the first building on the HMC campus to be named after an alumnus (Frederick and Susan Sontag Residence Hall). They also funded the construction of Sontag Hall at Pomona College and recently established the Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity (The Hive), a resource all of The Claremont Colleges are able to utilize.

Department Awards Graydon and Louise Bell Prize Created in 1999, this prize honors the first member of the HMC physics department and his wife. It is awarded at the start of the fall semester to a senior physics major for outstanding scholarship, creativity and service.

Harry Fetsch ’20 has combined excellent academic performance with an extraordinary depth of service throughout his HMC career. He has served since his junior year as an AE tutor for physics and is a Sontag Dorm president.

He also served with great dedication as Judiciary Board Chair during the 2018–2019 academic year. Harry is doing his senior thesis research with Professor Tom Donnelly.

Rojansky Writing Award This award is named for Vladimir (Ro) Rojansky, who came to the College as an emeritus professor after retiring from Union College. Following his death, his wife, Milla, helped create the Rojansky Award to recognize his work in quantum mechanics and his clear and concise writing. The award recognizes the outstanding term paper in the sophomore quantum mechanics course, Physics 52.

Anna Barth ’21 explained quantum random walks and their applications to quantum computing in her paper titled “Take a Quantum Walk on the Wild Side: Coined Quantum Walks and Quantum Algorithms.” Her paper provides simple examples to illustrate how a quantum walk uses interference to explore a space more quickly than a classical random walk and how this can be used to accomplish a more efficient search on the vertices of a graph.

John and Ellen Townsend Award Given to the outstanding physics major in Physics 116 in honor of John’s service to the department and his dedication to the teaching of quantum mechanics.

Alfred B. Focke Award Al Focke was the first chair of the physics department, joining the College in 1959. The Focke Award celebrates excellence in experimental physics research and is given to the graduating senior who, in the opinion of the physics faculty, has done the most noteworthy piece of experimental research as a senior project.

Cameron Gray ’22 was recognized this year for his outstanding written work and class participation. Cameron had an unusual physics background coming into Harvey Mudd and was able to excel at upperlevel courses in his first year.

Thomas B. Brown Memorial Award Tom Brown taught physics at HMC from 1958 until his death in 1962. The Brown Award was established after his death by his friends and colleagues in the department. It is awarded for senior research in physics: for research results, originality in conception or in execution of research, diligence and clarity of oral and written reports.

The Mindlin Prize Established in 1991 by Katherine and Lee Reinleitner ’76, the prize honors exceptional student papers that demonstrate the best innovative thinking in biology, chemistry, or physics. It memorializes and honors Mrs. Reinleitner’s father and his two brothers, sons of poor Russian immigrants, who had significant careers in engineering, physics and medicine.

Colin Mackenzie Adams ’19 received both the Brown Award and the Mindlin Prize for senior thesis research conducted in collaboration with the Physics and Chemistry of Materials group in the theoretical division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked for two summers. Colin’s thesis extended his summer work to develop atomic potentials for large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. His work was supervised by Ed Kober of Los Alamos, with on-campus consultation from Prof. Nicholas Breznay ’02 and Prof. Mary Van Vleet ’12 (chemistry). Colin used vector spherical harmonics to develop new tools that will enable better and faster MD simulations of a variety of phenomena. He is now a scientist in the Detection and Estimation group at the consulting firm Areté Associates.

Nina Brown ’19 worked in the research group of Professor Sharon Gerbode, continuing a several-year project on the movement of defects and grain boundaries in colloidal crystals. Nina was actively involved in the research leading to the Gerbode group’s 2018 Physical Review Letter on this topic, and Nina extended the project even further in her senior year. She collected and analyzed large data sets on grain boundary movement as a function of boundary curvature and other key parameters, revealing behaviors not described by prior theories.

Nina is now a software development engineer at Seeq Corporation.

Jon A. Wunderlich (’67) Prize This prize was established in 1994 with gifts from the class of 1967 and Jon’s widow. It is awarded to a physics major who has demonstrated remarkable creativity.

Eli Weissler ’19 conducted research in Prof.

Sharon Gerbode’s lab on the grain boundary dynamics of colloidal crystals. He made important contributions to the team’s article published in Physical Review Letters in January 2018. Physics faculty members also applauded him for unusual originality and innovation in final projects for several classes, from theoretical mechanics to quantum information science. Eli is now a scientist at the consulting firm Areté Associates.

-7­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

2019 Summer Research Projects Jessica Arlett, visiting professor, focuses her research on the application of in vivo neurochemical detection. Eleanor Rackoff ’20 assisted Arlett in optimizing chemical coatings for detecting specific targets. High-density sensors are needed to detect as many chemicals as possible on a probe that is small enough to prevent significant damage to the brain of a mouse. Through the use of chemical and physical barriers, the team was able to reduce chemical cross-talk by a factor of 12 for sensors separated by just 20 microns—a breakthrough in the project. Yoo-Jin Hwang ’22 developed the hardware for transferring test measurements in a flow cell environment to in vivo implantation in a mouse. In a collaborative effort, the team assembled a system to mount the probes onto the apparatus currently used for implantation of electrophysiology probes by the Roukes lab at Caltech.

students also refined skills in large-dataset “The analysis, physical modeling and literature reading and high-level iterative problem solving. The goal is to jump-start writing a manuscript on which the students will be named as co-authors.

Professor Nicholas Breznay ’02, Anna Soper ’22, Miguel Velez ’21 and Kewei Zhou ’21 continued an ongoing project at the forefront of experimental materials physics centered on the x-ray properties of a complex material. The team studied and mastered the physics of x-ray and magnetic properties of materials, bottom-up development of a scalable and fast python-based data analysis framework, iterative reduction, fitting and evaluation of several hundred datasets mined from several thousand acquired in an earlier experimental run, summative analysis and quantitative conclusions about materials properties using current theory in the literature. The students also refined skills in large-dataset analysis, physical modeling and literature reading and high-level iterative problem solving. The goal is to jumpstart writing a manuscript on which the students will be named as co-authors.

Nicholas Breznay with Kewei Zhou ’21 and Anna Soper ’22

Profs Brian Shuve and Nicholas Breznay ’02 taking a break with their research students at Silverwood Lake.

Professor Jason Gallicchio worked with three students this summer. Kathryn Chan ’21 focused on calibrating a new type of radio telescope that is looking for a signal from the first stars, which uses low frequency and is composed of antennas fixed to the ground. They started designing a transmitter that will fly on a remote-controlled airplane or quadcopter drone, which Chan built. Yilin Li ’22 made stabilized lasers for atomic physics experiments, building two gratingstabilized laser diodes, an inexpensive optical cavity that can lock one laser’s wavelength to another and electronics to control the temperature of a Rubidium vapor cell that absorbs at exactly one frequency. Chai Karamchedu ’21 took the spectrum of the team’s entangled photons and wrote software to control an old, but extremely accurate, spectrometer.

Richard Haskell, professor emeritus, worked with Katharine Larsen ’21, Ingrid Tsang ’22 and Meenakshi Venkatraman ’20 to explore the feasibility of net-zero-energy (NZE) for Claremont’s 24-acre Village South expansion of its central village area. Achieving NZE means that the renewable energy generated on the parcel matches or exceeds the total energy consumed. A development opportunity like this occurs every 50 to 100 years in the life of a city, so Claremont residents are scrutinizing the plans with great excitement and intense discussion. The team found that a recent California building code goes a long way in requiring NZE for the development, though electrifying the proposed food hall in the historic Vortox industrial building will generate lively debate and persistent lobbying efforts by sustainability­ minded Claremonters!

Ava Sherry ’21 and Helen Chaffee ’22 studied pairs of photons produced with quantum entanglement between them and the aspect of that entanglement called EPR steering, with Professor Theresa Lynn. The team created several different partially-entangled states with the theoretically predicted property of “one-way EPR steering,” in which manipulations of one particle can “steer” the state of the second particle, but not vice versa. Lynn’s group has previously studied one state with this predicted property, and gathered preliminary evidence for one-way steering. They investigated a broader variety of states and found situations in which one-way steering was more robust than Continued, next page

-8 ­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

2019 Summer Research Projects (continued) in the previous single case. The team established a new data analysis method to use in continued studies of this phenomenon.

Athena Li ’21, Eric Chavez ’22 and Professor Peter Saeta investigated hot-spotting in three commercial silicon solar panels exposed to full sun at near-normal incidence. At 50% shading of a single cell, all panels developed hot spots of at least 145°C, one reaching a peak temperature of 187°C (≈369°F). Such high temperatures can cause damage to the encapsulant material surrounding the cells, causing the panel to fail and even spark fires. This mechanism may be responsible for some of the rooftop fires on Walmart stores at issue in a lawsuit against SolarCity/Tesla filed in the New York Supreme Court on Aug. 20 and motivates alternative means of operating photovoltaics to prevent hot-spot formation.

Professor Brian Shuve had four students working primarily in two directions. Mason Acevedo ’22 and Ngan Nguyen PIT ’21 worked to

understand how to test the fundamental forces of nature using highenergy particle colliders. Specifically, the students were studying how a predicted but as-yet-unseen force could appear in particle collisions.

Acevedo worked on proposing strategies that the new Belle II collider experiment in Japan can use to increase their discovery potential, while Nguyen delved into old data from the BaBar experiment to look directly for evidence of the new force. Matthew Fox ’20 and Jane Schlesinger ’21 studied theories that explain why there exists more matter than antimatter in the universe. They performed calculations of matter and antimatter production rates right after the Big Bang and used numerical methods to calculate how much more matter than antimatter their theories predicted. Their work will give a better understanding of how experiments can test models of the matterantimatter asymmetry.

2018-2019 Physics Senior Research and Clinic Projects Theses

Haoxing Du: Mean-field Stochastic Model of Black Hole Evaporation in Matrix Theory Advisor: Vatche Sahakian

Jatin Abacousnac: Search for Axion-Like Particles in Rare B Meson Decays Advisor: Brian Shuve

Guy Geva: Automating the Map Generation and Calibration Procedures for SPT3G Advisor: Jason Gallicchio

Colin M. Adams: Using a Basis of Irreducible Tensors to Develop Geometric Force Fields in Metals Advisors: Nicholas Breznay ’02, Mary Van Vleet ’12, Edward M. Kober

Beili “Nora” Hu: Development and Real-time Characterization of a Polarization-entangled Photon Source Advisor: Jason Gallicchio

Quentin Barth: Swarm Stability: Distinguishing between Clumps and Lattices Advisor: Andrew Bernoff

Nathan H. Pope: Modeling the Spatial and Temporal Variability of Post-seismic Fault Slip Advisor: Gregory Lyzenga ’75

Nina Brown: Experimental Investigation of Grain Dissolution in Two-dimensional Colloidal Polycrystals Advisor: Sharon Gerbode

Thomas Schneider: Tools for Determining the Maximum LELM Distinguishability for High-dimensional Bell Bases Advisor: Theresa Lynn

Adam R. Busis: Entanglement Entropy in Matrix Theory Advisor: Vatche Sahakian

Eli J. Weissler: Investigating Grain Dissolution in Two-dimensional Polycrystals Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations Advisor: Sharon Gerbode Engineering

Clinic Projects

Sandia National Laboratories: Measuring the Permittivity of Ferroelectric Nonoparticles in an Injection Molded Epoxy Composite Team: Deji Andrew, Evie Antholis, Colter Downing, Kai Fukazawa, Ali Khan, Benjamin Lehman, Shruthi Sukir, Meenakshi Ventramen Advisors: Albert Dato Liaisons: Dr. Todd Monson

Computer Science/Physics HRL Laboratories LLC: Using Machine Learning to Automate the Tuning of Electrostatically Defined Quantum Dots Team: Corbin Bethurem, Evan Hubinger, John Jeang, Vivian Phun Advisor: Peter Saeta Liaisons: Seán Meenehan ’08, Emily Pritchett Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: Finding the “Right” Balance for Asymmetric Lipid Bilayers Team: Madison Blumer, Sophia Harris, Mengzhe Li, Luis Martinez, Michael Untereiner Advisor: Peter Saeta Liaisons: Drew Bennett, Tim Carpenter, Helgi Ingólfsson

Engineering/Physics City of Hope: Raman Spectroscopy and Laser Ablation for In-Vivo Cancer Detection and Destruction Team: Morgan Blevins, Daniel Brito, Kira Favakeh, Dominique Mena, Qianti Min, Youkang Shon Advisors: Steven Santana ’06, Jessica Arlett, Dr. Michael StorrieLombardi Liaisons: Dr. Yuman Fong, Dr. Veronica Jones, Ragini Kothari ’18, Dr. Daniel Schmolze

-9­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

A Modern Quest for Quantum Mechanics

Following graduation, Colin Adams ’19 had an idea, and it took him to the Great Wall of China.

By Colin Adams ’19

After I graduated from Mudd in May, I immediately drove home to Colorado to dog sit for my parents. While dog sitting, I decided to visit a few countries in Asia: Taiwan, Indonesia and China.

Colin Adams ’19 and Hoaxing Du ’19 at the Great Wall with the long-sought textbook copy.

In Taiwan, I met up with a few Mudders, Rachel Barcklay ’20 (physics) who was doing some biophysics research and Jonathan Kupfer ’18 (engineering) who taught English in Taipei before starting his graduate studies at Berkeley in the fall. Then, in Indonesia, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of seeing Komodo dragons in the wild and scuba diving with manta rays and sea turtles among some of the healthiest coral in the world. I then headed to China, which is a place I have wanted to visit since I was eight. Lucky for me, I made a few friends during my time at Mudd who live in Shanghai and Beijing.

But did I go to China to visit my friends and explore their wonderful and unique cities? Did I go to China to fulfill my lifelong dreams of seeing the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Great Wall? No. I traveled to Asia for a single, oddly specific reason.

In the physics department, it’s no secret that John Townsend, professor emeritus, has written two excellent quantum mechanics textbooks: A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics, which is intended for more traditional, upper-level John Townsend's A Modern Approach to undergraduate courses, and Quantum Physics: A Fundamental Approach to Quantum Physics: A Fundamental Quantum Mechanics.

Approach to Modern Physics, an initial introduction to quantum mechanics and its applications. There is a long-running joke that you are supposed to travel with your copy of A Modern Approach to unusual places and take a picture with it. Jason Gallicchio, assistant professor of physics, has a picture at the South Pole with his now well-worn copy. Chih-Yung Chen, professor emerita, translated Townsend’s second book, Quantum Physics, into her native Chinese.

I once asked Professor Chen why she didn’t translate both of Townsend’s textbooks. She said Townsend’s introductory textbook had such a unique spin on the subject that it deserved to be shared, whereas plenty of Chinese textbooks fall in the same vein as A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics.

I traveled to China with the goal to find, buy and take a picture with the Townsend–Chen translation at the most iconic place in China.

I started in Shanghai, where I visited a five-story bookstore, and searched five other nearby bookstores, but had no luck. Dejected, I took a five-hour train from Shanghai to Beijing.

When I arrived in Beijing, I was greeted by Haoxing Du ’19 who gave me a tour of her city. Haoxing told me about a seven-story bookstore in Beijing that was 40% larger than Shanghai’s measly five stories. We searched for what felt like hours, but couldn’t find the book.

Next, we took the metro to China’s National Library. As expected, the National Library had it! Except there was a caveat: we had to make an appointment to see it. Feeling defeated, we left. I complained to Beili “Nora” Hu ’19 about our struggles, and being the bright millennial that she is, she checked Amazon and found that it is sold out in China. My heart sank.

If Amazon doesn’t have it, why would anyone? But Nora found it on Taobao (China’s Amazon knockoff)! So we ordered it.

The last day of my trip, Townsend–Chen translation now in hand, Haoxing and I took a three-hour bus ride to the Jinshanling portion of the Great Wall. As soon as we set foot on the wall, Haoxing rolled her ankle. Undeterred, we then hiked six kilometers (3.7 miles) in 36°C heat (97°F) for three hours along the Great Wall where we stopped to take a goofy picture every time I thought we found a more I traveled to China with the perfect location for goal to find, buy and take a a photo opportunity. picture with the Townsend– At one point along Chen translation at the most our hike, a pair of Chinese students iconic place in China. asked why we were carrying a quantum mechanics textbook around. Haoxing answered. I don’t think they quite understood because one replied in English, “Your Professor [is] crazy!”

And, voilà, we succeeded!

Looking forward, I now have a new, oddly specific goal: get emeriti professors Townsend and Chen to sign my Chinese copy. Wish me luck.­

“

-10 ­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Physics Alumni News Eric I. Thorsos ’65 I “retired” in 2010 but continue to work part time at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory. I just began another three-year research project supported by the Office of Naval Research.

In recent years my wife, Terry, and I have visited China several times for meetings and collaborations with Chinese investigators.

We’ve had our remote, water-access cabin in B.C., Canada, here for 51 years now and try to make two or three trips here each summer from our home near Seattle.

Gary Seeger ’66 I am still working as the vice president of quality assurance and regulatory affairs at Stellartech Research Corporation in Milpitas, California. I umpire Little League baseball at all age levels. I continue to be OCD regarding exercise, specifically running, hiking and weights.

Steve Barker ’67 PhD in aero engineering from Caltech, 1974. Then a tenured prof at UCLA. Left that and went to medical school; M.D. in 1981.

Anesthesiologist for 35 years. Now clinically retired, consulting for biotechnology industry. Combining my two backgrounds of aeronautics and anesthesia, and still teaching in both fields. My favorite lecture: “Flying the Anesthesia Machine.”

1970s

patents for their inventions. I live in the Boston area, and I have three grown children. I sing baritone in a barbershop quartet.

Andrew Bernat ’70, P99 I earned a PhD in astronomy and was a practicing astronomer for six years. Moved to computer science and was a professor for 20 years with the last two as a rotator at NSF. I then became the executive director of the Computing Research Association in D.C., which looks after the health of the computing research ecosystem. My son graduated from HMC in computer science.

Bruce I. Cohen ’70 Still working part-time for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Finished word processing and editing a book Theoretical Plasma Physics by Allan N. Kaufman and myself) of which a free download is available). It’s based on UC Berkeley Professor (retired) Allan Kaufman’s lecture notes on graduate plasma theory.

Gene Emery Ice ’72 Now that I am retired, I have been riding a tandem bicycle with my wife of 40 years, Rosalyn. I also published my first science fiction novel, Music World: And the Prophets of Nebry.

Bob Kelley ’67 Just returned from lecturing in Cameroon to regulators responsible for weapons of mass destruction in the Atlantic Facade of the EU CBRN Centers of Excellence.

Michael Harwood ’68 Retired ophthalmologist. Attended 50-year reunion in 2018.

Tom Brengle ’74 Anita and I recently celebrated our 45th anniversary and are enjoying our eighth year of retirement in Eagle, Idaho, where we keep ourselves busy with family, hobbies and a number of volunteering and community activities. Life is good.

Doug Burum ’74 I am a patent agent working in New Hampshire, where I help individual inventors and small to mid-sized companies obtain

- 11 ­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

George Conner ’74 Retired from Electronics Engineering at Teradyne last June after 40 years and am currently cruising on my sailboat in French Polynesia. Crossed the Pacific from Mexico.

If you haven’t looked, there is a whole lot of water between Puerto Vallarta and the Marquesas. Right now we are near Bora Bora. Will probably wind up in New Zealand eventually.

Timothy O’Donnell ’74 National Semiconductor, US2 and then ARM. I was president of ARM Inc. and established the U.S.-based operation of ARM in 1991 until retiring in 2002. I was responsible for worldwide sales and business development for the corporation.

While at ARM, the company grew from a small startup to a company with a significant impact on the industry, through an IPO and reaching a market capitalization of $10 billion. Today, ARM-based chips are used in cell phones, tablets, smart TVs, automobiles, IOT devices and many others. There have been more than 150 billion ARM-based chips shipped to date.

Frank Valdes ’74 I am an astronomer with 37 years at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

Currently, I am involved in a major imaging survey of more than half the sky and in finding thousands of asteroids, from near Earth to beyond Neptune. I also provide data and science software to astronomers around the world.

Alumni News (continued)

Bradley Bobbs ’75 Working on developing non-contact ultrasound using one laser to generate the ultrasound and another laser to detect the internally reflected ultrasound. Not useful on people (ouch!) but very useful for quality monitoring of metal parts during their manufacture, since there’s no need to mount conventional ultrasound contacts onto hot, moving, vibrating parts with complicated, changing shapes

Jonathan Mersel ’75 After four years of graduate work in physics, I spent the next 32 years as an industrial physicist doing classical electrodynamics, read Stealth. After retiring eight years ago, I picked up a part time teaching gig as an adjunct professor of physics at Mt. San Antonio College. I have also spent about two decades serving on HMC’s Alumni Association Board of Governors (AABOG).

As past AABOG president, I served on HMC’s Board of Trustees for four years. My wife, Marion Peters, and I now spend some of our retirement traveling around the world, reading, performing in play readings and generally enjoying life.

Joe Shanks ’79 Try to keep up with basic science (CRISPR, LIGO,...) but just passed 30 years in aerospace/defense. Now lead a small San Diego office for Raytheon, focusing on atmospheric effects, modeling and simulation and algorithm development for space sensors. Advances in EO hardware and processing keep it interesting!

1980s

Mala Arthur ’82 I am managing a makerspace on the campus of Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California. The makerspace has grown from nothing to over 1,500 members in less than two years and includes Mt. SAC students, faculty, staff, administrators and our community members from all over. Come by for a tour when you are in the area! Open evenings and most Saturdays except in July and August.

Stan Love ’87 I’m designing cockpit displays and controls for NASA’s upcoming Orion spacecraft! It’s not exactly physics … but it’s a very interesting combination of human perception, cognition and physical capabilities.

Laurel & Doug Pollard ’89 Now that we are empty nesters, Doug and I have started a 3-D printing company, Pollard 3D Prints. We sell earrings and magnets at our local farmers market. Tagline: Made with math, code and a 3-D printer.

1990s

Doug Dunston ’90 Work: I design and lead workshops for the engineering faculty at University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, helping them develop engineering students who are great listeners. Sue and I fly our two-seater experimental airplane, an RV-9A that we bought in 2012, over the colorful terrain of New Mexico, where we live. The photo is aimed towards Mount Taylor in the distance, looking to the southwest past mesas and volcanic plugs.

Bryan Marten ’90 Got my B.S. in chemical physics then PhD from Columbia University in physical chemistry in ’95. Worked in Big Pharma in New Jersey for a few years doing structurebased drug design with computer modeling of drug-receptor interactions to shut down a protease enzyme in Hepatitis C virus.

Switched careers to public high school science teacher! Met my wife, Valerie, at Columbia while playing viola. We currently live in East Bay, California.

Jack In-Jay Houng ’92 Happily married with two children, I am currently teaching English to Chinese. I also teach astronomy and nature photography at a rural high school in central Taiwan. I enjoy outdoor photography from time to time either with my trusty iPhone or with a more professional DSLR while on field trips with family. I have also started writing some op pieces for magazines to help foster STEM literacy in Taiwan. My various works can be seen online.

Betty (Edwards) Johnson ’78 Last year, I celebrated my 40th anniversary as a geophysicist with Chevron. I am currently leader of our basin framework technology team; we develop and deploy technologies to assist Chevron explore basins for oil and gas throughout the world.

Randall Spangler ’92 In June this year, along with co-authors, I I’ve been studying the behavior of gases was awarded my first U.S. patent, and we at higher pressures, and optics in liquids. have a few more in development. I return In other words, teaching scuba diving and to campus a few times a year in my service underwater photography. Last year I spent on the AABOG. I also recently served on 142 hours underwater. In between dives, I the Centennial Steering Committee Harvey for the Mudd College | 301 Platt Boulevard | Claremont, CA 91711 | hmc.edu develop security firmware for Chromebooks American Geophysical Union. at Google.

-12 ­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Alumni News (continued)

Chuck Bean ’93 I’ve been teaching physics at a public Las Vegas high school, coaching Science Bowl and NAQT quiz teams to local championships and getting my son ready to enter HMC’s class of ’24.

Tom Hsieh ’93 Working on the revitalization of the City of Pomona. Helped orchestrate a political transformation in the city as volunteer campaign manager for the new mayor, also helped three new council members get elected. Started a few nonprofits and serve on the board of trustees for CGU. Currently working on new startup as co-founder of FLOAT, a commuter airline.

Greg James ’95 After a brief stint as a research assistant at Stanford and years of fun with GPUs and graphics software, I’m now doing EE, food trucks and sustainable packaging at Zume.

One day, if I’m lucky, I’ll get back to my side project, Visual6502.org. If you’re ever passing through Silicon Valley, look me up!

Karen Shell ’96 I’ve been running the climate science undergrad program in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University for the past few years. We’re in the process of creating a climate science major, which will be one of the first climate bachelor of science degrees in the country.

2000s

Jonathan Hakim ’01 My wife, Rose Hakim ’04, and I live in a slum in India. I manage literacy programs for unschooled adults and children in our slum, the broader city, and across the country.

Rosey counsels at and provides support for a safe home for trafficked girls. Our baby, Sophia, is now 10 months old and our foster daughter, Chhaya, just completed a hotel management course.

Elizabeth Schoene ’01 For the past six years, I have been teaching full-time at South Seattle College, and I love it! I work with many amazing students in small introductory classes, which has

allowed me to implement a wide variety of active learning strategies. Helping students experience the intrigue of physics and the power of teamwork and learn to persist through challenge is incredible. Though most students want to become engineers or computer scientists, I have helped some catch the physics bug and see the opportunities in physics and convinced them to switch majors!

Austin Brown ’02 After grad school I got into energy, transportation and climate tech and policy.

I moved to Washington D.C. to work at the Department of Energy and spent 2015–2017 in the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In 2017, I moved back to California and am now at the University of California, Davis, where I direct our Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy helping connect research to public policy. It feels pretty far afield from physics in a lot of ways, but in other ways is still just the same process of learning and adapting. My primary work aim is to help fight climate change in a way that also makes access to energy and transportation services more equitable.

Aurora Burd ’05 Finished PhD in geophysics at the University of Washington in 2013 and received tenure in 2018 at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California, where I am the main geology instructor. During summer 2019, taught Earth Science 101 (including lab) to inmates inside the maximum-security California State Prison Los Angeles County in Lancaster, California. This is the first time a lab science has been taught inside this facility. I live with my husband, Leo, where we enjoy listening to and playing both classical music and Irish traditional music.

Andrew Wetzel ’05 Since 2017, Husband and wife Andrew Wetzel and Whitney Duim ’05 (chemistry) have been faculty at the University of California, Davis. Andrew is an assistant professor in physics, pursuing research in theoretical/computational astrophysics, using the country’s most powerful supercomputers to computationally model how the Milky Way galaxy formed. Whitney is a lecturer and researcher in chemistry, having previously spent two years as a visiting professor in chemistry at Harvey Mudd. She continues her research applying high-resolution fluorescence microscopy to understanding biological systems. Their son, Felix, is now 2 years old.

2010s

Hong Sio ’11 I completed my PhD in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018 and am a postdoctoral experimental

- 13 ­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Laura Maguire ’13 In May, I completed my PhD in biophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. I plan to work in biotech.

Fangzhao An ’14 Since Mudd, I’ve spent the last five years doing cold atom research: building a BoseEinstein experiment from scratch and using it to model all sorts of cool lattice models from condensed matter physics. Recently, I got the chance to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, spending a week in southern Germany mingling with 30 Nobel Laureates and young scientists from around the world. Best of all, I got to meet and talk with some of my personal heroes, like Dave Wineland, Steve Chu and Bill Phillips (pictured!).

Anthony Corso ’14 I am a PhD candidate in the aeronautics and astronautics department at Stanford University.

I am a member of the Center for AI Safety, where I work on techniques for verification and validation of safety critical autonomous systems including autonomous vehicles and aircraft collision avoidance systems.

Brett Mills ’14 After spending the last three years as a data scientist at Microsoft, I just finished the first of two years of getting my MBA at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

This summer, I am combining my background in physics with my business school training. I am a product management intern at a 5G communication hardware startup called Pivotal Commware.

Alumni News (continued)

Tasha Arvanitis ’15 After Mudd, I headed to New York City for my dream job, a computational chemistry gig combining computer science and physics. I also learned that sitting at a desk all day is not exactly my thing. So I did what any logical person would: I quit my job, moved to Alaska and became a kayak guide!

My studies at Mudd gave me a qualitative intuition for how the natural world works, which has served me well in planning around currents and tides as well as interpreting glaciology, oceanography and geology. I can be found in Anacortes, Washington.

the prediction still obeys the laws of physics that we know and love. Most importantly, I’m being reminded of the reasons that I ended up in physics: physics is still the only thing that I love too much to live without. Some time early last year, Sierra Jubin, a Williams grad, and I officially started a Women in Plasma Physics chapter at Princeton.

tools specific to our needs and classify our data with machine learning. It has been interesting navigating my way through situations that come up when you’re the only woman at the company. On another note, it’s been awesome living in the Bay with so many other Mudders around to hang out with!

Yvonne Ban ’17 I’m a second-year PhD student at UMass Amherst, and my first research project is modelling the lumped element kinetic inductance detectors (LeKIDs) in the TolTEC camera that’s soon to be installed at the Large Millimeter Telescope. TolTEC has three arrays of detectors observing in wavelengths of 1.1mm, 1.4mm, and 2.1mm, comprising over 7,000 detectors, all fabricated using a TiN/Ti/TiN trilayer material which exhibits unusual properties when in the superconducting regime.

Adam Shaw ’18 Since graduation, I’ve been hard at work in the physics department at Caltech, doing research under Professor Manuel Endres on neutral-atom quantum simulation platforms.

With our single atom precision, we can perform state resolved control over the individual motional and electronic degrees of freedom across the entire ensemble, which we hope will lead to new prospects in atomic clocks, quantum simulation and quantum computation. When I’m not in the lab spouting buzzwords, I’m crashing Mudd parties as a sketchy alum, watching many, many, many movies and musicals and generally trying to be as much of a hooligan as possible.

Hannah Knaack ’17 I’m pursuing my PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and working on trapped ion quantum computing at NIST. Also skiing, hiking and climbing as much as I can!

Paul Jerger ’15 Paul is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, studying in the group of Prof.

David Awschalom. His wife, Emily ’17 (engineering), is a project manager at the nonprofit MxD, The Digital Manufacturing Institute, where she leads collaborative research endeavors at the intersection of industry and academia. MxD aims to improve the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing through the use of digital technologies. Her recent project members have included Dow, Raytheon, Microsoft and Coca-Cola. They recently celebrated their one-year anniversary.

Lennart Rudolph ’16 A few months ago, I graduated from Georgia Tech with a master’s degree in computer science, and I have been working as a software developer for an idea market startup.

Laura (Xin) Zhang ’16 I’m a graduate student at Princeton Plasma Physics, grinding away toward my PhD. After three years in grad school I decided I needed a palate cleanser, so now I’m doing a summer internship at Siemens Corporate Technology. I’m working on the intersection of artificial intelligence and physics, mainly on using AI to help us predict the future of physical systems, while making sure that

Maya Martirossyan ’17 Since graduating, I took a gap year and spent time doing REU/internship programs at the National Institute of Materials Science in Japan and at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado and worked as a teaching assistant at the American University of Armenia. I am finishing up my first year as a PhD student in materials science at Cornell. I was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to study growth of complex crystal structures via molecular dynamics simulations.

Josh Tawabutr ’17 I am still pursuing a PhD in physics at Ohio State University. I work on QCD with Yuri Kovchegov, specifically on the proton spin problem.

Jonathan Ueki ’17 Software engineer at Facebook.

Carla Becker ’18 I’ve spent my year since graduation working at KeraCel Inc., a solid state battery startup which aims to produce safer, higher energy density and cheaper batteries via 3-D printing allowing us to build batteries of any shape and size. I started as a materials engineer but have now also taken on a project management role collaborating with a third party company to digitize all of our data-taking, develop data visualization

-14 ­ Harvey Mudd College Physics Highlights 2019

Your News Matters Thank you for your enthusiastic response to the physics department’s request for alumni news. We’ll be in touch each summer by email, or you can send updates at any time to arauchfuss@g.hmc.edu.