In 2003, I graduated from Ohio Northern University with a B.S. in
physics and chemistry. While there, I did research in the group of
Jeffrey Gray on laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy of free
radicals. I also held, among other appointments, a summer position in
the group of Terry Miller at the Ohio State University in which I made
dispersed fluorescence spectroscopy measurements of molecules.
During my time at MIT, I became interested in quantum simulation,
which is the use of one quantum-mechanical system to simulate another
quantum system that is more difficult to control. Working within the
group of Isaac Chuang, I focused on two questions: first, how much
precision may be obtained using this approach, and second, how might a
large quantum simulator be built from small (but imperfect)
components? I addressed the first question by implementing a quantum
simulation in a nuclear spin system, and the second by exploring new
methods in ion trapping. These methods include a lattice ion trap, a
surface-electrode elliptical ion trap, and the coupling of ions in
individual traps over conducting wires. The last of these afforded me
the opportunity to collaborate with the group of Hartmut Haeffner and
Rainer Blatt in Innsbruck, Austria.
Having defended my Ph.D. thesis in March 2009, I am looking forward to
joining the atom slowing and cooling efforts of Mark Raizen’s group at
the University of Texas at Austin as a postdoctoral fellow.