The Grainger College of Engineering
Physics

Benjamin Lev Receives NSF CAREER Award

12/12/2008

Benjamin Lev has been selected for one of the highly competitive CAREER Awards for new faculty by the National Science Foundation.

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Benjamin Lev, assistant professor of physics, has been selected for a 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER Award. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a cross-disciplinary program that offers the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the in

Lev will use the five-year grant to create and study exotic forms of matter by developing the enabling technology for the quantum manipulation of dipolar atoms. Ultracold gases of highly magnetic atoms, such as dysprosium, offer opportunities to explore strongly correlated matter in the presence of long-range interactions in a manner difficult to achieve in other experimental settings. Techniques will be developed to perform the first laser cooling, and subsequent trapping in optical lattices, of dysprosium. This achievement will lead to the investigation of exotic states of matter that, in several cases, underlie proposed descriptions of poorly understood, though technologically relevant, condensed matter materials that do not obey standard Fermi liquid theory.

Madeline Stover is a physics doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying atmospheric dynamics applied to forest conservation. She interns as a science writer for Illinois Physics, where she also co-hosts the podcast Emergence along with fellow physics graduate student Mari Cieszynski. When Stover is not doing research or communications, she enjoys hosting her local radio show, singing with her band, and cooking with friends.

Daniel Inafuku graduated from Illinois Physics with a PhD and now works as a science writer. At Illinois, he conducted scientific research in mathematical biology and mathematical physics. In addition to his research interests, Daniel is a science video media creator.

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jamie Hendrickson is a writer and content creator in higher education communications. They earned their M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. In addition to their communications work, they are a published area studies scholar and Russian-to-English translator.

Garrett R. Williams is an Illinois Physics Ph.D. Candidate and science writer. He has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 APS History of Physics Essay Competition and as a finalist in the 2021 AAAS Science and Human Rights Essay Competition. He was also an invited author in the 2021 #BlackinPhysics Week series published by Physics Today and Physics World. 

 

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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This story was published December 12, 2008.