Yale Wright Laboratory

Congrats to 's David Nguyen, who successfully defended the thesis, "The Simons Observatory: Data Monitoring, Alarm System, and Half-wave Plate Study from First Light Data" (advisor: Laura Newburgh)

Nguyen will next be a postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory , leading the effort in developing machine learning algorithms for both detector data quality assurance and experiment operations. Nguyen will primarily work with South Pole Telescope (SPT) data, but will aim to generalize for all CMB experiments. Nguyen will also continue working with Simons Observatory .

Learn more at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-07-24-david-nguyen-successfully-defends-thesis-the-simons-observatory-data-monitoring

Yesterday, the students in 2026 Summer Explorations in Robotics, Programming, Science, and Technology at worked more with their robots; posed for some group pictures with their robots and the camp staff,;and learned about the CEID (Yale Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Design) first from Wright Lab undergraduates who are working on projects at the CEID and then by taking a tour of the CEID itself.

Yale Physics Department

The middle school students in our Summer Explorations in Robotics, Programming, Science, and Technology at were very busy the past two days building and coding their robots in different configurations, including with lights, sounds, sensors, remotes, and 3-D printed robot arms. In the afternoon enrichment sessions, the students toured the Yale Peabody Museum and Wright Lab, learned about Wright Lab science from Professor Karsten Heeger, and also observed cosmic rays passing through a Cloud Chamber.

Today the thirteen middle school students in Summer Explorations in Robotics, Programming, Science, and Technology at built an autonomous robot and programmed it. Here are a few photos from the robot assembly this morning.

Yale Physics Department

The zebra is excited about the Summer Explorations in Robotics, Programming, Science, and Technology happening this week at Wright Lab! 13 middle school students (rising 6th-8th grade) from New Haven area schools are building and programming robots in different configurations, as well as attending enrichment activities such as tours of the Yale Peabody Museum , Wright Lab, and the ; particle physics demonstrations and hands-on activities; and a session on robots and AI.

Yale Physics Department

Congrats to 's Glenn Richardson, who successfully defended the thesis “Probing the Universe with 136Xe - The Physics Reach of nEXO” (advisor: David Moore).

Richardson will next be a postdoc at Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB)/Queens working on the Superconducting Array for Low Energy Radiation (SALER) experiment, which seeks to embed short-lived radioactive nuclei in Superconducting Tunnel Junctions by placing these detectors directly in the rare isotope beam lines. One of the primary goals Richardson will be working on with this experiment is a precise measurement of Vud.

Learn more at https://wlab.yale.edu/posts/2026-07-16-glenn-richardson-successfully-defends-thesis-probing-the-universe-with-136xe-the

Yale Physics Department

Glenn Richardson successfully defends thesis, "Probing the Universe with 136Xe - The Physics Reach of nEXO" Exploring how liquid xenon detectors can be used to make world-leading measurements of our Sun, extracting new science from existing technology.

The summer students attended a presentation and panel on Science Communication. They learned tips for publishing papers, giving scientific presentations, and communicating science to the public from Wright Lab researchers. Special thanks to panelists David Moore, Mira Varma, and .

Yale Physics Department

Rare science books: The summer students at visited the for the program's annual viewing of historical scientific books owned by the , including early editions by Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Benjamin Franklin, and several other authors. The 16 works were mostly from the 16th to 18th centuries, with the earliest work by Tycho Brahe, published in 1588, and the latest work by Irène Joliot-Curie, published in 1932.

Yale Physics Department

Today the summer students at became code breakers, code makers, and.... spies! YQI Managing Director Florian Carle led an engaging hands-on workshop that demonstrated how to send secure communication in a quantum world, using the BB84 protocol for a secure quantum key distribution. Participants were split into groups to send a secret code from Alice (Yale's Handsome Dan) to Bob (SCSU's Otus). But they had to watch out for the eavesdropping Eve (Wright Lab Zebra)!

How did this work? There were three people who represented Alices, each with a unique code they had created; corresponding to three people representing Bobs who were each receiving their own Alice's code and interpreting it. But two of the three Eves intercepted two of the messages and sent a false code to the Bobs who were receiving those messages. Using the technique they learned in the workshop, participants were able to successfully figure out which messages had been intercepted and which was not, as well as learn about how information travels differently through public and quantum channels.

Yale Physics Department

The summer students enjoyed meeting up at the CT State Colleges and Universities Center for Quantum and Nanotechnology (QNT) at nearby Southern Connecticut State University. The group from Yale took a tour of the beautiful QNT facilities and then joined the Werth IAF Fellows for lunch and a planetarium show.

Yale Physics Department