By Elizabeth Medina

August 20, 2026

An early August poster session bookended research projects for 14 HQI Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows. The HQI Blog conversed with a few fellows to discover how they became interested in quantum, what their summer research entailed, and what lies ahead for them this school year.

Ethan Lee, rising senior studying Physics and Engineering Sciences, is no stranger to research; in the past he’s explored topics in astrophysics ranging from exoplanets to black holes. Perhaps he would have continued exploring such topics, had he not taken PHYSICS 245; the particle physics course was a wormhole, transporting Lee from the field of astrophysics to the field of quantum. Physically speaking, it transported him to the Axion Group, led by Stefan Knirck, Assistant Professor of Physics, and to the GigaBREAD project. GigaBREAD was created to detect a hypothetical dark matter particle called an axion. Per the group’s website, detecting axions “would have far-reaching consequences for particle physics and astronomy.” Lee’s summer involved simulation and design work aimed at improving GigaBREAD’s sensitivity. When asked about the upcoming school year, Lee said, “I’m planning on continuing my research in the same lab.”

This summer, Andrew Park conducted research with a greater theoretical focus than his prior cleanroom-centric research projects. He worked under Mikhail Lukin, Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor, on simulations for nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers–diamond defects apt for quantum sensing purposes. Specifically, Park implemented a method, known as the Cluster Truncated Wigner Approximation, to simulate interacting ensembles of NVs. The approximation works by grouping NVs into clusters. NV interactions within a cluster are calculated accurately, but slowly; interactions between different clusters are calculated less accurately, but quickly. Park’s implementation used a larger cluster size than the lab’s previous simulations. It ran within a realistic timeframe and produced results in reasonable agreement with theoretical predictions and experimental data. Thus, Park’s implementation improved the lab’s model accuracy without ballooning simulation time. Reflecting on his foray into theory, Park said the project “helped [him] internalize the intuition behind using and manipulating NV centers and why we do certain things in experiments.” The rising junior plans to continue working with the group at the onset of the semester. 

An atomic simulation class catalyzed the chain reaction leading David Sauer to the material science project he tackled this summer. “I really enjoyed the class,” said the rising senior, and “since I’m more generally interested in computational research, this prompted me to…ask [the professor] to do research with him.” The course’s professor was Boris Kozinsky, Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Sauer worked with him on computations for noncollinear magnets. Such magnets are potential candidates for new permanent magnets, but their interesting effects occur at small energy differences. Sauer's project involved implementing highly precise computational methods to determine these low energies. He showed his implementations were capable of revealing key features in noncollinear magnets. Going into the coming school year, Sauer will continue working on the project. He will also carry various skills derived from his summer experience, including programming for GPUs. “These are valuable skills no matter what area of research I end up going into,” said the Chemistry concentrator.