Ana Maria Rey | |
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![]() Rey in 2014 | |
Born | 1976or1977(age 47–48) Bogotá, Colombia |
Alma mater | Universidad de los Andes, University of Maryland |
Children | 1 [1] |
Awards | MacArthur Fellowship, Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award, Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award, Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | University of Colorado Boulder, National Institute of Standards and Technology |
Thesis | Ultracold bosonic atoms loaded in optical lattices (2004) |
Doctoral advisor | Charles Clark [2] |
Ana Maria Rey is a Colombian theoretical physicist and professor at University of Colorado Boulder. She is also a JILA fellow, a fellow at National Institute of Standards and Technology, and a fellow of the American Physical Society. [3] Rey was the first Hispanic woman to win the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in 2019. [4] In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. [5] She is currently the chair of DAMOP, the American Physical Society's division in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (AMO). [6]
Rey earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Universidad de los Andes [7] in Bogotá in 1999 with a magna cum laude distinction. [7] She got her Ph.D. in physics at University of Maryland in 2004. [8] She was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology from 2004 to 2005 in the group of Charles W. Clark. [7] She went on to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (ITAMP) at Harvard University [9] from 2005 to 2008.
After her postdoctoral position at ITAMP, she joined the University of Colorado Boulder Physics Department as an assistant research professor and JILA as an associate fellow in 2008. She was promoted to JILA Fellow in 2012 and shifted her position in the Department of Physics to adjoint professor in 2017. [10]
Rey is a theoretical quantum physicist who studies new techniques for controlling quantum systems and their applications ranging from quantum simulations and quantum information to time and frequency standards. Her research is often directly applicable to state-of-the-art experiments, particularly to atomic clocks, [11] quantum computing, [12] and precision measurements. Her contribution to the understanding of out-of-equilibrium quantum phenomena have led to pioneer measurements of quantum information scrambling, and the synthesis of magnetic and topological quantum materials. Her publications have been cited more than 11,000 times as of 2020. [13]
Rey is the principal investigator for the Rey Theory Group, [14] which focuses on orbital quantum magnetism, quantum metrology, topological quantum matter, open quantum systems, and quantum state engineering. [15]
Growing up in the early 1990s, Rey's childhood was spent around the terrorist conflicts of Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, drug cartels, and the state's government. Car bombs were a common method of terrorism where she lived, causing her family's vehicle to be searched for bombs by the police whenever they drove around. [23]
On July 29, 2000, Rey got married. Two days later, she immigrated to the United States. [1]
The most cited publications by Rey to the date are: [24]