With the start of the new academic year, we welcome Thomas Accattatis who will be joining us as a new PhD student and Nora Malgeri who will be conducting the research phase of her Masters in Physics here at Imperial to the Ultracold Strontium Lab!
Thomas completed his Bachelors degreee in Physics here at Imperial during which he worked on setting up a Rubidium MOT for his final project. His experience in a cold-atoms lab inspired him to further pursue a Masters in Physics with Quantum Dynamics also at Imperial where he was introduced to the world of atom interferometry through a self-study project he conducted during the program. After completing his Masters project in the CCM working in a Rubidium atom interferometer lab, he is excited to join AION working on the long-baseline Strontium-based atom interferometers.
Nora finished her Bachelors degree in Astrophysics at Royal Holloway (2025) before embarking on a Physics with Extended Research Masters here at Imperial. She is interested in the intersection of Particle, Quantum, and Cosmology; which meant that AION’s science goals of mid-frequency gravitational wave detection and ultra-light dark matter sensitivity using state-of-the-art controllable quantum systems are very well-aligned to her overlapping interests. She is particularly interested in the elusive nature of dark matter and is excited to be able to contribute to the first detector of this kind in the UK!