Our Research Team

Gaulin is an experimental condensed matter physicist, working in the general area of scattering studies of exotic ground states in new, mostly magnetic, materials.

Gaulin holds the endowed Brockhouse Chair in the Physics of Materials and the title of Distinguished University Professor (2017) from McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), the American Physical Society (APS), the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA), and the Quantum Materials Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) in recognition of his contributions to novel magnetic phases of matter. He was awarded the 2011 Brockhouse Medal from the Canadian Association of Physicists and a 2017 President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision. He served as the Director of the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research (2009–2019), the President of the Canadian Association of Physicists (2018–2019), the Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering (1997–2003), and the NSSA (2009–2013). He is the only president of the NSSA who was elected from outside the US. Gaulin was Chair of the 2017 Gordon Research Conference on Neutron Scattering in Hong Kong. Three of his PhD students have been awarded the 2014, 2018, and 2024 Outstanding Student Research Prizes from the NSSA— three of the first seven such prizes awarded.

Qiang Chen is a postdoctoral fellow. He works with Prof. Bruce Gaulin and oversees the Center for Crystal Growth lab of Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research. He is a crystal grower specializing in floating zone techniques and he uses scattering techniques such as x-rays and neutrons to study novel quantum materials, mostly magnetic and/or superconducting.

Dr. Chen obtained his Ph.D. from University of Tennessee under supervision of Dr. Haidong Zhou and Adam A. Aczel, where he focused on molecular orbital effects in heavy transition metal magnets.

Thode Postdoctoral Fellowship

Bo is an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow who is working on his own research related to neutron and x-ray scattering from high correlated 4 and 5d quantum magnets, and also working on the development of quantum materials applications of the neutron diffraction facilities within the Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory. Bo received his PhD from University of Toronto, working with Prof. Young June Kim. He was also an postdoctoral fellow at the Max Plank Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany, before joining our group.

Yang’s PhD research focused on the high-temperature superconductor La2-xBaxCuO4 (LBCO). This material has garnered significant interest for over four decades due to the intricate interplay among lattice, charge, and spin degrees of freedom. His successful growth of pristine single crystals using in-house image floating zone furnace is a significant achievement, providing a clearer window into the material’s behavior through X-ray and neutron scattering experiments.

Post-graduation, Yang dedicated two years to postdoctoral work with Collin Broholm at Johns Hopkins University, continuing his exploration of neutron scattering to study exotic magnetic materials. Presently, he holds the position of instrument scientist for the BT7 triple-axis spectrometer at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (https://www.nist.gov/ncnr/bt-7-double-focusing-triple-axis-spectrometer), working with Dr. Jeffrey Lynn.