Mohammed Alshalabi
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Zachary Andersen
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Cole Armstrong
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Ramachandra Bangari
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Ramachandra Bangari is interested in Condensed Matter Physics and Material Science. He is currently working with Dr. Thomas Folland on computational simulation and experimental characterization of optical constants in thin films, 2-D materials, and semiconductors. He obtained Bachelor's and Master's in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science.
Dylan Blend
Title/Position
Graduate Student
Graduate Student Mentor
Graduate College Lulu Merle Johnson Fellowship recipient
Dylan is a recent BS Physics graduate from Texas A&M University. Dylan is from Houston, TX and his current research advisors are Professors Jane Nachtman and Yasar Onel. He will be an experimental particle physicist and I am currently involved in the CMS Outer Tracker Phase II Upgrade and DUNE experiment, Liquid Argon TPC.
Robert Broadfoot
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Robert Broadfoot took a non-traditional path to the doctoral program in physics by first obtaining a master’s degree in music performance. He is now performing research in experimental space physics under the mentorship of Dr. David Miles. His research interests include space weather and auroral dynamics.
Collin Brown
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Collin Brown’s research interests involve using high-performance computation and kinetic plasma theory to study the solar wind. He is working with Dr. Greg Howes, Dr. Jimmy Juno, and Dr. Steve Baek to develop a machine learning algorithm that detects key properties of shocks in simulated astrophysical plasmas.
Sanjay Chepuri
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Sanjay Chepuri is interested in studying space physics. He is currently working with Dr. Allison Jaynes examining the Earth's magnetosphere using data from MMS and other spacecraft. He is on the Graduate Mentors leadership team.
Sarah Choate
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Michael Connolly
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Graduate College Recruitment Fellow
Graduate Student Advisory Committee Member
Graduate Student Mentor
Michael Connelly is interested in the development of a harmonious understanding of nature between the very large and very small scale systems and the potential applications between. He currently works with Dr. Vincent G. J. Rodgers studying Standard Model fermions in Thomas-Whitehead Gravity.
James Corona
Title/Position
Graduate Research & Teaching Assistant
James Corona is interested in conducting research in the areas of quantum computation and quantum information theory. He is currently working with Dr. Yannick Meurice to simulate quantum systems in various models such as the Abelian Higgs model. He plans to develop new methods for using quantum computers to study systems which are unfeasible for simulation on classical computers.
Lillian Daneshmand
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Laksha Pradip Das
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Cecilia Fasano
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Graduate Student Advisory Committee Member
Graduate Student Mentor
Cecilia Fasano’s research interests lie at the intersection of nanofabrication, technology development, and astrophysics. She is currently working with Prof. Casey DeRoo and Prof. Keri Hoadley on a project designing and fabricating the next generation of x-ray and UV gratings for use in astronomical instrumentation. She is on the Graduate Mentors leadership team.
David Fehr
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Graduate Student Advisory Committee Member
David Fehr is interested in condensed matter theory research and currently works with Dr. Flatté, studying the theory of spin coherence of molecules with nanoscale confinement . Before coming to the University of Iowa, David double majored in music and physics as an undergraduate and earned a master's degree in physics at the University of North Dakota.
Alberto Felix
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Connor Feltman
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Connor Feltman works with Dr. Craig Kletzing and Dr. Scott Bounds researching Space Plasma as pertaining to auroral phenomena. He engages in testing hardware and processing data for rocket missions launched into the northern hemisphere to observe the connection between auroral events, their composite particles and Earth's magnetic field.
Tyler Ford
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Jacob Fruchtman
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Jacob Fruchtman is interested in studying the Martian Magentosphere. He is currently working with Professor Jasper Halekas on a project analyzing the MAVEN spacecraft's data to characterize the Martian Bow Shock to find how it varies by season.
Chase Fuller
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Chase Fuller has research interests in high energy astrophysics and galactic structure, with current activities focused on X-ray emitting astrophysical plasmas. He is also interested in making science accessible to general audiences, using it to inform public policy, and its role as a mediator for discussions of national importance.
Eudes Gomes da Silva
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Chad Gorgen
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Kenton Greene
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Kenton Greene is involved in space physics experimentation and instrumentation research. His current work focuses on the optimization and characterization of a new high-stability fluxgate magnetometer design called the Tesseract Sensor which will fly on the upcoming ACES-II sounding rockets and TRACERS satellite missions to measure the field aligned currents in the magnetosphere.
Philip Griffin
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Tyler Grover
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Tyler Grover has research interests in mathematical physics: string theory, gravitation, and quantum field theories. He currently works with Dr. Vincent G. J. Rodgers exploring features of Thomas-Whitehead Projective Gravity. Current projects include search for space-time solutions and predicted corrections for particle physics.
Kevin Hall
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Kevin has interests in simulating how exoplanets would look within simulated data from future Direct Imaging missions and determine what characteristics can be extracted from the system.
Henry Hammer
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Zheyue Hang
Title/Position
Graduate Student
Zheyue Hang is currently working with Professor Yannick Meurice on the field of quantum computing. She is also interested in mathematical physics and condensed matter.
Nicholas Harshman
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Syed Hassan Abbas Bukhari
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Nathan Helvy
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Rui Huang
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Rui Huang is interested in theoretical and computational astrophysics. They are currently working with Professor Greg Howes on a project studying the plasma turbulence theory.
Jayasri Joseph
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Before returning to school to conduct research in Space physics, Jaya Joseph worked as a research engineer designing various wireless communication systems and receivers for use in radio astronomy at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia. She is currently working to better understand some of the anomalous behaviours of Van Allen belts with Prof. Allison Jaynes.
Ohannes Kamer Koseyan
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Ohannes Kamer Koseyan's research interests include experimental data analysis for the decay modes of the Higgs Boson and testing and development of hardware for high energy particle detectors. Before starting his Ph.D. program in the University of Iowa, he worked at the phase 1 upgrade of the CMS experiment at CERN during his MS studies.
Amila Kumara
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Patrick Langer
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Patrick majored in Physics with a minor in Math during his undergraduate career. He currently is working with Dr. Skiff, researching kinetic wave scattering in plasmas. His aspirations are to contribute substantial research to the field of plasma physics, and to potentially consider teaching as well.
Yogendra Limbu
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Mehdi (Kian) Maleki Sanukesh
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Kian Maleki is interested in theoretical condensed matter physics. He is working as a research assistant with Prof. Flatté. His current project is about defect-phonon interaction in hBN.
Brady Martin
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Brady Martin is currently conducting research for Dr. Wayne Polyzou in the field of theoretical nuclear physics. His research focuses on the study of many-body nuclear scattering events dominated by cluster reactions with particular interest in the effective interactions between clusters. Careful attention is given to the use of partition combinatorics in multi-channel scattering theory.
Ian Masson
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Robert Maxton
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Robert Maxton is currently working with Prof. Yannick Meurice on efficient simulations of higher-dimensional Ising models, especially through tensor networks and including investigating the boundaries of near-term quantum supremacy. His interests for future work include (but are not limited to) quantum field theory, the mathematical foundation of the same, and quantum gravity.
Jacob McLaughlin
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Jacob McLaughlin performs research in experimental plasma sciences, specializing in nonperturbative, laser-based diagnostic techniques. Working with Dr. Skiff, his current focus is wave-particle interactions and kinetic instabilities.
Jodie McLennan
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
John Momberg
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Jessica Mondoskin
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Aidan Moore
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Raaman Nair
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Before joining the doctoral program at the University of Iowa, Raaman completed his BS in Physics & Astronomy, and MS in Applied Physics at Northern Arizona University. Later on, he was a Physics teacher at schools in Arizona.
Kristie Nault
Title/Position
Graduate Student
Kristie Nault is interested in high energy astrophysics and the spectroscopic study of stars. She is currently working with Professor Casey DeRoo, studying the symbiotic star AG Dra and using spectra obtained with the Chandra LETG/HRC spectrometer in order to determine temperature, flux, and absorption of the dominant blackbody emission produced by the white dwarf component.
Matthew Nelson
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
As an undergraduate, Matthew earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics at the University of Iowa. His current research interests are in the fields of condensed matter physics and mathematical physics. He is on the Graduate Mentors leadership team.
Orgho Neogi
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Orgho Neogi is an experimental particle physicist working on the DUNE experiment, focusing on liquid argon TPC event reconstruction and developing machine learning techniques for particle physics analysis. He also works on the CMS experiment, testing prototype detectors for the Barrel Timing Layer upgrade. Before starting the Ph.D. program at Iowa, he earned bachelor's degrees in Physics and Computer Science from Cornell College and worked on DUNE (Wire-Cell reconstruction) and CMS (jet triggers).
Zane Ozzello
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Colin Packard
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Colin Packard’s research interests center primarily around instrumentation and hardware development, photometry, and observational astronomy. He is currently working with Dr. Philip Kaaret, Dr. Casey DeRoo, and Dr. Jun Wang on both X-ray detection with CMOS sensors, and the development and testing of sensor hardware for an air or space based platform for use in measuring atmospheric pollutants via Earth observing photometry.
Rachel Pauline
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Jacob Payne
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Daniel Pette
Title/Position
Graduate Student
Dan is currently employed as an aerospace engineer while he pursues a PhD here at Iowa, part-time. He has lived in four states and enjoys weightlifting, hiking, road trips, craft beer, and classic literature.
Jonatan Posligua
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Jonatan is a first-year physics graduate student from Guayaquil, Ecuador. He came to the University of Iowa in 2017 to undertake his undergraduate studies and graduated with a Bachelor in Sciences in Astronomy and Physics in May, 2021. His research interests include gravitation, cosmology, mathematical physics, particle physics and quantum field theory. Outside of physics, his hobbies include sports, playing music, cooking and traveling.
Brendan Powers
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Mohit Pradhan
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Salvatore Quaid
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Graduate Student Mentor
Blake Senseman
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Punit Sharma
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Punit is working on the High Luminosity upgrade of the Inner Tracker detector of the ATLAS experiment currently stationed at the Brookhaven National Lab. He also works on the exotic analysis based on the 2-Higgs doublet model where the pseudoscalar Higgs decays into the heavy CP even neutral Higgs and a Z boson using the run-2 data from the ATLAS experiment. Punit got his bachelor's and master's degrees from IIT Kanpur. His master's project was on the quantum entanglement in the holographic conformal field theories.
Chhatra Tamang Lama
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Jared Termini
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Jared Termini is interested in astronomical instrumentation and detector design. He is currently working with Professor Keri Hoadley on the Faint Intergalactic Medium Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall) mission.
Maryam Vaghefi Esfidani
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Maryam is interested in condensed matter and her area is understanding the optical properties of polar materials and semiconductor using a combination of experimental methods and numerical model.
Niels Van Venrooij
Title/Position
Graduate Research Assistant
Keith Vidal
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Keith Vidal is interested in space and plasma physics. He has studied strongly coupled and magnetized plasmas and is currently studying wave-particle interactions in the Earth's magnetosphere with Prof. Jaynes.
Yuanzheng Wen
Title/Position
Graduate Teaching Assistant