Heather Lewandowski

  • From left, Michael Lightner, vice president for academic affairs; Cerian Gibbes; Heather Lewandowski; President Todd Saliman; Anna Kosloski; Maria Elena Buszek; and Raphael Sassower. Gibbes, Lewandowski, Kosloski and Buszek are the newest President’s Teaching Scholars; Sassower chairs the program’s council.
    JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski has been honored in the 2022  President’s Teaching Scholars Program (PTSP), which recognizes CU faculty who skillfully integrate teaching and research at an exceptional level. Lewandowski's laboratory focuses on both cold molecular physics and physics education research. Her physics education research program studies ways to increase students' proficiency in scientific practices such as using models and quantitative reasoning in experimental physics.
  • Photo of Andres Villani Davila
    JILA Graduate Student Andres Villani Davila has been awarded a 2021 "Oustanding Graduate for Research" Award by the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Davila works under JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski and is pursuing a B.S. in Engineering Physics.
  • The future quantum workforce needs more diversity and proper training
    The second quantum revolution is underway, a period marked by significant advances in quantum technology, and huge discoveries within quantum science. From tech giants like Google and IBM, who build their own quantum computers, to quantum network startups like Aliro Quantum, companies are eager to profit from this revolution. However, doing so takes a new type of workforce, one trained in quantum physics and quantum technology. The skillset required for this occupation is unique, and few universities expose students to real-world quantum technology.
  • Heather Lewandowski photo
    JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski has been awarded the 2021 Boulder Faculty Excellence Award. This award was given specifically for Lewandowski's excellence in teaching and pedagogy.
  • By studying the reactions of neutral and ionic gases, the Lewandowski Group and their collaborators learned that the shape of a molecule makes a significant difference in the chemical reaction pathway and the final products of the reaction.
    When it comes to chemical reactions, shape matters. The Lewandowski Group have studied acetylene and its reactions with propyne and allene to find out how an isomer changes the chemical reaction pathway.
  • What qualifications are companies looking for in the quantum workforce? The Lewandowski Group found a lot of different ideas made up the theoretical Schrodinger's Cat of the new quantum workforce.
    We're in the Second Quantum Revolution, and companies are eager to build and market new technology based on rapid advances in quantum physics. JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski and her group decided to find out what qualifications these companies were looking for in the new quantum workforce.
  • Illustration of planning an online course
    The coronavirus pandemic upended schools in the spring of 2020, sending students and faculty home. This rapidly changed how instructors handled laboratory physics courses. With a NSF RAPID grant, JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski asked instructors what worked—and what didn't—as they moved their lab courses online.
  • Heather Lewandowski photo
    The American Physical Society announced JILA Fellow Heather Lewandowski as the 2019 recipient of the F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction.
  • Figure illustrating using lasers to control chemical reactions at the quantum level.
    In the vast stretches between solar systems, heat does not flow and sound does not exist. Action seems to stop, but only if you don’t look long enough. Violent and chaotic actions occur in the long stretches of outer space. These chemical reactions between radicals and ions are the same reactions underlying the burn of a flame and floating the ozone above our planet. But they’re easy to miss in outer space because they’re very rare.
  • JILA Fellows Andreas Becker, Heather Lewandowski and James Thompson
    Three JILA Fellows have been named 2018 Fellows of the American Physical Society. The three new Fellows—Andreas Becker, Heather J. Lewandowski, and James K. Thompson—were nominated from varying divisions of APS. Andreas Becker was nominated by the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular & Optical physics for his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of atoms and molecules in intense light fields, including seminal theoretical studies of attosecond dynamics, photoionization, complex electron dynamics in simple systems such as H2, and a better understanding of high-harmonic generation.
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