Bio

My experimental background spans ultracold atoms and molecules, nonlinear optics, and quantum imaging technologies. Following my undergraduate at Wellesley College, I taught high-school physics for 4-years, developing an inquiry-based curriculum with an emphasis on light and optics.I then did my PhD in Optical Sciences in Brian Anderson’s group at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, studying vortex dynamics and quantum turbulence in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). I developed techniques for vortex imaging, and for generating vortex distributions with signatures of quantum turbulence.

In 2015, I moved to Edinburgh to join Daniele Faccio’s group at Heriot–Watt University (the group has since moved to Glasgow University) to investigate photon fluids, i.e., superfluids of light, with applications to superfluidity, analogue gravity, and photon droplets. A complementary atomic physics / quantum imaging research direction involved using single photon avalanche diode camera-arrays for real-time imaging of slow light propagating through rubidium vapour. In 2018, I joined Simon Cornish’s group at Durham University, working on the CsYb ultracold atom experiment. During my time in Durham, we demonstrated the first Cs-Yb dual-BECs which facilitate studies of beyond mean-field physics in ultracold atoms.

I joined the EQOP group at Strathclyde in January 2021 with a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. I am currently building an ultracold quantum mixtures apparatus to study vortex dynamics and cooperative behaviour in superfluids.

For more details see my group page.