SPINLAB @ MSU

TOWARDS ELECTRIC FIELD AND ATOM NUMBER UPGRADES FOR A HIGHER SENSITIVITY SEARCH FOR THE ATOMIC ELECTRIC DIPOLE MOMENT OF RADIUM-225

My Introduction To Gordon’s PhD Dissertation Defense Presentation

My name is Jaideep and welcome to this joyous occasion!

It is an honor and a delight to introduce our combatants today.

Gordon Arrowsmith-Kron will be defending his Ph.D dissertation research and his adversaries are:

Prof. Tyler Cocker
Prof. Yue Hao
Prof. Heiko Hergert
Dr. Kei Minamisono

Gordon joined the graduate program here at MSU in the Fall of 2018.

He came very highly recommended by a theorist at Stony Brook, but I decided not to hold that against Gordon so I very begrudgingly gave him a chance to play with lasers instead.

And I’m so lucky that I did!

Gordon has become a quintessential laser jock and built up an entire experiment completely from scratch and got it working.

There are many things I loved about having Gordon in the group over the last 7 years, but I’ll limit my comments to just two:

First, every time I’ve asked Gordon to do a new thing, Gordon viewed the request as an opportunity for growth and he dived in with enthusiasm and curiosity despite the inherent anxiety that naturally accompanies the uncertain and ambiguous perspective of a beginner.

Another thing I that love about Gordon is that when he thinks that he has figured out a tricky and complicated problem, he has a desperate and uncontrollable urge to try it out right away.

When Gordon first joined the group and I asked him to do a new thing, I saw fear in his eyes. Now when I make such a request, all I see is eager rage.

Gordon has become an unstoppable force and it is thing of beauty to witness the intensity and single-mindedness that Gordon brings to the murder of a very tough problem.

It has been a joy and privilege to have played a small part in Gordon’s transformation into a full-fledged professional scientist.

Just last week, Gordon’s impactful contributions to the long-running Ra EDM experiment was recognized by the Physics department with the Sherwood K. Haynes Award – which is awarded to one or more outstanding Ph. D. student receiving the degree within the last fiscal year.

Previous winners of this award include former FRIB Chief Scientist Brad Sherrill.

This award is named after the late Prof. Haynes, who was a student of Robert Millikan at Caltech and later former Professor and Chair of the MSU Physics Department, beginning in 1958 until 1970, and President of the AAPT, 1974-75.

Gordon – the arena is now all yours!