About
I am a data scientist, Physics Ph.D., and R enthusiast interested in the intersection between data science techniques and how these techniques can be used to solve interesting and complex problems. I am particularly interested in developing data acquisition, processing, storage, and analysis pipelines to enable more researchers to easily access complex topics. As part of my Ph.D. research I developed a package for R called starkr that is currently available on GitHub. This package provides functions to calculate the Stark map of Rubidium-85 along with functions to calculate the quantum defect, radial matrix element, and other useful functions. Packages like these can allow more researchers to integrate complex calculations directly into their analysis, allowing for greater efficiency in workflow and greater transparency in the methods used.
Research Background
My Ph.D. work was a study of dipole-dipole interactions between cold Rubidium Rydberg atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Dipole-dipole interactions can be used to influence neighboring atoms over large distances (many times the size of the atom). These long range interactions can have numerous effects on the atoms such as creating energy shifts in nearest-neighbor atoms that turn off collective effects like superradiance. Long range dipole-dipole interactions can also lead to population transfer between Rydberg pair states via dipole-mediated resonant energy transfer (RET). Additionally, these dipole-dipole systems may also be used to allow for the control of the minimum separation between pairs of atoms within a MOT. For more information about my Ph.D. work, my dissertation, Dipole-Dipole Interactions in a Cold Rydberg Gas, is freely available through the University of Virginia library.