Berkeley Physics is proud to announce the Physics Innovators Initiative (Pi2) Scholars for Summer, 2026
These undergraduates will have the opportunity to do research, learn to design the tools that enable such research, develop their scientific independence, and realize their potential as physicists. Each Pi2 scholar will work closely with dedicated graduate student and/or postdoc mentors on their projects. Pi2 Scholars will also participate in a number of activities with their cohorts which could include lectures, roundtable discussions, and hiking excursions. Final projects will require a written report and a poster presentation open to the whole department at the end of the summer. Meet our Pi2 Summer Scholars and their mentors below!
Ty Brennan and Luka Sever-Walter
FPGA control of optical tweezers
Acousto-optic deflectors (AODs) are special tools for taking a single laser and splitting it into multiple beams. To do this, you send a laser into the AOD and also drive the AOD with a radio-frequency signal, which controls the laser deflection. We want to be able to precisely customize and control the laser deflection, so this project will involve FPGA development to generate custom RF signals that will control the laser. The first stage will be focused on FPGA programming to create custom signals, and the second stage will involve setting up the optics with lasers, mirrors, and the acousto-optic deflector, to fully demonstrate this system. It will ultimately be employed in an atomic physics / quantum computing experiment to trap and control individual atoms.
Ty will work as part of the Harry Levine group and will be mentored by graduate student Luka Sever-Walter.
Dila Dede and Henry Pentz
Crystal growth and characterisation of new superconducting materials
Carry out chemical vapor transport and flux growth of candidate materials for unconventional superconductivity. Then, characterise each using powder X-ray diffraction and low-temperature electric transport measurements. Potential to also assist with programming a data mining algorithm for determining new superconductor candidates from materials databases.
Dila will work as part of the James Analytis group and will be mentored by graduate student Henry Pentz.
Jason Fan and Dhanvanth Balakrishnan
Fabrication and STM characterization of 2D semiconductor moiré materials
Students will learn and develop nanofabrication techniques for air-sensitive 2D semiconductor moiré materials such as molybdenum ditelluride. The student will acquire skills in exfoliation, stacking, glovebox-based nanofabrication techniques, patterning electrical contacts using lithography and AFM-based techniques to ensure atomically clean surfaces necessary for scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Optimize these fabrication techniques for high-quality gate-tunable nanodevices that host such novel topological and correlated electronic phases.
Jason will work as part of the Michael Crommie group and will be mentored by graduate student Dhanvanth Balakrishnan.
Riebel Li and Soren Bear
Growth and characterization of vapor-deposited amorphous MnSi films
Skyrmions are topologically stable magnetic vortices that may be important for developing energy-efficient adaptations to existing and theoretical data storage architectures. Although skyrmions have been observed in crystalline B20-phase manganese silicon (c-MnSi), the skyrmion phase has not been studied in amorphous manganese silicon (a-MnSi). In this project, we aim to grow a-MnSi thin films via sputter deposition. We will search for the skyrmion contribution to the Hall effect and characterize the films’ magnetic properties.
Riebel will work as part of the Frances Hellman group and will be mentored by graduate student Soren Bear.
Evan Melgar and Penelope Quassolo
Experimental and numerical analysis of high-temperature superconducting cables for magnet manufacturing
This project involves the characterization of high-temperature superconducting cables used in the fabrication of superconducting magnets. The student will prepare and test material samples under specific conditions. In addition to the experimental work, the student will also gain experience in finite element modeling, simulation analysis, and correlating numerical results with experimental data by developing and refining a finite element model.
Evan will work as part of the Chiara Salemi group and will be mentored by graduate student Penelope Quassolo.
Ankit Muppala and Hana Lampson
Microwave control for hybrid quantum experiments interfacing neutral atoms and superconducting circuits
The goal of this project is to design and implement a flexible microwave control and measurement framework for hybrid quantum experiments. This includes developing software tools for instrument control, data acquisition, and analysis pipelines capable of extracting meaningful physical parameters from measured signals. The framework will be integrated into the lab’s experimental control software to facilitate operation and measurement of superconducting transmon circuits in experiments exploring interfaces between superconducting-circuit-based and neutral-atom-based quantum platforms.
Ankit will work as part of the Aziza Suleymanzade group and will be mentored by graduate student Hana Lampson.
Sidney Murray-Metzger and Aaron Fultineer
Disentangling transcription factor control of transcriptional activation and strength in the developing fruit fly embryo
The regulation of transcription, the process by which mRNA is produced from a gene’s DNA sequence, lies at the heart of biological processes like body plan specification during development and cellular stress responses. Transcription factors regulate both the timing of transcriptional activation and the strength of transcription once active by controlling stochastic transitions, such as the recruitment of transcriptional cofactors. In this project, the student will connect biophysical theory with experiment by performing live-cell imaging of the fruit fly embryo to quantify the number of transcription factor-controlled transitions involved in both transcriptional activation and transcriptional strength. The student will also contribute to the theoretical modeling of transcriptional regulation informed by these experiments.
Sidney will work as part of the Hernan Garcia group and will be mentored by graduate student Aaron Fultineer.
Daniil Radamovich and Cameron Poe
Development of precision beam monitors for parity violation experiments at Jefferson Lab
Parity violation measurements with electron beams at Jefferson Lab, such as the upcoming MOLLER experiment, will be sensitive to new physics effects at or beyond the energy scales probed by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Discovering new physics effects requires exquisite precision measurements, including the measurement of electron beam properties at the level of a few parts per million. This project will focus on the development of digital instruments that can reconstruct electron beam properties with unprecedented precision. We plan a beam test at Jefferson Lab in the summer 2026 which the incumbent would be able to contribute to.
Daniil will work as part of the Yury Kolomensky group and will be mentored by graduate student Cameron Poe.
Krystyn Roldan and Riley Nold
Controlling optical properties of amorphous solids relevant to LIGO mirror coatings via controlled disorder
This research project focuses on improving the mirrors used in gravitational wave detectors, like LIGO, to help scientists better detect signals from space. The team is testing new materials, specifically amorphous silica and hydrogenated amorphous silicon, to see if they can reduce “thermal noise” and make the mirrors more reflective. By the end of the summer, the goal is to determine the best way to create these thin-film layers to ensure the detectors are as sensitive and accurate as possible.
Krystyn will work as part of the Frances Hellman group and will be mentored by graduate student Riley Nold.
Joshua Sobajic and Samyuktha Ramanan
Squeezed light generation in an atomic vapor cell
Shining a laser through a vapor of atoms can produce a quantum effect called “squeezing,” resulting in “squeezed light” which has less noise than typical laser light. This squeezed light is a useful tool for quantum sensing, which we plan to integrate into an atomic physics experiment. This project will be focused on setting up an optical setup in which to create and characterize squeezing. Techniques involved including optics alignment, fiber coupling, laser modulation, feedback to stabilize the interferometer, and noise characterization.
Joshua will work as part of the Harry Levine group and will be mentored by graduate student Samyuktha Ramanan.
Max Umminger and Katie Gray
Towards optimal quantum noise reduction for the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors
Reducing quantum noise in the LIGO detectors involves injecting “squeezed light” into the interferometer. Normal “coherent” laser light has equal uncertainty in both amplitude and phase. Squeezed light redistributes this uncertainty such that one type of uncertainty is reduced, helping LIGO detect faint gravitational wave signals from astrophysical events megaparsecs further away than without squeezing. A student working on this project will help design and build a squeezed light source and tunable filter cavity (FC), as well as simulate different cavity geometries to understand which configurations are most optimal for maximum squeezing. The student will gain hands-on experience with optical system design, squeezed light generation, nonlinear optics, precision measurement techniques, and numerical simulation with MATLAB and Python.
Max will work as part of the Victoria Xu group and will be mentored by graduate student Katie Gray.
Zhifan Yin, Shahin Jahanbani, and Jiechao Feng
Studying fractional quantum Hall states with two-dimensional tensor networks
Develop algorithms to numerically characterize and benchmark the properties of fractional quantum Hall states and Chern insulators, along with their topological phase transitions and ground state correlations with 2D tensor network methods.
Zhifan will work as part of the Michael Zaletel group and will be mentored by graduate students Shahin Jahanbani, and Jiechao Feng.
Leigh Zaman and Anke Stoeltzel
Bessel-beam clock interrogation for a one-meter vertical strontium optical lattice clock
This project involves designing and building a clock-laser beam path for a vertical strontium optical lattice clock, using a Bessel beam to achieve a long Rayleigh range. The beam is shaped into a ring with axicon lenses so it can co-propagate with the lattice light while avoiding reflection from the lattice cavity mirror. The student will design and build a test setup and then install it on our next-generation clock experiment aimed at competitive measurements of gravitational redshift.
Leigh will work as part of the Shimon Kolkowitz group and will be mentored by graduate student Anke Stoeltzel.
2026 Pi2 Summer Scholar Reports will be available in August 2026
Back to the Pi2 Summer Scholar overview