Home Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Research Project: On-Chip Entanglement of Solid-State Emitters
UW Mentor(s): Kai-Mei Fu

Q: What are your physics/science interests?
I am interested in condensed matter physics, with a particular interest towards theory, mathematical methods, and numerical simulations. I am interested in the topics of superconductivity, solid state qubits, and quasicrystals. My favorite unsolved problems are high-T superconductivity and the zeta function zeroes.

Q: What are your other interests?
I enjoy poetry, literature, philosophy, soccer, and coffee. I am also a bad painter.

Q: What would you like to do after college?
I would like to attend graduate school for condensed matter physics. I hope to build a better work-life balance.

Q: Tell us one strange but interesting fact about yourself.
I considered myself a writer when I was younger, and attempted to write a science fiction novel.

Q: What first sparked your interest in Physics?
I first approached physics through philosophical questions of cosmogony. I am not interested in such questions anymore.

Q: If you could have any pet what would it be?
A Labrador Retriever named 'Cooper'.

Q: If you had a free month and unlimited funds, how would you spend your time?
Honestly, probably something very close to what I'm doing now; though with a bit more financial freedom I might get a nicer place and have a Tesla to drive around to explore, and have a cooler office. It's nice being paid to explore research topics.

I'm not an economist, but my intuition tells me that if I were to pump money into the economy on the order of trillions of dollars that appeared by fate, very strange things might happen.

If I were given something like a $10 billion dollar grant, I'd probably set up REU programs for disadvantaged/non-traditional students, establish a similiar program to 'Teach for America' for science and ethics, and maybe establish a school like Deep Springs College for science, with scientific integrity and service as its central tenets.

Q: If you could get a grant to study anything what would it be?
I'd love to tackle high-T superconductivity for a year. Maybe explore quantum chaos.