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Alicia Kollár

Co-PI, Co-Associate Director of Research

University of Maryland

RQS Executive CouncilRQS Senior Investigator
Alicia Kollár portrait

Contact Information

akollar@umd.edu
Office:

PSC 2112 (Office)
University of Maryland
Atlantic Building 2207
College Park, MD 20742

Office Phone:
(301) 405-4058
Lab:
PSC B0156

Additional Information

CV:
Alicia%20Kollar_CV_2022_Aug.pdf

Bio

Alicia Kollár is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland. She is also a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute. Kollár leads a research group that focuses on using novel coplanar waveguide lattice techniques and graph theory to design and realize microwave photonic crystals with unusual structures such as gapped flat bands and spatial curvature. They plan to combine these structures with multimode/waveguide circuit QED to engineer quantum simulators of lattice and spin models. She received her doctorate in applied physics from Stanford University in 2016.

Recent Publications

Research Group

Affiliated Research Centers

Recent News

  • Martin Ritter speaking to a Congressional representative

    Alicia Kollár and Graduate Student Martin Ritter Represent RQS at Congressional Showcase

    May 31, 2024

    The showcase highlighted RQS' contributions to the vast scope of today’s growing quantum ecosystem through demonstrations of foundational scientific research, cutting-edge technology, and educational programs.

  • Alicia Kollár wearing glasses and a blue and white plaid shirt in front of red and clear windows.

    RQS Co-PI Kollár Bridges Abstract Math and Realities of the Lab

    March 30, 2022

    The research of RQS Co-PI Alicia Kollár, who is also a Chesapeake Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, embodies the give and take between physics and mathematics. In her lab, she brings abstract theories to life and in turn collaborates on new theorems. She has forged a research program of manipulating light on a chip, coaxing the light into behaving as though it lives on the surface of a sphere, or a mathematical abstraction known as a hyperbolic surface. She also collaborates with mathematicians, furthering both the understanding of what these chips can do and their underlying mathematics. A direct collaboration with pure mathematicians is uncommon for a physicist, particularly an experimentalist. But Kollár is no stranger to mathematics.

  • Enhancing Simulations of Curved Spaces with Qubits

    January 18, 2022

    One of the mind-bending ideas that physicists and mathematicians have come up with is that space itself—not just objects in space—can be curved. When space curves (as happens dramatically near a black hole), sizes and directions defy normal intuition. Understanding curved spaces is important to expanding our knowledge of the universe, but it is fiendishly difficult to study curved spaces in a lab setting (even using simulations).