Photo of JILA postdoctoral researcher Jake Higgins
JILA postdoctoral researcher Jake Higgins, part of JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Jun Ye’s research group, has been awarded a coveted spot at the 2024 MIT Chemistry Future Faculty Symposium. This prestigious event will be held on August 12 and 13 on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA, featuring some of the brightest early-career scientists poised to pursue academic careers.
“I’m thrilled for this opportunity to present my work and network with the folks at MIT,” Higgins stated. “There are many faculty in MIT’s chemistry department who I look up to and take inspiration from scientifically.”
The Future Faculty Symposium is a two-day event designed to provide postdoctoral scholars with extensive opportunities to engage with the MIT community. Participants will present their research, discuss research and teaching opportunities with current faculty, and tour MIT’s state-of-the-art research facilities. The symposium also emphasizes the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM, offering participants the chance to connect with students and staff dedicated to these principles within the MIT chemistry department.
Higgins focuses on the intersection of physical chemistry and atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics. As a postdoc at JILA, their work involves using XUV frequency combs for precision measurement of a nuclear transition with the goal of building a solid-state nuclear clock. Higgins obtained their Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where they used nonlinear optical spectroscopy to study excited state vibronic dynamics in photosynthetic light-harvesting proteins in the Engel Group.
Written by Kenna Hughes-Castleberry