Category Archives: Alumni PhD Student

Former PhD students of the Cretan Matter Waves Group

Vidhu Catherine Antony

05/2021 – today PhD Student (on leave)

Vidhu did her Bachelor of Science (Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science – Triple Major) at Bangalore University (Wiki), from which she graduated second of her class (Gold Medalist).  

During the final year of her Bachelor’s Program, she was selected for the prestigious Indian Academy of Science (IASc) – Summer Research Fellowship Program (SRFP) – 2017 at the Quantum Materials and Devices Group (formerly known as the Low-Temperature Nano-Electronics Group), Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, under Prof Arindam Ghosh.

After working as a Project Trainee in the same group, she continued with her Master of Science (Physics) at Bangalore University and graduated top of her class (Gold Medalist). Her master’s project was on Quantum Computation, Estimating Pi using Quantum Phase Estimation Algorithm, which she runs on the public access quantum computer of IBM (Qiskit).

Following her masters, she joined as a Project Assistant / Junior Research Fellow (JRF) at the Quantum Optics and Quantum Information Processing Group, Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

At the moment she is awaiting her visa which has been delayed due to COVID restrictions.

Vasiliki Bolpasi

05/2014 –  10/2020 Research Assistant on BEC2 and AtomQT
02/2009 – 04/2014 PhD Student
09/2006 – 06/2008 Master Student

Vasiliki joined the Cretan Matter-Waves Group in October 2005 as an undergraduate student. She graduated from the Physics Department of the University of Crete in October 2006. Right after that, she started her Master in Optoelectronics – Microelectronics in the University of Crete, where she completed her master thesis working on high-power tapered-diode lasers. She has recently finished her PhD on high flux atom lasers and now she works in our lab as a postdoc. She is now teaching at the University of Crete.

Saurabh Pandey

07/2019 – 11/2019 Postdoc on BEC1
10/2013 – 07/2019 PhD Student on BEC1
06/2013 – 09/2013 Intern

Saurabh was PhD student and postdoc  on BEC 1 on guided matterwaves, where he was the first author on our Nature Paper demonstrating ring-shaped matterwave guides.

Saurabh is now a senior postdoc at the Sandia National Lab (in Albuquerque), where he is working on on atomic clocks and Rydberg quantum computing.

Before this, Saurabh worked  at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the group of Malcolm Boshier, where he was working on the demonstration of a novel atomtronic rotation sensor based on optical dipole potentials.

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Hector Mas of the Bec - Cretan Matter Waves Group

Hector Mas

06/2014 – 07/2019 PhD Student on BEC1
10/2013 – 06/2014 Internship on BEC 1

After a postdoc at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, he is now in the Weld Group at the UC Santa Barbara, California.

06/2014 to 07/2019 PhD Student on BEC 1 

10/2013 to 06/2014 Intern on BEC 1 
09/2012 to 09/2013 MsC in photonics at the Optics Laboratory of the University of Vigo 
Hector did his MSc at the Optics Laboratory of the University of Vigo at Ourense Campus, where he worked on the optimization of the photonic gauge for XHV under the supervision of Ángel Paredes.
10/2008 to 10/2012 Undergraduate at the University of Valencia
Hèctor graduated from the University of Valencia in 2012 and he went right after to Galicia to start a MsC in photonics at the Optics Laboratory of the University of Vigo at Ourense Campus. His last incursion in physics was a collaboration in the theoretical development of the Photonic Gauge of XHV.
 09/2008 to 09/2012 Undergraduate at the University of Valencia 
 Hèctor did his undergraduate studies at the Physics Faculty of the Universitat de València. There he also had a short internship at Energesis Group.

Giannis Drougakis

Alumnus Postdoc
10/2021 – 7/2024 Postdoc on BEC 1 and Space Optics
11/2016 – 10/2021 PhD Student on BEC 1 and OBST
03/2015 – 10/2016 Master Student on the ESA-OBST project

Giannis joined the Cretan Matter Waves group in March 2015 to work on the ESA-OBST project. He holds a diploma in electrical and computer engineering (2012) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He received his master’s degree from the inter-institutional graduate program “Vision and Optics”, of the University of Crete finishing his master thesis entitled “Vibrational and angular stability of optical systems for space applications” in December 2015. He continued for his PhD working on BEC 1 and OBST, graduating in October 2021. He is now a postdoc on BEC 1 and OBST. He is going to be the head of telecommunications at the airport in Heraklion and will be in charge of this topic at the new airport in Kastelli

Grigoris Konstantinidis

09/2007 to 01/2012 PhD Student on BEC1
11/2006 to 08/2007 Master Student on BEC1

Grigoris joined the Cretan Matter-Waves Group in November 2006 as a Master student. He graduated from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. October 2005 he came to the Physics Departement of the University of Crete to do a Master in General Physics with a specialization in Condensed Matter Physics.

Gregory succesfully defended his thesis (link to pdf) on the 25. January 2012.

 

Melina Pappa

Lykourgos Bougas

03/2006 to 05/2014 PhD student on parity violation
05/2004 to 05/2006 Master student on parity violation

Lykourgos received his PhD from the Physics Department of the University of Crete. His thesis was supervised by Peter Rakitzis and Wolf von Klitzing.

 

His first postdoc at Berkeley was on a parity violation. He is now doing a second postdoc with Dmitry Budker’s Group in Mainz.

 

His motto is

Improving your self, is the only thing you can do to improve the world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein