Past Dissertations
Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Fall 2020
Samantha Dixon
Adviser: Saul Perlmutter
Using Empirical Models of Type Ia Supernovae to Prepare for Next-Generation Cosmological Measurements
Jeffrey Epstein
Adviser: Kranthi Kiran Mandadapu and Oskar Hallatschek
Statistical Mechanics and Hydrodynamics of Active Fluids
Justin Gerber
Adviser: Dan Stamper-Kurn
Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics with a Locally Addressable Quantum Gas
Charles Hill
Adviser: Adrian Lee
Sensitivity Simulations and Half-wave Plate Polarization Modulators for Cosmic Microwave Background Observatories
Robert Kealhofer
Adviser: James Analitis
Paths to interacting topological semimetals
Tsz Him Leung
Adviser: Dan Stamper-Kurn
Interacting Ultracold Bosonic Atoms in Geometrically Frustrated Lattices
Sylvia Lewin
Adviser: James Analitis
Symmetry-specific probes of strongly correlated materials: Angle-dependent magnetoresistance and resonant ultrasound spectroscopy
Chiu-Yun Lin
Adviser: Alessandra Lanzara
Symmetry-Controlled Spin Entanglement in Quantum Materials
Tairu Lyu
Adviser: Feng Wang
Dirac Fluid Physics in Monolayer Graphene
Thomas Mittiga
Adviser: Norman Yao
Sensing the local charge and strain environments surrounding Nitrogen-Vacancy centers in diamond
Meng Wu
Adviser: Steven Louie
Spin-Orbit Coupling, Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry, and Polarizability Self-Consistency in GW and GW-BSE Theory with Applications to Two-Dimensional Materials
Victoria Xu
Adviser: Holger Mueller
Lattice atom interferometry in an optical cavity
Song Zhang
Adviser: Irfan Siddiqi and K Whaley
Measurement-based quantum feedback controls for quantum computation
Weicheng Zhong
Adviser: Holger Mueller
Precision measurement of the fine-structure constant with atom interferometry
Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Summer 2020
William Berdanier
Adviser: Joel Moore
Universality in Non-Equilibrium Quantum Systems
Vir Bulchandani
Adviser: Joel Moore
Hydrodynamics of Integrable and Near-Integrable Quantum Systems
Yi Chen
Adviser: Michael Crommie
Many-Body Ground States in Single-Layer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
Elizabeth Hanson
Adviser: Stuart Bale
Multi-Spacecraft Observations of Collisionless Shocks in the Heliosphere
John Mark Kreikebaum
Adviser: Irfan Siddiqi
Superconducting Qubit Enabled Single Microwave Photon Detection
Robert Mcgehee
Adviser: Hitoshi Murayama
Discoverable Matter: an Optimist’s View of Dark Matter and How to Find It
Chirag Modi
Adviser: Uros Seljak
Reconstruction of Cosmological Fields in Forward Model Framework
Daniel Parker
Adviser: Joel Moore
Local Operators and Quantum Chaos
Pratik Rath
Adviser: Yasunori Nomura
Aspects of Holography And Quantum Error Correction
Arvin Shahbazi Moghaddam
Adviser: Raphael Bousso
Aspects of Generalized Entropy And Quantum Null Energy Condition
Adam Stooke
Adviser: Pieter Abbeel and Michael DeWeese
Advancements in Deep Reinforcement Learning: Algorithms and Implementations
Haoyu Sun
Adviser: Ori Ganor
Number Theory in 3d Gravity and from 4d Gauge Theory
Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Spring 2020
Simca Bouma
Adviser: Frances Hellman
Non-Collinear Magnetism and Magnetotransport in Amorphous Transition Metal-Germanium Thin Films
Thomas Darlington
Adviser: Feng Wang and Peter Schuck
Localization of Excitons due to Inhomogeneous Nanoscopic Strain in Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides investigated by nano-PL and nano-Raman Microscopies
Jennet Dickinson
Adviser: Marjorie Shapiro
ATLAS Measurements of the Higgs Boson Coupling to the Top Quark in the Higgs to Diphoton Decay Channel
Yasin Ezber
Adviser: Ahmet Yildiz
Dynein Harnesses Active Fluctuations of Microtubules for Faster Movement
Yuan Sheng Fang
Adviser: Michael DeWeese
Stochastic Analog Computation for Machine Learning
Ryan Janish
Adviser: Surjeet Rajendran and Lawrence Hall
Supernovae as Dark Matter Signals
Elpida Kitanidis
Adviser: Martin White
Cosmic Cartography: Mapping the Universe for Next-Generation Dark Energy Voyages
Arielle Little
Adviser: Joseph Orenstein
Symmetry-Sensitive Optical Probes of Quantum Antiferromagnets
Vijay Narayan
Adviser: Surjeet Rajendran and Lawrence Hall
New Frontiers for Physics Beyond the Standard Model
Jihwan Oh
Adviser: Ori Ganor
Line defects in 5d gauge theories
Abigail Polin
Adviser: Peter Nugent and Daniel Kasen
Pushing the Helium Envelope: Signatures of Normal and Unusual Supernovae from Sub-Chandrasekhar Mass White Dwarf Explosions
Christian Schmid
Adviser: Mina Aganagic
Little String Defects and Nilpotent Orbits
Sheng Wang
Adviser: Feng Wang
Probing Luttinger Liquid Plasmons in Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Fall 2019
Halleh Balch
Adviser: Feng Wang
Optical Investigations of Intermolecular Electron Dynamics in Low Dimensional Materials
Eric Copenhaver
Adviser: Holger Mueller
Tune-out measurement in lukewarm lithium with phase-patterned atom interferometry
Blagoje Djordjevic
Adviser: Stuart Bale and Carl Schroeder
Interaction of Higher-Order Laser Modes with Underdense Plasmas
Fang Fang
Adviser: Dan Stamper-Kurn
Explorations of spin excitations and dynamics in homonuclear and heteronuclear spin-1 atomic gases
Stephen Matthew Gilbert
Adviser: Alex Zettl
Two-Dimensional Boron Nitride and Related Materials: Synthesis, Vacancy Formation, and Applications for Nanopores and Nanomachines
Benjamin Horowitz
Adviser: Uros Seljak
Optimal Reconstruction of Cosmological Density Fields
Eric Hunter
Adviser: Joel Fajans
Cavity and Microwave Experiments on Electron Plasma
Sean Lourette
Adviser: Dmitry Budker
Magnetometry and Imaging with Nitrogen Vacancy Centers in Diamond
Stephanie Mack
Adviser: Jeffrey Neaton
Manipulating Materials: Electronic and Topological Properties of Chemically and Structurally Complex Materials
Nityan Nair
Adviser: James Analitis
An Exploration of Quantum Materials: From Topological Semimetals to Antiferromagnetic Memory
Chin Ong
Adviser: Steven Louie
Electronic and Optical Properties of Materials for Energy-Related Applications
Nicholas Salzetta
Adviser: Yasunori Nomura
Holography beyond AdS/CFT
Brian Shevitski
Adviser: Alex Zettl and Shaul Aloni
Hyperspectral Imaging and Machine Learning for Nanomaterials Characterization
Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Summer 2019
Christopher Akers
Adviser: Raphael Bousso
Entanglement and Geometry
Brian Amadio
Adviser: Marjorie Shapiro
A search for new physics in multijet final states of pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider
Kyle Boone
Adviser: Saul Perlmutter
Improving Cosmological Distance Measurements with Type Ia Supernovae: From Pixels to Dark Energy
Steven Drapcho
Adviser: Feng Wang
Optical Studies of Electron-Phonon Interactions in Two-Dimensional and One-Dimensional Materials
Emily Duffield
Adviser: Marjorie Shapiro
Observation of the electroweak production of two W bosons with the same electric charge in association with two jets in pp collisions at √s =13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
Neil Goeckner-wald
Adviser: Adrian Lee
A Measurement of the Degree Scale B-mode CMB Angular Power Spectrum from the Polarbear Experiment
Illan Halpern
Adviser: Raphael Bousso
Information in, on, and from the Spacetime
Adam Levine
Adviser: Raphael Bousso
Energy and Entropy in Quantum Field Theories
Zhenglu Li
Adviser: Steven Louie
Electron-Phonon Coupling from GW Perturbation Theory and Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Novel Two-Dimensional Materials
Leigh Martin
Adviser: K. Birgitta Whaley and Irfan Siddiqi
Quantum feedback for measurement and control
Sean O'Kelley
Adviser: John Clarke
The Microstrip SQUID Amplier in the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX)
Ionut Dragos Potirniche
Adviser: Ehud Altman
Many-Body Quantum Dynamics and Non-Equilibrium Phases of Matter
Vinay Ramasesh
Adviser: Irfan Siddiqi
Quantum Simulation with Superconducting Circuits
Sean Ressler
Adviser: Eliot Quataert
Towards More Predictive Models of Galactic Center Accretion
Daniel Rizzo
Adviser: Michael Crommie
Tailoring the Local Electronic Structure of Bottom-Up-Synthesized Low-Dimensional Organic Nanostructures
Clio Sleator
Adviser: Steven Boggs and Stuart Bale
Measuring the polarization of compact objects with the Compton Spectrometer and Imager
Aaron Szasz
Adviser: Joel Moore
Transport and topology in strongly correlated two-dimensional systems, using techniques from one dimension
Alex Takeda
Adviser: Vivek Shende and Mina Aganagic
Developments in the mathematics of the A-model: constructing Calabi-Yau structures and stability conditions on target categories
Yuguang Tong
Adviser: Stuart Bale
Electron-Scale Processes in the Solar Wind and Magnetosphere
Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Spring 2019
Trevor Bowen
Adviser: Stuart Bale
Observational Signatures of Nonlinear Interactions in the Solar Wind
Chien-I Chiang
Adviser: Hitoshi Murayama
The Accelerating Universe, the Landscape, and the Swampland
Nicolas Ferland
Adviser: Christian Bauer and Lawrence Hall
Study of large electroweak logarithms at high energy in collider experiments
Trinity Joshi
Adviser: Michael Crommie
Local Probe Analysis of the Structural, Electronic, and Optical Properties of Nanomaterials
Benjamin Land
Adviser: Gabriel Orebi Gann
Past, Present, and Future of Solar Neutrino Detection: SNO, SNO+, and Theia
Ka Hei Leung
Adviser: Mary K Gaillard
On Super Heat Kernel and One Loop Divergence in Conformal Supergravity
Zahra Pedramrazi
Adviser: Michael Crommie
Manipulating 1D Conduction Channels; from Molecular Geometry to 2D Topology
Paul Riggins
Adviser: Surjeet Rajendran
New Probes of Axions and Ultra-Heavy Dark Matter
Niklas Roschewsky
Adviser: Sayeef Salahuddin and Frances Hellman
Spin-Orbit Torques in Ferrimagnets and Topological Insulators
Kelly Swanson
Adviser: Wim Leemans and Marjorie Shapiro
Injection and Plasma Waveguides for Multi-Stage Laser Plasma Acceleration
Erik Urban
Adviser: Hartmut Haeffner
Implementation of a Rotationally Symmetric Ring Ion Trap and Coherent Control of Rotational States