JILA News

This year’s Q2B (Quantum 2 Business) conference took place on December 7-9 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Several big names spoke at the event, and it was a place to forge new partnerships and connections. For one lucky JILAn, the trip to this conference was sponsored by CUbit Quantum Initiative, (CUbit). "I am very grateful to Women in Quantum and CUbit for sponsoring me to attend the Q2B conference," Joanna Lis said. Lis is a graduate student within JILA Fellow Adam Kaufman's laboratory. "My research is looking at neutral atoms in tweezers. I was positively surprised on how much presence neutral atom platforms had within the conference," she added.

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. 

On December 8th, JILA and NIST Fellow Dr. Judah Levine spoke on his research into internet time service. Internet time service is based on atomic clock technology and is used to help set computer clocks and other devices. The virtual event was hosted by Executive Director Dan Powers of CO-Labs, a coalition of 30+ federally funded Colorado research labs, including JILA. Levine's talk was one in a series discussing the ROI of scientific research.

JILA Room S209 informally referred to as Affinity Room, has been renovated and now has an official name: the Debbie Jin Room.  Named in honor of late JILA Fellow Debbie Jin, this suite of rooms is designed to foster and support community amongst JILA’s graduate students and postdocs. The JILA Welcome Lounge has also been renamed to the Chiral Spiral. 

JILA Graduate Student Andres Villani Davila has been awarded a 2021 "Oustanding Graduate for Research" Award by the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Davila works under JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski and is pursuing a B.S. in Engineering Physics.

Antonio Vigil, a recently graduated JILA undergraduate has been named an "Outstanding Undergraduate" by the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. Vigil recently graduated summa cum laude after working for three years at JILA. 

JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye has been awarded the 2022 Herbert-Walther-Award from the German Physical Society and OPTICA (formerly OSA). This award recognizes distinguished contributions in quantum optics and atomic physics as well as leadership in the international scientific community.

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. 

JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye has been named a 2021 Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher. This means that Ye is one of the 0.1%, of the world's researchers who receive this title. Clarivate™ is a data analytics company that identifies the world’s most influential researchers ─ the select few who have been most frequently cited by their peers over the last decade. Ye’s many published papers over the last year have been ranked in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science™, according to Clarivate. Well done Dr. Ye! 

JILA Fellow Andreas Becker is one of the 11 University of Colorado Boulder faculty to be awarded a 2021 Distinguished Professor title. CU Distinguished Professors are tenured faculty members who give outstanding work in research or creative work and have a reputation of excellence in promoting learning and student engagement in the research process as well as dedicated to the profession, the university, and its affiliates.

JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye has been awarded the Niels Bohr Institute Medal of Honor for 2021. This award was established in 2010 to mark the 125th anniversary of Niels Bohr’s birth. The medal is awarded annually to a particularly outstanding researcher who is working in international cooperation and exchange of knowledge, two qualities exemplified by Bohr himself.

Former JILA Fellow Richard "Dick" McCray passed away on October 26, 2021.  From another JILA Fellow said that: “Dick was a giant in JILA… All those who knew him loved him dearly."   Richard (Dick) McCray came to Colorado to work at JILA in 1971 until his retirement in 2004.  Dick also served as JILA Chair in 1981 and 1982.  Dick was a Distinguished Professor of Astrophysics at CU Boulder, a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1989, a Guggenheim Fellow in 1975-76 and recipient of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics in 1990. Dick’s area of research was theoretical astrophysics, including the physics of interstellar gas, Active Galactic Nuclei, binary X-ray systems, and supernova explosion; observing these systems with spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the Chandra X-ray telescope. You can read more about his work here, as well as an oral history via personal interview. 

The virtual tour for JILA is here! In collaboration with the University of Colorado Boulder, a tour of JILA has been created using 360-degree images and photos, making it perfect for a VR headset or app. Even if you don't have VR, this tour is fascinating and discusses the history and research of JILA. 

JILA was honored to celebrate the legacy of the endowment given by Tom Baur of Meadowlark Optics and SPIE  on October 7th at a JILA Donor Event, which also celebrated the work of JILA Fellow Cindy Regal, the first Baur-SPIE Professor of Optical Physics and Photonics. Speakers at the event included JILA Fellows Cindy Regal, Ann-Marie Madigan, Eric Cornell, Margaret Murnane, and Jun Ye, as well as Tom Baur and SPIE CEO Kent Rochford discussing the endowment. Both the Baurs and Dr. Rochford, representing SPIE, were given customized laser mirror mounts as a thank you for their generosity. Generous endowments like these allow JILA to give back to our community of graduate students and post-docs.

Congratulations to JILA Fellow Dana Anderson for winning the 2021 Willis E Lamb award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.

The award recognizes Dana's, "excellent contributions to quantum optics and electronics". The Anderson Group is currently involved in state of the art ultracold atom research with applications in atomtronics, atom interferometry and neutral atom quantum computing. 

The Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics is presented annually for outstanding contributions to the field. The award honors Willis E. Lamb, Jr., famous laser scientist and 1955 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, who gave us many seminal insights and served as our guide in so many areas of physics and technology.

The National Science Foundation has renewed for five years and more than $22 million the cutting-edge Science and Technology Center on Real-Time Functional Imaging (STROBE). STROBE is developing the Microscopes of Tomorrow, and is a partnership between six institutions –– University of Colorado Boulder, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Florida International University, Fort Lewis College, and UC Irvine.

JILA JEDI is partnering with Pretty Brainy, a nonprofit organization in northern Colorado through a speaker series that encourages women ages 11 and up to pursue science careers. This speaker series hosts 5 JILAns, including JILA Fellow Anne-Marie Madigan. 

You can register for the speaker series at this link. The first event begins 10/5, and the last event is 12/14. 

There are many places within JILA that are special to alumni. For many, it may be the JILA tower, or a particular laboratory, or the spiral staircase. For others, like Clara Wilson, it is the machine shop. "I was at JILA for a little over a year and a half," Wilson said. "I worked in the machine shop as a student assistant, which basically meant that I kept the space clean and operable and was able to shadow and learn everything I could from the various machinists there... I helped build things. I think that as a student assistant, one of my main jobs was to ask questions and learn." Wilson gained valuable knowledge and experience working within the machine job at JILA.

Earlier this month, quantum technology made a splash at the Colorado Capitol. Philip Makotyn, executive director of the CUbit Quantum Initiative, spoke on Sept. 9 before the Colorado General Assembly's Joint Technology Committee. Makotyn was one of several people who spoke before the committee on the Colorado Front Range quantum ecosystem, including CU's role in quantum research; describing the Colorado quantum ecosystem including quantum sensing and computing; what quantum computing is (and isn't), and its applications across a variety of industries and problems.

JILA Fellow Thomas Perkins has been awarded the 2021 Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award. This award recognizes mentors who have gone above and beyond to support their postdocs. Perkins was nominated by postdoc David Jacobson, who praised Perkins' effort to help Jacobson apply and receive the prestigious NIH K99 “Pathway to Independence” Award. 

JILA Fellow Graeme Smith also won the 2021 Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award, being nominated by CU Boulder postdoc Vikesh Siddhu and former CU Boulder postdoc, Felix Leditzky. Leditzky said Smith “played an integral part in guiding me through the process and helping me achieve this career goal. I aim to pay forward the trust and support that I received from him.”