Junior faculty members win Sloan Research Fellowships
Quantum Foundry faculty members Chenhao Jin and Vojtech Vlcek receive the Sloan Research Fellowships. Thus highlighting the importance of research in the multiple disciplines that are a key part of our Quantum Foundry Thrusts.
Excerpt from the UCSB Current, Science + Technology
Neutrino physics. “Movies” of quantum phenomena. Many-body problems. New-to-nature catalytic reactions. These are just a few of the hot fields of research where UC Santa Barbara’s junior faculty are making major inroads. And they’ve captured the attention of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has awarded assistant professors Xiao Luo, Chenhao Jin, Vojtech Vlcek and Yang Yang each a 2024 Sloan Research Fellowship. According to the Sloan Foundation, the two-year, $75,000 fellowships are “awarded annually to early-career researchers whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders.”
“I congratulate all four researchers on this remarkable honor,” said Pierre Wiltzius, UCSB’s Susan and Bruce Worster Dean of Science. “Sloan Fellowships are among the most competitive awards given to early career researchers, recognizing work that shows great potential. We are so pleased to have these faculty members join the proud tradition of Sloan recipients in our UCSB family.”
Physics
Meanwhile, condensed matter physicist Chenhao Jin homes in on the quantum realm, developing optical spectroscopy and imaging techniques to “watch” quantum phenomena in space and time. “If we could take a ‘movie’ of what’s happening in the quantum world, that would be the ideal probe,” he said. But it’s a challenge.
“Sloan Fellowships are among the most competitive awards given to early career researchers, recognizing work that shows great potential. We are so pleased to have these faculty members join the proud tradition of Sloan recipients in our UCSB family.”
Chemistry
The many-body problem is also the focus for chemistry professor Vojtech Vlcek, who takes a theoretical and computational approach to studying the rich field of condensed matter systems.
“We use a combination of quantum field theory, quantum statistical physics and develop new mathematical tools that allow us to understand the energy flow and nonequilibrium electronic states in condensed matter systems,” he said. Because atoms in condensed matter (in particular solids and liquids) are in constant interaction with one another, when the conditions are right, together they can generate complex exotic states for which current mathematical descriptions are not complete. The Sloan fellowship, said a “very honored” Vlcek, will enable him to continue pursuing the math that can serve as the foundation for methods and materials for applications such as quantum chemistry and quantum information storage and manipulation.
“I enjoy overcoming limitations of existing methods by developing new approaches that recast the problem in a new way,” he said. “In essence, it makes you think about the problem from a completely new perspective and that can be quite eye-opening.”
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