Solving unsolvable problems with quantum computation

Kristine Lang Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Physics

Colorado College

August 27, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM at 315 East Costilla in Colorado Springs

Learn about advances in modern computing employing quantum mechanical processes and their use in solving extremely complex problems from a working physicist. 

Kristine Lang grew up in Colorado Springs, CO where she earned the scorn of her high school peers by reading physics books during the basketball games she was required to attend for band. Despite this early interest, for her undergraduate degree she attended Georgetown University where she majored in International Relations. Realizing the error of her ways, she applied and was miraculously admitted to U.C. Berkeley despite her lack of physics background from college. After seven long but fun years she was awarded her Ph.D. in Physics in 2001. For her thesis work she used scanning tunneling microscopy to study high temperature superconductors, demonstrating that these materials are fundamentally electronically homogeneous. 

During her time at Berkeley she also founded and ran an organization called the Society for Women in the Physical Sciences, which sponsored social and mentoring activities for the women in physics, astronomy and geology at Berkeley. More than ten years after its founding, the group is still going strong sponsoring regular activities for women in the sciences on the Berkeley campus.

After finishing graduate school, Kristine was a postdoc for 1.5 years at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder, CO where she worked on development of a Josephson junction based quantum bit. Since fall 2003 she has been an Assistant Professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs where she teaches and does research. While at CC she developed a course entitled "How Things Work" which explores the physics of everyday life. 

 In her research, she was recently awarded a $350,000 National Science Foundation grant to purchase a low temperature, high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope for her lab at Colorado College.  Using this instrument and combining her PhD and postdoctoral research, she focuses on using scanning tunneling microscopy to study materials used in quantum and classical computation.  Having grown up here, she is happy to have returned home to Colorado Springs to live near her family, especially since in May 2006 she became a mother to her son Cooper. Coming full circle, Kristine recently spoke at Berkeley for one of the Society for Women events discussing the balance she has found between family and career.