Lucile Savary. Credit: Lucile Savary.You probably don't know Lucile Savary, a graduate student in Physics, who will be this year’s UCSB commencement speaker. For the past six years, she has been busy studying condensed matter theory, and in the fall, she will continue her research as a postdoc at M.I.T. She’s also a French citizen.
Unlike other French citizens, Lucile decided to pursue her graduate studies in the United States, which is very unusual, since most French graduate students in the sciences stay in France.
On the website for the Balent's Group, a research group in the Physics Department at UCSB that conducts theoretical studies of condensed matter, Lucille's interests are listed as “impurity effects in frustrated magnets,” “quantum order-by-disorder,” “quantum spin liquids in quantum spin ice,” and “quantum criticality in iridium pyrochlores.” I was eager to find out if this had anything to do with time travel or teleportation.
We met in her office in Broida Hall 6113. Broida Hall turned out to be different than any other campus building I have ever visited. A person in a mouse suit joined me on my elevator ride up. On the elevator wall someone had installed a working model of a scale to measure the resistance of pull and push, which jerked up or down every time the elevator came to a halt. And when I arrived on the sixth floor, I noticed chalkboards on the walls covered with equations.
Since I got there a little early, I had time to admire the view from the sixth floor, which looks out over the campus and toward the Pacific Ocean. Not a bad place to work when you're a theoretical physicist interested in condensed matter theory.
When we met, Lucile looked a little tired and told me that she had just finished writing her dissertation the week before, her commencement speech this week, and still had to write for her dissertation defense on Friday.
We talked about her research in condensed matter theory, her life as a grad student, and her advice to students in her commencement speech.
You received a B.A. and M.A. degree in Physics at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. How did you end up studying theoretical physics at UCSB?
It’s a funny story, actually. As an undergraduate, we had the option of finishing our degree with three months of research and three months of classes, or six months of doing research anywhere. So I looked for a nice place to study and found UCSB. Then I looked for someone interested in condensed matter theory. I contacted Leon Balents [her advisor] by email and when he didn’t reply I called him up after only two days. It worked out well. This was the only school I applied to for graduate school.
You do research in condensed matter theory and your dissertation is “Exotic Phenomena in Quantum Pyrochlore Materials.” Does this have anything to do with teleportation or time travel? (Laughs). No. I study materials like the ones you have in your iPhone, electronic stuff. I look at such topics as how these materials can store more data in smaller spaces than the silicon materials we use today. I usually say that I study solids at the electronic scale, that I try to understand the things around us at the scale right below ours. My work has the potential to be useful in the future.
Let’s talk about your life now. You’re from France and went to school in Lyon. Where did you grow up?
Lots of places. I was born in Rodez, in one of the best cheese regions in South-Central France. I also lived in Limoges, Bordeaux, Paris, and for four years in Washington, D.C. Then later also in Grenoble and Zurich.
What do people find most interesting about you?
Lucile Savary doing improv. Credit: Lucile Savary.That’s a hard question. I’m not sure. Probably how often I moved and traveled and where I lived is relatively unusual. I lived in D.C. for four years when my father was working for the World Bank. It’s where I learned to speak English. I’d like to think this, and other things, have given me a little bit of perspective. But one should really ask other people (smiles). Otherwise, people are usually surprised that I like acting and comedy, when I am generally quite shy.
What is the one thing that people would be surprised to learn about you?
That’s also a hard question. But physics-wise, certainly: From early childhood, most people love physics, but I didn’t like physics until the final year of high school. There were all these different ideas and they weren’t clear to me. I had a good teacher who explained things very well.
What is one piece of advice would you give to an incoming graduate student?
The most important thing is to understand things fundamentally, not just superficially. On another note, we’re so worried and focused on the future. We spend much of our time working a lot. We forget to take advantage of our time right now as a graduate student. This is our twenties: we should take advantage.
On that note, what do you do to relax?
I play tennis, bike a little bit, and do hiking. I like to play board games: one of my favorites is pandemic. In France, I really enjoyed acting, and improv. Otherwise, I read an incredible amount of news. And I enjoy some amount of geeky things, like fun programming.
Lucile in Boulder, Colorado. Credit: Lucile Savary.
What is your biggest accomplishment in life and why?
Getting my PhD here. (Pauses to explain). Virtually zero PhD students (in physics anyway) from France go to the US to do their study. Much of my school system in France was saying, why are you going there? I had to figure out everything. At one time, it was unclear at all if I was going to be able to finish.
Who has had the biggest impact or influence on you?
Leon Balents, for sure, has been fantastic. My physics teacher from high school; another teacher in my classes préparatoires, who got me to continue in this field. Most people with me in “classes prépa” went into engineering at one point.
What is the one thing you hope to be doing 5 or 10 years out of graduate school?
I hope to get a faculty job. It’s extremely difficult to get a faculty post/position. Some people do many post docs before getting one.
You were chosen to be this year’s commencement speaker. How did this come about?
I read a reminder email about it on the GradPost. I thought, maybe I should do that. Normally, when I do something it takes me a long time because I’m super careful. But I only had a couple days left to apply. I thought I would apply if I had something to say. It turned out I had a bunch of ideas.
What do you plan to talk about in your speech?
Accomplishing something. Don’t just study to do well, but to learn something. This way it will always be yours and it won’t be taken away from you. Learn to appreciate the wide variety of talents, and the broad array of aspirations. I try to convey that despite the variety of our fields we all kind of do the same thing: think logically, and rigorously. That also gives us some responsibilities.
Also, there’s so much emphasis placed on being smart. Academic intelligence is not the only useful skill in life, and academic success is not the only measure of our worth. I want you to remember that this is not the only quality in life. There are other things that matter as much, or more: openness, understanding, love, tolerance, and improvement.