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Winter 2020

The Block P sculpture with fall trees.

New Faculty

Arnab Banerjee

Arnab Banerjee, assistant professor, is an experimental condensed matter physicist whose research program seeks to identify, measure and control new quantum and topological states in materials through their dynamical properties. Banerjee holds a BS and an MS from the Indian Institute of Technology, Karagpur, and an MS and PhD from the University of Chicago. He comes to Purdue University from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he was a staff scientist.

Shawn (Xingshan) Cui

Shawn (Xingshan) Cui, assistant professor, specializes in quantum information science. His specific research interests include topological quantum field theories, higher categories, low dimensional topology and topological quantum computation. Cui holds a BS in mathematics from Sun Yat-Sen University (China) and a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He comes to Purdue from Virginia Tech, where he was an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. Cui holds a joint appointment with the Department of Mathematics at Purdue.

Jonathan Hood

Jonathan Hood, assistant professor, is an experimentalist specializing in quantum information science. His research interests include ultracold dipolar molecules for generating high-fidelity quantum gates and building complex entangled arrays, and engineering strong and novel atom-photon interactions by integrating atoms into nanophotonic circuits. He earned a BS from the University of Maryland and a PhD from the California Institute of Technology. He joins the department from Harvard University, where he was a postdoctoral scholar. Hood holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry at Purdue.

Nima Lashkari

Nima Lashkari, assistant professor, is a theoretical particle physicist interested in quantum field theory, string theory, black hole physics and quantum information theory. In particular, he applies the tools of quantum information theory to study entanglement, universality and strong-coupling phenomena in high energy physics. Lashkari comes to Purdue from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. After earning a BS at Sharif University of Technology (Iran), he received an MS and a PhD from McGill University (Canada).

Shalini Low-Nam

Shalini Low-Nam, assistant professor, is an experimental biophysicist whose research interests include membrane biophysics, signal transduction and single molecule fluorescence imaging. Low-Nam holds a BS from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of New Mexico. She comes to Purdue from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a postdoctoral scholar. Low-Nam holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry at Purdue.

Ruichao (Alex) Ma

Ruichao (Alex) Ma, assistant professor, specializes in quantum information science. His specific interests center on developing new methods to create and study synthetic quantum materials made of interacting microwave photons in superconducting circuits. Ma comes to Purdue from the University of Chicago, where he was a postdoctoral researcher. He holds a BS from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and a PhD from Harvard University.

Niranjan Shivaram

Niranjan Shivaram, assistant professor, is an experimental physicist in atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics. His research focuses on using coherent extreme-ultraviolet and soft X-ray light to study electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and materials on femtosecond to attosecond time scales. He comes to Purdue from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where he was an associate staff scientist. Shivaram holds a BS from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore University (India), an MS from Jawaharlal University (India) and a PhD from the University of Arizona.