Zach Geiger relaxing. Photo courtesy of Zach Geiger.Meet Zach Geiger, a fourth year Experimental Physics Ph.D. candidate at UCSB. When he’s not working with lasers in the lab or chilling on Goleta beach, he can be found helping put the collective “wow” back into science for students in the local Santa Barbara area as part of the Physics Circus.
Zach found his love for physics while growing up in Moorpark, California in Ventura County. He was fortunate to have been inspired by a great high school physics professor Craig Carlyle, a retired engineer, who liked to teach physics through demonstrations. In his class, Zach discovered the wonder of physics in action and not just as equations on paper.
Zach later went to study at UC San Diego where he earned a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in Mathematics. Now he’s studying experimental physics at UCSB, using cool words like “quantum computation” to describe some of his work, and wowing kids with science as part of his other work in the Physics Circus.
Tell me about your involvement with Physics Circus?
The Physics Circus actually started 20 years ago. It was developed by a faculty member, Jean Carlson, and another grad student.
Today, it’s taught as a class. They always need volunteers to help. So when I was a first year grad student I volunteered to work with the previous coordinator, Karina Roitman. When she left, she recommended me to take over the coordination position. I’ve been the coordinator for a year and a half now. I help set up events, manage volunteers, maintain demos, and teach physics concepts to children.
Zach bringing the "wow" at the Physics Circus. Photo coutesy of Zach Geiger.
Why did you get involved?
I love seeing the spark go off in a child's mind. Something like levitating a racquet ball, shooting a ring with an electromagnet--it is visually striking. Kids don’t get to experience that in regular classroom settings. Whenever you do it correctly, you get a collective gasp from the audience. I really like when that happens. On some level you reach them and inspire them.
That sounds fun. What do you do in your own research?
Zach Geiger relaxing with his meat smoker. Photo courtesy of Zach Geiger.My group (led by Dr. David Weld) uses lasers to trap atoms in order to answer questions fundamental to quantum mechanics. Things like nonequilibrium quantum dynamics, quantum mechanics of condensed matter systems, and quasicrystals. Some people call what we do quantum emulation. Basically, we’re building a quantum computer. Certain systems are beyond classical computation and simulation, so we recreate the physics of those systems in a system that is easier to study and understand.
That sounds like a lot of work. What do you to relax?
I like to go to the beach a lot. At Goleta beach, you can go to the beach with a beer or cocktail and just unwind. I also like to cook a lot. But what I really like is BBQ. I built my own smoker. Making smoked meats is a lot of fun. It’s a passive experience, so it’s great to relax. You can smoke meats for 4-5 hours, and then you get to enjoy the tasty results.
You’ve been a grad student for four years now. Any advice for people just starting out?
At least in Physics, people tend to push themselves really hard. From my experience, I learned that grad school is a marathon, not a sprint. You can’t always be sprinting. The first year broke me in terms of my workload...the work I did for professors, teaching, and classes. You need to give up on being a perfectionist. For example, you can spend a lot of time reading and never try out anything in the lab. But you have take that advice with a grain of salt. As my professor also jokes, six months in the lab can save you an afternoon in the library.
What are you proud of as a grad student?
Zach Geiger in the lab he help to build with Physics students Kurt Fujiwara, Ruwan Senaratne, and Shankari Rajagopal. Photo courtesy of Zach Geiger.Building up our lab. Understanding how everything works in the lab. It’s personally gratifying. When I joined the lab in December 2011, it was the professor’s first year also. There was no lab. We had to build it from scratch. Before I arrived, our space used to be conference rooms. The only thing we had at the start was a box of computer parts. My first job was to build a computer.
What is the one thing you hope to be doing 5 or 10 years out of graduate school?
I still want to be working on interesting and challenging problems. I want not to be bored. If I was working on fun and challenging problems ten years from now, I would be very happy.
For more on the Physics Circus, read The Current article, "A New Kind of Circus."