Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Haocun Yu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citation:

"For leading contributions to the Advanced LIGO detectors achieving unprecedented sensitivity through injection of squeezed stated of light, sensitive enough to observe mirror motion driven by quantum vacuum fluctuations and quantum correlations at the human scale."

Background:

* Education: 09/2015 – 08/2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, US PhD in Physics, MIT Kavli Institute 09/2012 – 06/2015 Imperial College London, London, UK * As a long-time member of the LIGO scientific team since 2014, Dr. Yu's research is mainly focused on the enhancement of LIGO sensitivity using quantum techniques, as well as the demonstration of macroscopic quantum phenomena in Advanced LIGO detectors. Her contributions on quantum techniques have taken macroscopic quantum mechanics to the human scale, and Advanced LIGO detectors to unprecedented sensitivity. Her recent research interest lies in the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. * Awards: 12/2021 2021 MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 China, US & China 11/2021 2021 Carl E. Anderson Division of Laser Science Dissertation Award, APS 07/2019 Martin Deutsch Student Award, MIT 09/2015 Seo Fellowship, Department of Physics, MIT 08/2015 Associate of the Royal College of Science, Imperial College London, UK * Membership: 01/2020 – present Member of Early Career, American Physical Society, US 01/2020 – present Member of Early Career, OSA, US 09/2016 – present Member of LIGO Scientific Collaboration


Selection Committee:

Brian Washburn (Chair), Anne Kelley, Virginia Lorenz, Hailin Wang