Our Research Group Members

Meigan Aronson- Principal Investigator

Meigan is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia, and a Principal Investigator in the Stewart Blusson Quantum Materials Institute (SBQMI). She moved to UBC in 2018 from Texas A&M University, and has been a Physics faculty member at the University of Michigan (1990-2007), Stony Brook University (2007-2015), and Texas A&M University (2015-2018). She was also a Group Leader at Brookhaven National Laboratory(2007-2015). After receiving her PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois in Urbana, Meigan was a postdoc at Los Alamos National Lab. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Neutron Scattering Society of America, and was a recipient of the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship.

Her research interests focus on the discovery and characterization of new quantum materials, with a particular interest in finding new T=0 phase transitions and their accompanying phases.

In her spare time, Meigan enjoys exploring new places, hiking, and reading.

Contact: meigan.aronson@ubc.ca

Mohamed Oudah - Research Associate

Mohamed is a research associate who is currently working towards identifying new topological materials related to the square-net family of compounds.

Mohamed received the MEXT scholarship to pursue his PhD at Kyoto University working in the group of Yoshi Maeno. During his PhD, he discovered superconductivity in the hole-doped Antiperovskite Oxide Sr3-xSnO and studied the negative ionic state of Sn in this unusual oxide. Mohamed joined SBQMI in 2018 as a postdoc, primarily working with Doug Bonn, and he spent a part of his postdoc at Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart working with the groups of Hide Takagi and Bernhard Keimer. In the early part of his postdoc, he focused on high-pressure synthesis of new topological phases and silver containing compounds.

Besides research, Mohamed enjoys badminton, swimming, and eating chocolate.

Contact: Mohamed.Oudah@ubc.ca

Xiyang Li- Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Xiyang is a postdoctoral fellow who is currently working on understanding the novel quantum physics in a 1D spin chain compound.

Xiyang received his PhD degree in 2019 at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, working in the group of Prof. Fangwei Wang. During his PhD, he revealed the low thermal conductivity mechanism in a near room temperature thermoelectric material mainly using neutron scattering. He also spent about 2.5 years of his PhD at CityU of Hong Kong working with Prof. Xun-Li Wang where he studied atomic dynamics in metallic glasses using neutron scattering. Xiyang joined SBQMI in 2020 as a postdoc, working with Prof. Meigan Aronson to pursue the emergent phenomena in quantum magnets.

Besides research, Xiyang enjoys hiking, badminton, swimming, and traveling.

Contact: Xiyang.Li@ubc.ca

Joern Bannies - Graduate Student (Physics and Chemistry)

Joern is a graduate student who is currently studying topological instabilities in model square net compounds. Co-supervised by Meigan Aronson (Physics) and Sarah Burke (Chemistry/Physics) his thesis work involves synthesis of high quality single crystals, and their characterization via electrical transport, thermal, and magnetic measurements. They are complemented by a program of angle resolved photoemission measurements and scanning tunneling microscopy measurements to study the effect of the instabilities on the electronic structure in both real and k space.

Originally hailing from Dresden Germany, Joern received his undergraduate and Masters degrees in chemistry from the Technical University of Dresden. During this time he carried out research in topological materials at the Max Planck Institute for the Chemical Physics of Solids, under the direction of Dr. Claudia Felser. Joern began his PhD studies at UBC in 2020.

Besides research, Joern enjoys rowing, travelling, and has most recently appeared opposite Daniel Craig in the film `Die Another Day', where he has as well composed and performed the theme song on instruments that he made himself.

Contact: jbannies@chem.ubc.ca

Group Alums

Former Postdocs

· Stefan Sullow. Currently Professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany.

· Snezana Bogdanovich. Currently Principal Scientist at Hologic, Inc Lorad Division (Newark DE).

· Chandan Mazumdar. Currently Professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Calcutta India.

· Kanagasingham Ahilan. Currently Instructor, Columbia International College, Hamilton ON.

· Johan van Lierop. Currently Professor at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.

· Dmitry Sokolov. Currently Senior Research Scientist, Freiberger Compound Materials GmbH, Dresden Germany.

· Moo-Sung Kim. Consultant.

· KiSub Kim. Unknown.

· Yuri Janssen. Currently Assistant Professor of Physics, Farmingdale State University.

· Mikhail Feygenson. Currently Head of Diffraction and Imaging Division at the European Spallation Neutron Source. Lund Sweden.

· Keeseong Park. Currently associate professor of physics Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Korea.

· Jack Simonson. Currently associate professor of physics, Farmingdale State University.

· Maria Pezzoli (joint with Gabriel Kotliar, Rutgers University). Currently on family leave.

· Jacob Grose. Currently CEO and co-founder Copernic Catalysts.

· Monika Gamza. Currently Senior Lecturer in Physics at University of Central Lancashire UK.

· Hongbo Yang (joint with Peter Johnson, Brookhaven National Laboratory). Currently Adjunct Faculty, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

· Jennifer Misuraca (joint with Laura Greene, University of Illinois). Currently FE SEM product manager, JEOL Corporation.

· Wojciech Miiller. Laboratory supervisor, Franklite Ltd.

· Hua He. Currently on family leave.

· Liusuo Wu. Currently Associate Professor, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzen China.

· William Gannon. Currently Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Kentucky.

· Lucia Steinke. Senior Scientist, Maybell Quantum, Denver CO.

· Abhishek Pandey. Senior Lecturer, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg South Africa.

· Ping Miao. Currently Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing; Spallation Neutron Source Science Center, Dongguan China.

· Om Prakash. Currently Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Delhi.

· Jannis Maiwald. Currently Research Associate, University of British Columbia.

· Dalmau Reig-i-Plessis. Joint with Alannah Hallas. Currently postdoc ETH Zurich.

Former Graduate Students

· Jason Cooley. Currently member of scientific staff, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

· Elaine DiMasi. Currently member of scientific staff, Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

· Marcus Bennett. Currently Bridge Physicist at Aspekt Solutions, Greenbelt MD.

· Liusuo Wu. Currently Associate Professor of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzen China.

· Daniel McNally. Senior Editor, Nature.

Former Undergraduates

· Diane Pugel. Currently deputy planetary protection officer, Goddard Space Flight Center. PhD in Physics, University of Maryland.

· Alexander Vetsko. Unknown.

· Patrick Koehn. Currently Research and Analysis Lead, NASA, and Professor Emeritus of Physics, Eastern Michigan University. PhD, Atmospheric and Space Science, University of Michigan

· Robert Sitar. Unknown

· Ila Prasad Fiete. Currently Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. PhD in Physics, Harvard.

· Brian Leroy. Currently Professor of Physics and Associate Department Head, University of Arizona. PhD in Physics, Harvard.

· Elizabeth Tabak. Currently Principal Scientist-Research, General Dynamics. Ypsilanti MI. PhD in Physics, University of Michigan.

· Xiaoqian Li. Currently Professor of Physics, University of Texas, Austin. PhD in Physics, University of Michigan.

· Emily Berkeley. Unknown.

· Tony Smith. Unknown.

· William Gannon. Currently Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Kentucky. PhD in Physics Northwestern University.

· Glenn Strycker. Currently Vice President, Decision Sciences at Epsilon. PhD in Physics, University of Michigan.

· Kate Green. Unknown.

· Yuen Yiu. Currently Senior Editor Cell Press. PhD in Physics, University of Tennessee- Knoxville.

· Carlos Marques. Currently member of technical staff, National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Lab.

· Angela Kou. Currently Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. PhD in Physics, Harvard University.

· Jude Safo. Currently founder and CEO of Haiphen AI, New York.

· Victor Leyva. Unknown.

· Jiaxing Liu. Unknown.

· Greg Smith. Currently Analyst, Peraton Inc. PhD in Physics, Ohio State University.

· Akshat Puri. Currently Machine Learning Engineer at PayPal. PhD in Physics, University of Illinois- Urbana, Champaign.

· Thomas Orvis. Principal reliability engineer Northrup Grumman. PhD in Physics, University of Southern California.

· Jedidiah Kistner-Morris. Research scientist, University of California Riverside. PhD in Physics, University of California-Riverside.

· Julian Hassinger. Director of Strategy and Operations, UPMC Enterprises and Avista Therapeutics. PhD in cell and molecular biology, University of California-Berkeley.

· Shelby Zellman Fink. Currently product manager security software, IBM.

· Plamen Kamenov. Principal Physicist, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. PhD in Physics, Rutgers University.

· Ashley Zebro. Lead Project Coordinator, Rethink Priorities.

· Claire Weaver. Currently graduate student in materials science, UC Santa Barbara.

· Gayle Geschwind. Currently graduate student in Physics, University of Colorado.

· Matthew Green. Currently graduate student in physics, University of Minnesota.

· Oscar Gonzalez. Currently Graduate student in Chemistry, University of California-Berkeley.

· Mason Klemm. Currently Graduate student in Physics, Rice University.

· Satyam Priyadarshi. Currently research technician, School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia.

· Divya Chari, Currently graduate student in astrophysics, Ohio State University.

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