CQN Researcher Wins MacArthur Fellowship
In October 2022 Danna Freedman, the F.G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was named a recipient of a 2022 MacArthur Fellowship. Dr. Freedman is a principal investigator in the NSF-funded Center for Quantum Networks (CQN), an Engineering Research Center (ERC) headquartered at the University of Arizona with MIT as a core partner.
Often referred to as “genius grants,” MacArthur fellowships come with a five-year, $800,000 prize, which recipients are free to use as they see fit. Freedman, who found out about the award a month before it was publicly announced, said she was “completely in shock” after hearing that she had been chosen for the fellowship.
Freedman’s research focuses on using inorganic chemistry to create new molecules for quantum information science. Before coming to MIT in 2021, she was a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University.
Freedman designs molecules that can function as quantum units, or qubits. Applications for these kinds of molecules include quantum sensing and communication. Quantum sensors consist of systems in which some particles are in such a delicately balanced state that they are affected by miniscule variations in their environments. This allows them to detect tiny changes in electric and magnetic fields, as well physical properties of nanometer-scale systems.
To read more about Dr. Freedman’s work and the MacArthur award, go to: https://news.mit.edu/2022/danna-freedman-macarthur-fellowship-1012
