2023 M. Hildred Blewett Fellowship Recipients

Dr. Bushra Bari currently serves as a postdoctoral researcher at University of the District of Columbia. She is working on molecular spintronic devices. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Physics in 2007 and her graduate degree in Material Science in 2016, from The Islamia University Bahawalpur, Pakistan. While pursuing her PhD, she was honored with the Indigenous PhD fellowship, and subsequently, she earned the International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP-2014) Fellowship from Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan. This opportunity led her to serve as a visiting research fellow at the University of Michigan for eight months. During PhD, her focus was on transparent conducting thin films, with a specific emphasis on flexible transparent conducting thin films. She was awarded the best research paper award in 2017 by HEC, Pakistan. Dr. Bari's academic journey led her to serve as an Assistant Professor of physics at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI), Pakistan, starting in 2017. Her pursuit of academic excellence continued until 2018 when she temporarily stepped away for a family reunion in the United States, causing an interruption in her active academic and research endeavors. After a period of interruptions due to family responsibilities and immigration challenges, Dr. Bari recommenced her professional journey as a postdoctoral fellow at the University District of Colombia. She expresses gratitude for receiving the APS M. Hildred Blewett Fellowship award. She looks forward to embracing this opportunity to advance her research pursuits in the dynamic field of nanotechnology.

Dr. Hsiang-Ku Lin is currently an Assistant Research Scientist working on quantum error correction at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). She received her PhD degree in physics from UCR in 2011 and did a one-year postdoc at MIT immediately following that. She received her BS degree from National Taiwan Normal University, and her master’s degree in physics from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.

Hsiang-Ku’s research emphasizes on developing and applying quantum computing algorithms to scalable superconducting quits to address the issue of quantum error. In particular, she focuses on developing quantum computing algorithms that have a finite fault-tolerant threshold so as to implement feasible quantum error corrections to qubits. Following such a goal, she has recently made original contribution to the work regarding quantum two-block group algebra codes. Hsiang-Ku’s previous research during her PhD and postdoc time has been focused on the understanding of equilibrium and non- equilibrium biological systems. Using her physics expertise, she has modeled interaction processes among virus like particles and studied the self-assembly process of viral coat proteins, which have resulted several high-profile publications.

Although trained to be a theoretical physicist, Hsiang-Ku’s career has been interrupted by childcare and health issues for years. She was only able to return to physics research recently after landing her research scientist position at the University of California, Riverside. Hsiang-Ku is honored to receive the APS M. Hildred Blewett Fellowship. She plans to carry forward her effort on theoretical physics and contribute to quantum information sciences.

Dr. R. Shipra got her undergraduate degree from Patna University in 2002 and then completed her graduate studies (2005) in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, in India. She pursued her PhD at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (India) where she worked in collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Kagoshima University (Japan). She was awarded the International Joint Graduate School scholarship in 2008, by Japan Science and Technology, to work at National Institute of Materials Sciences. She also received conference travel grants from the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (UC Davis) and the Department of Science and Technology (India).

After completing her PhD in 2012, Dr. Shipra accepted a post-doc position at the Vanderbilt University, working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She took a career break in 2013, due to health issues and then got a visiting scientist position at Cornell University in 2019. She is a member of American Physical Society and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World.

The Hildred-Blewett fellowship will provide Dr. Shipra the necessary financial support to re-engage in research at Towson University, Maryland, where she will receive mentoring, facilities, and organizational support. Her research proposal focuses on thin films of novel electronic materials with a goal to couple defect-structure and electronic properties to enhance functionality. The outcomes of her proposed research will contribute to the development of reproducible strategies required for device performance by providing data inputs for optimization of material properties through machine learning and AI interfaces.

Erzsi Szilagyi, PhD, is a fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the physics department. She is interested in understanding physical and biological processes at the molecular level using time-resolved X-ray techniques. In graduate school, her work focused on visualizing the dynamics of melting of semiconductor nanoparticles with ultrafast time-resolved diffraction experiments using the X-ray free-electron laser at the Linac Coherent Light Source. Erzsi earned her AB in chemistry from Wellesley College in 2004 where her thesis project was on the synthesis of a small thiopeptide and its characterization using multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to do research at the Chemical Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, before earning her PhD in physical chemistry from Stanford University in 2014. Following graduate school, Erzsi was awarded a Mary Elvira Stevens Traveling Fellowship from Wellesley College to work with researchers in countries around the world. She is a member of the American Physical Society and the American Chemical Society.