News

The JILA Physics Frontiers Center (PFC), an NSF-funded science center within JILA (a world-leading physics research institute), has recently been awarded a $25 million grant after a re-competition process. 

This science center brings together 20 researchers across JILA to collaborate to realize precise measurements and cutting-edge manipulations to harness increasingly complex quantum systems. Since its establishment in 2006, the JILA PFC’s dedication to advancing quantum research and educating the next generation of scientists has helped it to stand out as the heart of JILA’s excellence. 

Ana Maria Rey, a JILA and NIST Fellow, has been honored with the prestigious 2023 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship from the Department of Defense (DOD). The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, named after the visionary American engineer and science administrator, aims to support exceptional researchers with outstanding scientific and technological leadership. It provides recipients substantial financial support over five years, allowing them to pursue innovative and high-impact research endeavors.

Election to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a scientist in the United States, and it is a mark of recognition for exceptional scientific achievement. This achievement has now been bestowed on JILA and NIST Fellow, along with the University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Ana Maria Rey, as she was inducted into the NAS in 2023. 

Some of the most important research and discoveries in science have been made by women. To celebrate these inspiring individuals and to support the next generation of female scientists, the United Nations dedicated February 11 as "International Women and Girls in Science" day. To honor this tradition, JILA hosted a panel discussion/open-forum with both JILA Fellows and JILA staff as speakers.

How does a scientist become interested in quantum physics? For Ana Maria Rey, both a JILA and NIST Fellow, the answer involves a rich and complicated journey. Quantum Systems Accelerator, a National QIS Research Center funded by the United States Department of Energy Office of Science, featured Rey in a new article series in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. In this article, Rey shares her story and her current research. 

How a woman from Colombia overcame obstacles to become a leading theoretical physicist and develop the world’s most accurate atomic clock. -From the "Optica Community" article

“It's hard to imagine my career without JILA,” explained Mike Martin, staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Martin first arrived at CU in 2006, as a graduate student. “I began working with [JILA and NIST Fellow] Jun Ye in 2007,” he said. “My work was in frequency metrology for precision measurement and timekeeping.” During Martin's stint at JILA, he explained that he helped work on the early development of the frequency comb. As time continued, his work expanded to include studying the strontium lattice clock. “At the time there was only one strontium apparatus in Jun’s lab,” he said. “And around 10 people or so were all studying it.” This allowed him to collaborate with many other colleagues on the science behind the clock. 

JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey is to be inducted into the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences (Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales). Fellow Ana Maria Rey has been inducted into the Colombian National Academy of Sciences.  Rey, is a Colombian-American physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder who "studies the scientific interface between atomic, molecular and optical physics, condensed matter physics and quantum information science."

Two JILA graduate students were awarded "Oustanding Service Awards" from the Physics department at the University of Colorado Boulder. These awards are given each semester. 

CU Boulder innovators, JILA physicists, and university startup ColdQuanta are featured in a new film from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (COEDIT) promoting Colorado's extensive quantum ecosystem.

The film interviews CUbit Director Jun Ye (Physics, JILA Fellow, NIST Fellow), Associate Research Professor Ana Maria Rey (Physics, JILA Fellow), and other members of CU Boulder's quantum community about the importance of quantum research and Colorado's prominence in the field. Dan Caruso, interim CEO of cold-atom quantum tech startup ColdQuanta—co-founded by Professor Dana Anderson (Physics, JILA)—is also extensively featured. 

Article is taken from the CUbit Quantum Initiative website. 

A new national quantum research center draws on JILA Fellows' and their expertise to make the United States an international leader in quantum technology.

This month on CU on the Air we welcomed CU Boulder Professor Ana Maria Rey, a theoretical physicist and fellow at JILA. Professor Rey has earned multiple awards for her groundbreaking research, including the coveted MacArthur Genius Fellowship and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She earned the Alexander Cruickshank Award in 2017 and 2019, and became the first Hispanic woman to win the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists. Professor Rey studies the interface between atomic, molecular and optical physics, condensed matter physics, and quantum informational science.

Known as the "young Nobels", JILA's own Ana Maria Rey has won a Blavatnik National Award.

JILA Fellow Ana Maria Rey has been named a finalist for the prestigious Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists.

Ana Maria Rey has been appointed a NIST Fellow as of August 21,2017 by the Acting Director of NIST. JILA is a research and training partnership between the University of Colorado and NIST, and Ana Maria is one of the several JILA Fellows who are NIST employees. Ana Maria was named a NIST Fellow in recognition of her world-leading program in quantum theory, her pioneering work in quantum many-body physics, and her continuing powerful collaborations with experimentalists at JILA, at NIST, and across the world.

Ana Maria Rey has been named the winner of the 2017 Alexander Cruickshank Award in Atomic Physics by the Gordon Research Conferences. The award recognizes international leadership and impact in the organization’s main areas of biological, chemical, and physical sciences. It was presented to Rey by the Atomic Physics Gordon Research Conference “From Quantum Control to Tests of Fundamental Physics,” held on June 11–16 in Salve Regina University, Newport, Rhode Island. Rey was nominated by Conference Chair Mariana Safronova.

Ana Maria Rey has been awarded an APS Fellowship by the American Physical Society. The award cited "her pioneering research on developing fundamental understanding and control of novel quantum systems and finding applications for a wide range of scientific fields including quantum metrology and the emerging interface between Atomic, Molecular, and Optical physics, condensed matter, and quantum information science." 

Theorist Ana Maria Rey has received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant.” She is the third JILA Fellow to win a genius grant, joining Deborah Jin (2003) and Margaret Murnane (2000). The MacArthur Fellowship includes a $625,000 unrestricted grant. Rey was cited for being an “atomic Physicist advancing our ability to simulate, manipulate, and control novel states of matter through fundamental conceptual research on ultra-cold atoms.”

Ana Maria Rey of JILA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has won the 2014 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award of the American Physical Society. Rey is one of the world’s top young theoretical physicists. Her specialty is atomic, molecular, and optical physics, an area in which she has shown a remarkable talent for suggesting practical applications of her theory to key experiments. Her hallmark collaborations at JILA and NIST include the fields of ultracold molecules, neutral-atom optical lattice atomic clocks, and quantum simulations. In addition to groundbreaking work at NIST and JILA, Rey collaborates with leading scientists around the world.

Theorist Ana Maria Rey has been given the 2013 “Great Minds in STEM” Most Promising Scientist Award. The honor is also known as the HENAAC (Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference) Award.