Nicole Yunger Halpern, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) who works at the University of Maryland as a Fellow in the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), has received an Early Career Scientist Award (ESCA) in Statistical Physics for her exceptional work bridging statistical physics, thermodynamics, and quantum information theory.
The award, presented every three years by the C3 Commission on Statistical Physics of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics, recognizes outstanding achievements and promise for the future careers of young scientists in both theoretical and experimental statistical physics.
Yunger Halpern is one of only three scientists to be named a recipient this year. In awarding her this honor, the selection committee specifically highlighted her fundamental contributions to non-Abelian thermodynamics and her exploration of the relationship between quantum chaos and the work fluctuation theorem in non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
At UMD, Yunger Halpern is a senior investigator in the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation, an adjunct faculty member in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and Institute for Physical Science & Technology, and a co-founder of the Maryland Quantum Thermodynamics Hub.
She leads a theoretical research group that is modernizing thermodynamics, which traditionally describes large things like steam engines. Yunger Halpern’s team uses the tools of quantum information theory to make a theory of quantum thermodynamics that describes small things like individual molecules and the qubits that are the basic building blocks of quantum computers. She applies her quantum thermodynamics perspectives to problems from a broad range of fields, including atomic, molecular, and optical physics; condensed matter physics; chemistry; high-energy physics; and biophysics.
Yunger Halpern will accept the award at the 29th International Conference on Statistical Physics, to be held in Florence, Italy July 13–18.