Research Team Alumni
Evan Smith
PhD Student
Evan’s PhD research focused on providing an experimental study of the insulating cerium-based pyrochlore Ce2Zr2O7, using neutron scattering and complimentary experimental techniques to elucidate and study a quantum spin ice phase near absolute zero temperature in Ce2Zr2O7. The magnetic Ce3+ ions in Ce2Zr2O7’s pyrochlore crystal structure occupy a sublattice of corner-sharing tetrahedra that is an archetype for magnetic frustration, and this magnetic frustration aids in promoting exotic magnetic phenomena. In particular, quantum spin ice is a rare type of magnetic phase in which the spins fluctuate in a quantum-entangled manner down to the lowest obtainable temperatures, with spin disorder that resembles the proton disorder in water ice, and with a wealth of interesting physics that accompanies this quantum disorder.
Evan was awarded the APS Outstanding Dissertation in Magnetism Award for 2024, the Dawes Memorial Scholarship (McMaster University, 2022), Ontario Graduate Scholarships (2019 and 2021) and a Canada Graduate Scholarship (2018).
Graduated2023Devin Burke
Postdoctoral fellow
Devin is now a research software scientist at the German Electron Synchrotron, DESY, specializing in scientific controls and instrumentation. DESY, short for Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, is a national research centre for fundamental science located in Hamburg and Zeuthen near Berlin in Germany.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/devin-burke-b9a230126/Graduated2023Hunter Sharron
Undergraduate research student
Graduated2022Qianli (Kyle) Ma
PhD Student
Kyle is now a post-doctoral scientist in condensed matter physics at Oak Ridge National Lab.
https://www.kyleqianlima.com/Graduated2022Patrick Clancy
Postdoctoral fellow
Pat has been involved in a wide variety of research projects during his time with the group, performing x-ray and neutron measurements on materials ranging from low dimensional and geometrically frustrated magnetic systems to high temperature superconductors and heavy fermion materials.
In particular, Pat’s thesis work has focused on the magnetic and structural properties of quasi-one-dimensional materials, such as the spin-Peierls compounds TiOBr and TiOCl, and quasi-two-dimensional materials, such as the stacked quantum magnets NaNiO2 and LiNiO2.
Graduated2021Zack Cronkwright
Masters Student
Graduated2020Dalini Maharaj
PhD student
Dalini’s primary research interests were based on neutron and X-ray scattering studies on frustrated systems which exhibit a variety of exotic behaviour. Her research interests was not limited to frustrated systems as some of her work with colleague Katharina, involved a study of the family of chromates, which form spin dimer systems and their low lying spin wave excitations and the effect of disorder. She conducted X-ray studies studies along with her colleague Edwin, on an organic spin liquid compound, k-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3. She was also involved in work involving the pyrochlores, specifically stuffed Tb2+xTi2-xO7+y to investigate the effect of stuffing on their physical properties.
Graduated2020Jiahe Deng
Undergraduate research student
Graduated2019Amirreza Ataei
Phd student (visiting from U de Sherbrooke)
Graduated2019Jonathan Gaudet
PhD student
Jonathan Gaudet was a PhD student in Bruce Gaulin’s group, working on neutron scattering studies of ground state selection and excitations in quantum XY pyrochlore magnets. He went on to a postdoc with Collin Broholm at Johns Hopkins University. He is presently a staff scientist at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaitherburg, MD, USA.
Graduated2018