Exploring phenomena from the atomic to the astronomical
This session covers awe-inspiring phenomena spanning across scales, starting with exciting physics at the ultracold atomic level; followed by the richness of quantum matter at the mesoscopic scale; progressing to the scale of our precious Earth and its climate; and finally, to the wonders of the cosmos.
The symposium brings together incredible and diverse speakers representing this progression from the sub-disciplines of AMO physics, condensed matter physics, geological physics, and astrophysics:
- Monika Aidelsberger, "Quantum simulation — Engineering and understanding quantum systems atom-by-atom"
- Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, “The Magic of Moiré Quantum Matter”
- Brad Marston, “Waves of Topological Origin in the Fluid Earth System and Beyond”
- Gabriela Gonzalez, “Gravitational Waves Astronomy”
Session chair: Smitha Vishveshwara
This special session is sponsored by the Kavli Foundation which supports the advancement of science and the increase of public understanding and support for scientists and their work.
After the symposium, we invite you to stay for a mesmerizing performance by Le PeTiT CiRqUe®: Cosmic Tumbles, Quantum Leaps.
Meet the Speakers
The Kavli Symposium brings together incredible and diverse speakers around a common theme: “Frontier Physics from Atomic to Astronomical Scales.
Monika Aidelsburger
Monika Aidelsburger is a Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich and group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching. Her areas of expertise are: Quantum simulation, Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices, Topology, Synthetic Gauge Fields, Non-equilibrium Dynamics and Lattice Gauge Theories. She was a Marie-Curie Postdoctoral fellow at Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Collège de France, in Paris in the group of J. Dalibard. After that she was a project leader in the Quantum Optics research group of Professor I. Boch at LMU. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, among them an ERC Starting Grant from the European Commission in 2019 and in 2021, she was awarded both the Alfried-Krupp-Förderpreis and the Klung Wilhelmy Science Award.
Pablo Jarillo-Herrero
Pablo Jarillo-Herrero is an experimental physicist recognized for his work on the quantum electronic properties of 2-dimensional materials. He is known particularly for his studies of superconductivity, magnetism, and topological physics in 2D van der Waals heterostructures and moiré quantum matter. A native from Valencia, Spain, he received his “Licenciatura” in physics from the University of Valencia, in 1999. Then he got a M.Sc. at the University of California in San Diego, before going to the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2005. After a one-year postdoc in Delft, he moved to Columbia University, where he worked as a NanoResearch Initiative Fellow. He joined MIT as an assistant professor of physics in January 2008, received tenure in 2015, and he is currently Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics. Jarillo-Herrero is the recipient of numerous awards, including an NSF Career Award (2008), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2009), a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (2009), a DOE Early Career Award (2011), a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2012), an ONR Young Investigator Award (2013), the APS 2020 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize, the 2020 Wolf Prize in Physics, the 2020 Medal of the Spanish Royal Physics Society, the 2021 Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture and Medal, the 2021 US NAS Award for Scientific Discovery, and the 2022 Max Planck – Humboldt Research Award, among others. He was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Brad Marston
Brad Marston is a professor of physics at Brown University, and Director of the Brown Theoretical Physics Center. A graduate of Caltech, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1989 and did postdoctoral work at Cornell University as an IBM Fellow. He has been a visiting professor at MIT, a visiting associate at Caltech, a visiting professor at ENS-Lyon, and a General Member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) at UC Santa Barbara. Marston is an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a recipient of a National Young Investigator Award. In 2008 he was designated a NSF American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellow, and in 2010 an APS Outstanding Referee. Marston is a fellow and lifetime member of the American Physical Society (APS). He has chaired the Advisory Board of the KITP, and is a past member of the APS Board of Directors, and past Councilor for the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP). Currently he serves on the APS Panel on Public Affairs.
Gabriela González
Gabriela González is a professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University searching for gravitational waves with the LIGO team. She was born in Córdoba, Argentina, where she studied before pursuing her Ph.D. in Syracuse University, obtained in 1995. She was a staff scientist in the LIGO group at MIT, joined the faculty at Penn State in 1997 and moved to LSU in 2001. She has received awards from the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society and the National Academy of Sciences, and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the US and Argentinian National Academies of Sciences. She has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration since 1997, served as spokesperson in 2011-2017, and participated in the announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves in 2016. Her group works on LIGO instrument development, reducing noise sources, and data diagnostics.