Early Career Award

Daniel Bafia will develop a new measurement approach that uses magnetic vortices to investigate defects and interfaces that can limit the performance of superconducting quantum devices. The project could provide researchers with a new way to understand and ultimately reduce sources of energy loss in quantum materials.

Building on her earlier work with quantum amplifiers for a leading dark matter experiment, Rakshya Khatiwada will use a four-qubit entangled system to test whether it offers a sensing advantage when exposed to a simulated dark matter signal. The project, based at Fermilab, could open the door to detecting dark matter candidates such as axions and dark photons.

Fermilab Senior Scientist Grigory Eremeev built and tested the first niobium-tin alloy cryomodule called Gray Enid I as part of his DOE Early Career Award when he was at Jefferson Lab. The cryomodule, is now being prepared for its first electron beam tests.

To aid in the search for elusive dark matter, Kevin Pedro looks for ways to harness the capabilities of artificial intelligence for analyzing particle collision data. For this work, Pedro was awarded the 2024 Universities Research Association Honorary Early Career Award.

Zorzetti’s research aims to help preserve quantum information by focusing on improvements to the way we transport it. The award provides $2.5 million over the next five years to support her work.

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Guillermo Fernandez Moroni $2.5 million over 5 years to fund his project developing sensors to study the early universe. His work could enable surveying tens of thousands of distant galaxies at a time.

Guillermo Fernandez Moroni and Silvia Zorzetti are two of 93 early career scientists recognized by DOE for groundbreaking research.