What year are you in?
I am finishing my fourth year.

What group are you in?
Prof. Mike Lisa’s group

Where are you from?
Wuhan, China

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
I work at the STAR experiment at RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider). The primary physics task of STAR is to study the formation and characteristics of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of matter believed to exist at sufficiently high energy densities. For my research, I am measuring an observable called the anisotropic flow (usually denoted by 𝑣_𝑛) with the √𝑠_𝑁𝑁=27 GeV Au+Au collision data taken from 2018. 𝑣_𝑛 characterizes the anisotropy of the azimuthal particle distributions in the heavy-ion collision and it can provide unique constraints on the initial conditions and the dynamical evolution of the QGP. Our group is also actively involved in the STAR upgrade, so I had a few chances to go to the Brookhaven National Lab to work on the installation and calibration of the Event Plane Detector (EPD).

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
Passing the second candidacy after failing the first one. It was frustrating and stressful but it also gave me the chance to reflect on my working style and the way I deal with pressure. I am proud that I learnt from the “failure” and became stronger and more confident. Also, during that time, I had great support from many people and being able to work with them is another thing that I am proud of.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
I started to work out regularly about 2 years ago and I am fitter now compared to myself two years ago.

What are your future goals?
I don’t have a concrete plan for the long run yet. But for now I want to focus on my research and keep exploring what I want to do after graduation.

What year are you in?
6th Year and Successfully defended my dissertation on Feb 26.

What group are you in?
High Energy Astroparticle Physics with James Beatty as my advisor.

Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Miami, FL. My family is from Nicaragua

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
I study Cosmic Rays between the energy of 3 – 100 PeV using data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Cosmic rays are nuclei that were discovered in 1912 and a century later we are still learning about them such as their origin, propagation, and mass composition. For the energy I’m looking at, cosmic rays are fairly rare so we use surface detectors to detect extensive air showers (EAS) initiated by a cosmic ray interacting with our atmosphere. For my research, I use methods such as signal processing, and machine learning methods to extract parameters describing EAS. This includes the energy and maximum depth (Xmax) which when used together are sensitive to the mass composition.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
During my time here at OSU, I was most proud of contributing to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory where I helped maintain and develop code for the software used for analysis and simulations. I implemented code that would help address cable shadow in simulations. I am also proud of a model I developed that reconstructed the Xmax and energy of cosmic rays which had not been done at IceCube before.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
Outside of physics, I am most proud of my contributions to the ASPIRE program that was founded and organized by CCAPP and Dr. Amy Connolly. ASPIRE is a summer camp program for high school girls between 10th and 12th grade. I participated as a volunteer and organizer. I was grateful for the opportunity to shape the minds of tomorrow and introducing students to real research environments.

What are your future goals?
I am happy to say that I have taken a position at the Bank of America as a Data Scientist – Assistant Vice President where I will be working on state-of-the-art models for Automatic Speech Recognition. This is a dream come true and I will be relocating to Charlotte, NC later this year.

What year are you in?
I’m in my fourth year.

What group are you in?
Prof. Mohit Randeria.

Where are you from?
Bhopal, India.

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
My research lies in theoretical condensed-matter physics, at the intersection of topology, superconductivity, and strong correlations. I study model systems to gain insight that can potentially be relevant for quantum materials and future technologies. Over the last few years, I have worked on flat-band superconductivity and strange-metal transport in twisted bilayer graphene. Somewhat recently, I have started working on magnetism. I’m exploring the interplay of spin-orbit-induced Berry curvature and chiral magnetic textures in heavy metal/magnetic insulator bilayer systems.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
A couple of years back, we derived an intrinsic upper bound on superconducting Tc in 2D, Tc/Tf < 1/8, where Tf is the Fermi temperature. The bound has now been seen experimentally. In two different materials, two independent groups have found the maximum Tc/Tf to be 0.1 and 0.12. Looking back, the time I spent on fixing factors of 2 was probably all worth it!

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
I am a novice mountain biker. Last Fall, I completed the Alum Creek trail under an hour.

What are your future goals?
My long-term goal is to be in academia.

What year are you in?
I’m in my 4^th year.

What group are you in?
Dr. Enam Chowdhury

Where are you from?
Granger, Indiana (near South Bend and Notre Dame, IN)

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
My work is in the field of nonlinear optics where I study the interaction of mid-infrared lasers with various solids. At high enough intensities, light of one frequency can be converted to other frequencies as it propagates through a material. Specifically, I study two kinds of phenomena: (1) harmonic generation, where the frequency can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc… and (2) supercontinuum generation, where a broad, continuous range of frequencies around the initial frequency are created. This research ties into the development of “light infrastructure.” Since you can’t always design a laser at the frequency or frequencies you need, you have to resort to using processes like harmonic or supercontinuum generation to create the light you need for your application (e.g. spectroscopy or imaging).

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
I’ve had the opportunity to work at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Dayton, OH. My research into supercontinuum generation stemmed from some work that I had to take over and continue when one of the researchers moved to a different lab. Handling the transition while a new researcher was hired provided me with valuable management and leadership experience.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
My senior year as an undergraduate, I wrote a radio western that was broadcasted on-air for my school’s new college radio station. It was a student production in which I participated in the casting and recording. Something that writers rarely get to do for their own work.

What are your future goals?
GRADUATE!! Need I say more?

What year are you in?
I am in my third year.

What group are you in?
Prof. Chris Hirata’s group.

Where are you from?
Beijing, China.

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
My research focuses on various topics in cosmology including lensing and large-scale structure of the universe, the epoch of reionization and the Cosmic Microwave Background. In short, they all relate to how the universe evolve from the beginning to what we are seeing on the sky today. I am trying my best to describe this evolution process with mathematical and numerical models.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
I am proud to collaborate with lots of world-class scholars in the field and make some publications along the way. It is a great pleasure to interact with them at different academic stages.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
Photography has been part of my life for a long time. My photo works were put on display during my undergrad commencement which is something that always made me proud.

What are your future goals?
In the future I would like to contribute to the scientific community as much as I could. My short-term goal would be looking for a postdoctoral position.

What year are you in?
I am in my 6th year.

What group are you in?
I am a member of Professor Dongping Zhong’s group.

Where are you from?
I lived in Los Angeles, California before coming to OSU.

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
My research is at the intersection of biochemistry, femtosecond spectroscopy, and computation to understand how water interacts with the surface of proteins. The system I am currently studying is GroEL, a large nanomachine that encapsulates substrate proteins to either assist in folding or prevent aggregation. The mechanism by which GroEL performs this function is unknown and I am working to determine if there is evidence of the mechanism being mediated by a protein-water interaction.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
I am most proud of the mentorship I have provided for other graduate students in my group and building a transparent and reproducible data analysis system for our group.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
I am proud of working as a Precinct Election Official in the 2020 election.

What are your future goals?
Professionally, I plan to work in industry as a Data Scientist once I graduate. I also hope to continue working to improve the transparency and reproducibility of science.

What year are you in?
I’m in my 5th year.

What group are you in?
​I’m a part of Annika Peter’s research group.

Where are you from?
I was born in Quito, Ecuador and raised between Quito and Miami, FL.

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
I study dwarf galaxies and their satellite systems to try to understand how these systems formed and evolved through time. By digging through big data sets from suveys such as the COSMOS survey and the Dark Energy Survey (DES), I try to visually and statistically find satellite galaxy systems that are associated with different host dwarf galaxies. This allows us to learn about the different environments these galaxies are in and how they can affect their properties and evolution.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
I finished my first first-author paper a couple of months ago. It took a long time to iron out all the details and submit it, but once it was done I was SO happy!

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
Learn to perform acrobatics on aerial silks. I’m still a beginner, but being able to hang in the air from a piece of fabric is so much fun.

What are your future goals?
I’d like to graduate sometime soon and get a space industry job since I love science-related work. Also, I would love to keep traveling; Asia is next on my bucket list so I’m hoping we can all go back to normal in the near future.

What year are you in?
2^nd Year

What group are you in?
High Energy Particle Experiment (ATLAS), advisor:  Antonio Boveia

Where are you from?
Sharon MA, just outside of Boston

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
I am working on devising Neural Network algorithms in the context of trigger level particle tracking at the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). When data taking commences at the HL-LHC, the number of particles produced per collision event will increase by a factor of 2.5, most of which will be background, obfuscating underlying novel interactions. Track reconstruction in a real-time trigger system is critical to fully exploit the physics capabilities of hadron-collider experiments, enabling an early rejection of background and more signal-like events written to tape. Neural Networks implemented on heterogeneous computing architectures may be one technique we can utilize to accomplish this goal in hopes of discovering Beyond Standard Model physics at the HL-LHC.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
Passing the GRE? Really my career has only just begun, but entering graduate school and fulfilling my dream of contributing to fundamental physics is a good start.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
I dropped out of my undergraduate school for a bit and backpacked across New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, and Israel. Making that decision for myself, to leave school and explore what else the world has to offer, is something I am proud of. In the end my passion for physics outweighed my wanderlust, as I’m here at OSU and not still sleeping on the side of a New Zealand road.

What are your future goals?
Once (if?) this pandemic passes, I’m very excited to visit and begin working at CERN. I’d also love to one day enter the Professional Disc Golf Association, but for now physics takes priority.

What year are you in?
I am in my 5^th year.

What group are you in?
I’m a member of Prof. Chris Hirata’s research group.

Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Miami, FL where I lived until I left for college in 2012.

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.
My research is focused on better modeling of cosmological observables and their systematics. I help develop and improve existing theoretical models and test the results against simulations and/or real data. So far I’ve applied this modeling to the Lyman-alpha forest and detectors that measure weak gravitational lensing of galaxies.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?
I’m most proud of my past work on the Grad Studies Committee. We worked hard to help develop consistency among core courses.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?
I’m proud of my past political activism regarding environmental issues.

What are your future goals?
In the near term I’d like to graduate and move onto a postdoctoral position. My longer term goals include traveling to new places and getting out in nature more.