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O'Hara Receives Presidential Early Career Award at White House

27 July 2006—Kenneth M. O'Hara, assistant professor of physics and holder of the Downsbrough Career Professorship at Penn State, has been recognized as one of the most promising young scientists and engineers in the United States by being awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) at the White House yesterday. The award is the nation's highest honor for professionals at the outset of their independent research careers. O'Hara is one of 56 researchers to receive the award this year.

Nine federal departments and agencies nominate candidates for the PECASE award who are at the start of their independent careers and whose work shows exceptional promise for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. O'Hara was nominated for the award by the Department of Defense. The award winners receive up to five years of funding to further their research projects that support critical government missions.

O'Hara received the award in recognition of his research in the area of ultra-cold atomic gases, which is expected to increase the understanding of many-particle quantum systems and to lead to the development of novel quantum-mechanical devices. He was honored, as well, for his mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students, including those from groups underrepresented in the sciences. His mentoring methods include providing students with hands-on research experiences and exposing them to research challenges at the cutting edge of science and technology.

As part of his research, O'Hara studies ultra-cold atoms confined in a lattice formed from laser beams. This "optical lattice" mimics the potential that electrons experience when they move around a crystalline lattice in solid-state matter. Atoms in the lattice exhibit many of the same phenomena observed in solid-state electronic devices. "What makes studying these phenomena in an atomic system so exciting is that many experimental parameters are widely adjustable," O'Hara explains. "For example, we can modify the density of the atoms, the geometry of the lattice, the degree of disorder in the lattice, and even the interaction strength between the atoms. These modifications allow us to engineer idealized model systems in which to study quantum many-body phenomena such as magnetism, superconductivity, and quantum phase transitions." He adds, "We also expect to have the ability to engineer systems that have no analog in solid-state physics, which could lead to the discovery of entirely new states of matter and the development of new devices."

O'Hara's research accomplishments previously have been recognized with a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council, which allowed him to conduct research at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2002. He was a keynote speaker at the Workshop on Bose-Einstein Condensation and Quantum Information in Queensland, Australia, in 2003 and has given presentations at other scientific meetings, as well. He also is a referee for the scientific journals Physical Review Letters, Physical Review A, and Optics Communications.

Prior to joining Penn State in the fall semester of 2004, O'Hara was a postdoctoral research associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology from 2002 to 2004. At Duke University, he was a research associate from 2000 to 2002, a physics instructor in 2001, and a research and teaching assistant from 1994 to 2000. He also was a research assistant at the University of Notre Dame from 1993 to 1994. As a research assistant at Ohio State University, he participated in the U.S. Geological Survey Antarctica Project during the summers of 1990 and 1991, and worked in the Supercomputer Center from 1989 to 1990.

O'Hara received his bachelor's degree in physics, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame in 1994. He received his master's degree and doctoral degree in physics from Duke University in 1997 and 2000, respectively.

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