Tanya Zelevinsky

Tanya Zelevinsky
Alma mater	MIT and Harvard University
Known for	High-precision spectroscopy and Quantum Optics
Awards	Fellow of the American Physical Society (2018) Francis M. Pipkin Award Recipient (2019)

Tanya Zelevinsky is an associate professor of physics at Columbia University. Her research focuses on high-precision spectroscopy of cold molecules for fundamental physics measurements and she is a leader in the field of quantum optics. Her group is developing molecular lattice clocks, ultracold molecule photodissociation, as well as cooling and quantum state manipulation techniques for diatomic molecules with the goal of testing the Standard Model of particle physics and searching for new physics with tabletop experiments. Professor Zelevinsky graduated from MIT in 1999 and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2004. Subsequently, she worked as a post doctoral research associate at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) on atomic lattice clocks.  She joined Columbia University in 2008 to start Columbia’s first research program in modern atomic, molecular, and optical physics. Professor Zelevinsky became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2018 and received the Francis M. Pipkin Award in 2019.

Research

Zelevinsky laboratory uses laser light to create ultracold diatomic molecules of strontium. These molecules measure important properties of molecular quantum physics and chemistry and more fundamentally, provide an ensemble of molecular clocks where the vibrations determine the 'ticking' rate. Zelevinsky also explores ways to experimentally cool molecules in order to manipulate and study them using a combination of buffer gas cooling and laser cooling with the goal of creating a magneto-optical trap. Recently, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Astrophysics at Columbia University, Zelevinsky built an apparatus used in dark matter searches.