Prof. Soley receives ACS Kavli Emerging Leader Award
Posted on
Congratulations to Micheline Soley for receiving the American Chemical Society Kavli Emerging Leader Award!
The Kavli Foundation Lecture Series recognizes groundbreaking discoveries by scientists tackling many of the world’s mounting challenges; and in particular, the Emerging Leader Award is for distinguished younger scientist who is highly regarded by their peers for significant contributions to an area of chemistry and multidisciplinary areas of chemistry. The award is a keynote lecture and the only Kavli young investigator talk at the American Chemical Society meeting.
Congratulations to Shimon Kolkowitz on his promotion to Associate Professor of Physics with tenure! Professor Kolkowitz is an AMO physicist whose research focuses on ultraprecise atomic clocks and nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds, both …
Alex Levchenko, Mark Rzchowski elected Fellows of the American Physical Society
Congratulations to Profs. Alex Levchenko and Mark Rzchowski, who were elected 2022 Fellows of the American Physical Society! Levchenko was elected for “broad contributions to the theory of quantum transport in mesoscopic, topological, and superconducting …
Chemist Randall Goldsmith named a Schmidt Science Polymath
The UW–Madison professor's multidisciplinary approach to studying chemical and biophysical systems earned a $2.5 million award from the philanthropic organization founded by the former CEO of Google.
Thad Walker honored with Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship
Posted on
Extraordinary members of the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty, including physics professor and WQI member Thad Walker, have been honored during the last year with awards supported by the estate of professor, U.S. senator and UW Regent William F. Vilas (1840-1908).
Walker was one of seventeen professors were named to Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorships, an award recognizing distinguished scholarship as well as standout efforts in teaching and service. The professorship provides five years of flexible funding — two-thirds of which is provided by the Office of the Provost through the generosity of the Vilas trustees and one-third provided by the school or college whose dean nominated the winner.
In addition, nine professors received Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Awards and six professors received Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Awards.
Shimon Kolkowitz awarded Sloan Fellowship
Posted on
Shimon Kolkowitz
Four University of Wisconsin–Madison professors, including WQI’s Shimon Kolkowitz, have been named to Sloan Research Fellowships — competitive, prestigious awards given to promising researchers in the early stages of their careers.
“Today’s Sloan Research Fellows represent the scientific leaders of tomorrow,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has awarded the fellowships since 1955. “As formidable young scholars, they are already shaping the research agenda within their respective fields—and their trailblazing won’t end here.”
Kolkowitz, an assistant professor of physics, builds some of the most precise clocks in the world by trapping ultracold atoms of strontium — clocks so accurate they could be used to test fundamental theories of physics and search for dark matter.
UW–Madison’s other 2022 Sloan Fellows are Tatyana Shcherbina (math), Zachary K. Wickens (chemistry) and Andrew Zimmer (math).
The UW–Madison professors are among 118 researchers from the United States and Canada honored by the New York-based philanthropic foundation. The four new fellows join 110 UW–Madison researchers honored in the past.
Each fellow receives $75,000 in research funding from the foundation, which awards Sloan Research Fellowships in eight scientific and technical fields: chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics.
Shimon Kolkowitz earns NSF CAREER award
Shimon Kolkowitz has already developed one of the most precise atomic clocks ever. Now, the UW–Madison physics professor has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to …
Deniz Yavuz, Randall Goldsmith awarded funding in first round of UW’s Research Forward initiative
Posted on
Deniz YavuzRandall Goldsmith
In its inaugural round of funding, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education’s (OVCRGE) Research Forward initiative selected 11 projects, including projects from WQI’s Deniz Yavuz and Randall Goldsmith.
Yavuz is Principal Investigator and Goldsmith is co-Principal Investigator (along with Dan Van der Weide, professor of electrical engineering) on a project titled “Compact and efficient terahertz optical modulators.”
OVCRGE hosts Research Forward to stimulate and support highly innovative and groundbreaking research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The initiative is supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and will provide funding for 1–2 years, depending on the needs and scope of the project.
Research Forward seeks to support collaborative, multidisciplinary, multi-investigator research projects that are high-risk, high-impact, and transformative. It seeks to fund research projects that have the potential to fundamentally transform a field of study as well as projects that require significant development prior to the submission of applications for external funding. Collaborative research proposals are welcome from within any of the four divisions (Arts & Humanities, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences), as are cross-divisional collaborations.
Deniz Yavuz announced as Vilas Associate
Posted on
The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education has announced 23 faculty winners of the Vilas Associates Competition, including WQI faculty member Deniz Yavuz. The Vilas Associates Competition recognizes new and ongoing research of the highest quality and significance.
The award is funded by the William F. Vilas Estate Trust.
Recipients are chosen competitively by the divisional research committees on the basis of a detailed proposal. Winners receive up to two-ninths of research salary support (including the associated fringe costs) for both summers 2021 and 2022, as well as a $12,500 flexible research fund in each of the two fiscal years. Faculty paid on an annual basis are not eligible for the summer salary support but are eligible for the flexible fund portion of this award.
WQI researchers awarded DOE Quantum Information Science grant
Posted on
Three UW–Madison physics professors and their colleagues have been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) High Energy Physics Quantum Information Science award for an interdisciplinary collaboration between theoretical and experimental physicists and experts on quantum algorithms.
The grant, entitled “Detection of dark matter and neutrinos enhanced through quantum information,” will bring a total of $2.3 million directly to UW-Madison. Physics faculty include principal investigator Baha Balantekin as well as Mark Saffman, and Sue Coppersmith. Collaborators on the grant include Kim Palladino at the University of Oxford, Peter Love at Tufts University, and Calvin Johnson at San Diego State University.
With the funding, the researchers plan to use a quantum simulator to calculate the detector response to dark matter particles and neutrinos. The simulator to be used is an array of 121 neutral atom qubits currently being developed by Saffman’s group. Much of the research plan is to understand and mitigate the behavior of the neutral atom array so that high accuracy and precision calculations can be performed. The primary goal of this project is to apply lessons from the quantum information theory in high energy physics, while a secondary goal is to contribute to the development of quantum information theory itself.
