Four Terp Students Named 2019 Goldwater Scholars

Four University of Maryland undergraduates have been awarded scholarships by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, which encourages students to pursue advanced study and research careers in the sciences, engineering and mathematics

Over the last decade, UMD’s nominations have yielded 33 scholarships—the most in the nation, followed by Stanford University with 29. Goldwater Scholars receive one- or two-year $7,500 scholarships intended as a stepping-stone to research careers.

UMD’s four winners—a computer science and mathematics double major and three physics majors—all plan to pursue Ph.D.s.

Yaelle Goldschlag is seeking double degrees in computer science and mathematics and is a member of theAdvanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) program in the Honors College as well as a Banneker/Key Scholar. She is interested in computer security and privacy, with a focus on identity verification.She began conducting research with Dave Levin, an assistant professor of computer science at UMD, in 2018 and is a founding member of Levin’sBreakerspace, a laboratory for undergraduate cybersecurity research. Goldschlag searches for more effective ways to verify the identity of web domain owners, and co-presented research on hackers’ ploys to impersonate legitimate sites at the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2018 Internet Measurement Conference.

In addition to internships at Facebook and elsewhere, she taught a student-initiated course (STIC) in computer science and served as an ambassador for the Maryland Center for Women in Computing.

“Yaelle repeatedly exhibits initiative, creativity, skill at problem selection, and a slew of intangibles that will collectively serve her in becoming a leader in what I expect to be a very long career in research,” Levin said.

John Martyn, a physics major and member of theUniversity Honors Program in the Honors College, is interested in quantum information and quantum matter, as well as quantum computing. Since 2017, he has worked with physics Assistant Professor Brian Swingle on various aspects of quantum information, and developed a method to prepare approximations to thermal states that may one day enable quantum computers to study quantum matter systems and models ofblack holes. Martyn presented this work at the 2019 American Physical Society March Meeting and the 2019 National Collegiate Research Conference.

Martyn helped administer the High Energy Physics computing cluster at UMD and conducted research with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) team at the California Institute of Technology, where he investigated quantum noise in LIGO’s gravitational wave detectors. For this work, Martyn received the 2018 Carl Albert Rouse Undergraduate Research Fellowship from the National Society of Black Physicists.

“John really strives for perfection in his work and has already demonstrated many of the skills needed to function as an independent researcher,” Swingle said.

Nicholas Poniatowski, who is majoring in physics, is interested in the study of superconductivity in unconventional materials. Working with UMD physics Professor Richard Greene at theCenter for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials, Poniatowski studies a family of copper-oxide materials called cuprates—high-temperature superconductors that can exhibit superconductivity closer to room temperature.

In one project, Poniatowski and collaborators found that a particular cuprate responded in unexpected ways to variations in temperature and magnetic field, offering clues to the origin of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. This work will be published later this month in Science Advances, and Poniatowski presented further results related to this work at the 2019 APS March Meeting.

In addition, Poniatowski authored an article, forthcoming in the American Journal of Physics, describing the theoretical relationship between superconductivity and the Higgs mechanism in the standard model.

“Nick is extraordinary at both theory and experiment, a combination of skills that is very rarely seen,” said Greene. “He has tremendous potential for significant experimental research contributions in the future.”

Mark Zic, also majoring in physics, is a member of the University Honors Program in the Honors College. He focuses on topological materials and superconductors, which have potential applications in quantum computing.

Working with Johnpierre Paglione, professor of physics and director of the Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials, Zic helped discover and characterize a novel potential superconductor, with a resulting study published in Physical Review B in 2018.

In addition, Zic led an effort to use the UMDRadiation Facilities to irradiate quantum materials to characterize their physical properties for potential use in quantum technologies, presenting this work at the 2018 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Quantum Materials Summer School and Program Meeting. Zic also assisted in experiments using ultracold temperatures to characterize a new superconductor that survives under extremely high magnetic fields. This work will be published in the journal Science.

“Mark has continued to surprise me with his abilities, initiative and progress,” Paglione said. “He has engaged in not one, but three graduate or even postgraduate-level projects in the last year and shows no signs of slowing down. He is a true asset to our center.”